Odilon Redon, Ophelia Among the Flowers (detail)

Six Impressionists you should know

Published on 19 January 2024

Move over, Monet! Here are six Impressionists we think deserve the spotlight.

Eugène Boudin

Eugène Boudin’s fascination with painting the sea and sky can be traced back to his childhood when he worked as a cabin boy aboard his father's steamship. A pioneer of painting en plein air, he believed one brushstroke done outdoors was of more value than two days spent in the studio.

Boudin heavily influenced Claude Monet, who as a teenager worked alongside Boudin. Fellow French painter Camille Corot called him the “King of the Skies".

Mary Cassatt

Mary Cassatt was initially invited to exhibit with the Impressionists in 1877 by Degas, with whom she proceeded to have a lifelong friendship. Cassatt went on to exhibit in half of the Impressionist exhibitions, with one critic saying of a later exhibition "M. Degas and Mlle. Cassatt are, nevertheless, the only artists who distinguish themselves... and who offer some attraction and some excuse in the pretentious show of window dressing and infantile daubing"

She was a master of pastels and is best known for her intimate and tender portrayals of mothers and children.

Federico Zandomeneghi

Italian artist Federico Zandomeneghi, nicknamed Le Venétian, is best known for his use of vivid colour in his paintings of domestic life. He drew inspiration from other Impressionist figures like Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, particularly admiring their paintings of women in interiors. Before becoming established, Zandomeneghi often found work illustrating fashion magazines.

Hippolyte Petitjean

After befriending Georges Seurat, the founder of Pointillism, Hippolyte Petitjean became so fond of the technique that he sold two of his own Seurat paintings to fund a large studio in Paris so he could dedicate himself to painting. Petitjean made preparatory sketches en plein air but usually painted the final pictures in the studio due to their fine details.

Oil and coloured chalks with gold on paper. 30.1 x 24.7 cm

British Museum. Photo: © The Trustees of the British Museum

Odilon Redon

Unlike his contemporaries, Odilon Redon turned away from landscapes and domestic scenes in favour of fantastical, literary and religious subjects, particularly Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity. He wanted to place "the logic of the visible at the service of the invisible". Best known for his dreamlike paintings inspired by Japanese art, Redon paved the way for the Surrealist movement.

Armand Guillaumin

After winning the lottery in 1891, Armand Guillaumin completely devoted himself to painting and travelling. He studied with Camille Pissarro and later became friends with Vincent van Gogh, who praised Guillaumin’s work in over 30 letters. His early work is characterised by strong, vivid colours which eventually lost their intensity as he matured, resulting in more mellow greens and purples, like this sketch here.