In art historical terms, a movement in the first half of the nineteenth century in Europe and North America that rebelled against the academy and the classical styles of the day. Identified with artists such as Francisco Goya, Théodore Géricault, Eugène Delacroix, and J. M. W. Turner, romanticism valued freedom from authority, emotional inspiration, poetic imagination, and individualistic genius.
naturalism
The mid-nineteenth-century style or school of art, anticipated in the painting of John Constable, that emphasizes truth to nature's actual appearances and a democratic range of subject matter, including scenes of everyday life and commonplace landscape views. Painting outdoors so as to capture with honesty the freshness and light of everyday scenes, Charles-François Daubigny and young future impressionists such as Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir worked within the naturalist approach.
picturesque
In general terms, seeing and representing nature as if it were a pleasing picture; more specifically, the aesthetic movement in England and North America in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that sought to create landscape art and design characterized by charming subjects, playful variety, and pleasing asymmetrical arrangements.
avant-garde
French for "advanced guard," a term applied to independent artists or groups of artists who are on the cutting edge of the art and culture of their society. The avant-garde arose in mid-nineteenth-century France with Gustave Courbet, Edouard Manet, and the impressionists in opposition to traditional mainstream art and culture. It continues to the present day around the world wherever progressive, independent-minded artists challenge the status quo.
realism
In general terms, any artistic style concerned with an accurate portrayal of the external world; more specifically, a style of painting popularized in mid-nineteenth-century France by Gustave Courbet. Realist painters strive for accurate portrayal of a democratic range of contemporary subjects, including lowly stonebreakers and peasants, in accordance with each artist's point of view.
impressionism
Rising to prominence in France in the 1870s, a movement of artists, such as Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Berthe Morisot, who painted general, colorful impressions of everyday scenes with the intent of capturing a fleeting moment in time. Employing divided brushstrokes, fuzzy outlines, and brilliant color, the impressionists used a mix of naturalism and abstraction, and were particularly sensitive to the changing effects of light and atmosphere on their subjects.
postimpressionism
The movement in art in the last two decades of the nineteenth century that sought to move beyond naturalistic impressionism to an art of greater subjective and aesthetic concerns. Among these concerns were the expression of inner emotion, the evocation of symbolist feeling and thought, and formalist abstraction. Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, and Paul Cézanne are considered three pioneers of postimpressionism.
symbolism
An antinaturalist movement in poetry and the visual arts in the last two decades of the nineteenth century that sought to portray spiritual realities. In painting, artists such as Paul Gauguin pursued a symbolist aesthetic in using line, color, and shape abstractly to suggest or evoke subjective thoughts and feeling states.
