Inventing Impressionism

Inventing Impressionism

When the artists who became known as the Impressionists first presented their work in 1874, contemporaries perceived their innovative working methods and unconventional subject matter as a radical departure from accepted ways of art-making. This selection of paintings and drawings by artists including Paul Cézanne, Camille Pissarro, Berthe Morisot, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Mary Cassatt highlights the Impressionists’ creative use of process and materials to represent contemporary subjects in a way that had never been done before. Focusing on the RISD Museum’s depth in this area, the installation features works on paper that are rarely on view—including Edgar Degas’s monumental pastel, Six Friends at Dieppe—and celebrates a recent gift to the Museum, Claude Monet’s A Walk in the Meadows at Argenteuil.