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Impressionism

Painters in 1870s Paris who worked quickly, often outdoors, to catch light as it changed.

53 works · hang 9554 ·

The rooms are imagined; every work on their walls is real.

Walk this roomRehang this room

First room, north wall

  1. Sheet of Studies and Sketches, by Edgar Degas, 1858
    Sheet of Studies and SketchesEdgar Degas, 1858Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
  2. Two groups of people face off in front of a hilly landscape in this loosely painted, vertical scene. On our left, a pale young man in a white tunic looks with eyes wide and lips parted at a group of three people on our right. The young man's right hand, on our left, is raised to stroke the head of a reddish-brown horse at his right shoulder. He stands with feet planted wide, knees bent, and he curls his left hand into a fist. Behind him, a man holds up a fluttering, light blue cape. A mottled red wall forms a backdrop to this scene on our left. The tight group gathered under a tree on our right stares back at the young man. The trio is made up of a balding, older man, a light-skinned boy also wearing a white tunic, and, closest to us, a brown-skinned woman wearing a marigold-orange shirt and a maroon-red skirt. Behind this group, a pair of pale raised arms suggests a fourth person, but the head is missing or has been painted over. The ground under the people is saffron orange. In the center of the picture, beyond the people, a group of horses stands near a green bank by a river, its surface reflecting white. The far bank is lined with white buildings. Tan and olive-green slopes rise from the opposite riverbank under a pale blue sky with cream-white clouds sweeping along the top edge of the composition. The artist signed his name in red paint in the lower right corner: “Degas.”
    Alexander and BucephalusEdgar Degas, 1861/1862Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
  3. A wide creek winds between a tree-lined bank to our left and hazy mountains to our right in this horizontal landscape painting. The riverbank curves deeply like a backward capital letter B. Marshy grasses grow in tufts, and palm and other trees grow in a grove to our left. One brown-skinned person wearing only a white cloth around the hips carries a long stick near the shoreline. Dabs of brown and muted dark pink suggest other people farther along the riverside. Tree-covered boulders jut into the creek from our right. A band of rocky, mountains are smoky mauve-pink across the rightmost two-thirds of the horizon, which comes a third of the way up the composition. The butter-yellow sun is low on the horizon to our right, peeking through the grove of palm trees. The light pours across the placid surface of the creek, creating a soft yellow streak next to the reflection of the mountain ridge. A few heather-pink clouds drift across the pale turquoise sky. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower left corner, “C. Pizarro. 1856. Paris.”
    A Creek in St. Thomas (Virgin Islands)Camille Pissarro, 1856Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
  4. Roses in a Vase, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, c. 1890
    Roses in a VasePierre-Auguste Renoir, c. 1890Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art

First room, south wall

  1. Estérel Village, by Edgar Degas, c. 1890
    Estérel VillageEdgar Degas, c. 1890Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
  2. A Woman Seated at a Bench on the Avenue du Bois, by Berthe Morisot, 1885
    A Woman Seated at a Bench on the Avenue du BoisBerthe Morisot, 1885Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
  3. We look up at the exterior of a church that soars the height of this vertical painting. The church is painted with visible dabs and strokes of azure blue, peach, lavender purple, and camel brown to create a blurred look, as if seeing a reflection in the rippling surface of a puddle. The church façade is angled to our left, away from us. The main door and its surround takes up the center of the composition, where a rectangular door is set within nested, pointed arches that lead up to a narrow, tall, triangular gable. The point of that gable overlaps the round, dark rose window, which is the same width as the portal surround below. Spires flank the central section and rise precipitously off the top edge of the painting. The sky above is painted with daubs of white and pale blue. The artist signed and dated the lower left, “Claude Monet 94.”
    Rouen Cathedral, West FaçadeClaude Monet, 1894Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

Second room, south wall

  1. Life-size painting of an urban scene in Paris. A man in a top hat holding an umbrella and a woman in a long fashionable dark dress walk arm in arm toward the viewer as other city dwellers with umbrellas walk in various directions across cobblestone roads and sidewalks.
    Paris Street; Rainy DayGustave Caillebotte, 1877Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
  2. Water Lilies (Agapanthus), by Claude Monet, c. 1915–26
    Water Lilies (Agapanthus)Claude Monet, c. 1915–26Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art

Second room, north wall

  1. Impressionist painting of woman wearing green dress trying on hats.
    The Millinery ShopEdgar Degas, 1879-86Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
  2. Dancers, by Edgar Degas, c. 1896
    DancersEdgar Degas, c. 1896Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
  3. Painted portrait dominated by loose, large brushstrokes of a woman, seen from the back, wearing a gauzy white off-the-shoulder dress and black choker, blond hair swept up, examining herself in a mirror at left. The background is a feathered swirl suggesting floral pattern in cool pale tones of gray, purple, pink, and blue.
    Woman at Her ToiletteBerthe Morisot, 1875–80Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago

Third room, north wall

  1. Romaine Lacaux, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1864
    Romaine LacauxPierre-Auguste Renoir, 1864Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
  2. Loosely painted image of an open-air train station. On the right, a parked train gives off an enormous plumb of white smoke, making the scene look as though it were full of clouds. A huddled mass of barely discernible people crowd around the train on both sides of the tracks. Blue, green, and gray tones dominate.
    Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-LazareClaude Monet, 1877Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago

Third room, south wall

  1. Painting of a pond seen up close spotted with thickly painted pink and white water lilies and a shadow across the top third of the picture.
    Water LiliesClaude Monet, 1906Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
  2. A work made of oil on canvas.
    VétheuilClaude Monet, 1901Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago