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A movement in French painting, associated particularly with Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, Degas, and Renoir, characterized by the use of a bright palette, broken brushwork, and an emphasis on depictions of contemporary life and landscape. The term was originally coined as a form of satire by the critic Louis Leroy reviewing the first exhibition of the Société Anonyme des artistes, peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs…which opened on 15 April 1874, at the Parisian studio of the photographer Nadar on the boulevard des Capucines, and is nowadays referred to as the first Impressionist exhibition.

Text source: The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Art Terms (2nd Edition) by Michael Clarke

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