Impressionism, an art movement pioneered by a handful of avant-garde painters based in Paris in the

1870s, gave academic oil painting a vivacity and spontaneity it had previously lacked, and remains to

this day the single most popular style of art for gallery-goers and amateur painters alike. This

elegantly-written book, by a professional artist and scholar, is both an instructional guide to

incorporating Impressionist techniques into your own painting, and an illuminating investigation into

how those first Impressionists actually painted their pictures. As such, it will fascinate both the painter

and the art historian. This new book provides detailed advice on paints, brushes and canvas, as used by

the original Impressionists and still widely available today. It discusses the process of making an

Impressionist painting from initial vision to final completion and analyses the role of composition, light

and tone, colour and paint handling. Finally, it gives an overview of the subject matter most closely associated

with the Impressionists.