impressionism

n. artistic movement originating in the late 19th century which attempted to reproduce the effect of light on objects using short quick brush strokes

Impressionism was a 19th century art movement that began as a loose association of Paris-based artists, who began exhibiting their art publicly in the 1860s. The name of the movement is derived from the title of a Claude Monet work, Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant), which provoked the critic Louis Leroy to coin the term in a satiric review published in Le Charivari.
See more at Wikipedia.org...

Noun
1. a school of late 19th century French painters who pictured appearances by strokes of unmixed colors to give the impression of reflected light
(hypernym) artistic movement, art movement

(n.)
The theory or method of suggesting an effect or impression without elaboration of the details; -- a disignation of a recent fashion in painting and etching.
  

1860 - 1880 France - artist movement against the academic art style - based on realism , favoring subjective impressions of light and shadow - compare pleinarisme 

search artarchiv.com