ImpressionismImpressionism is not a movement; it is a philosophy of life. Max Libermann If we must characterize them with one explanatory word, we would have to coin a new term: Impressionism. They are impresionists in that they render not the landscape but the sensation evoked by the landscape.At first they were called ``the painters of open air," indicating so well their horror of obscurity. They were then given a generous name, ``Impressionists," . . . But there is a title which describe them much better, that is, the Intransigents. . . . They have a hatred for classical traditions and an ambition to reform the law of drawing and color.
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| Since my eyesight has diminished further, my twilight has become more and more lonely and more and more somber. Only the taste for art and the desire to succeed keep me going.
Edgar Degas |  |  The only merit I have is to have painted directly from nature with the aim of conveying my impression in front of the most fugitive effects. Claude Monet |
 . . . You must not take it amiss if I write you again — it is only to tell you that painting is such a joy to me. Vincent van Gogh |  If one were to tell the students of the Beaux-Arts for the Rome competition, "The painting you are to do will represent: 'Where do we come, what are we, were are we going?' " — what should they do? I have finished a philosophical piece of work on this theme comparable to the Gospel: I think it is good. |
 My dear friend, Thanks, if I had a few supporters like you, I wouldn't give a f... about the jury. Édouard Manet |  The simplest subjects are the immortal ones. Pierre-August Renoir |
 I painted in this manner only in order to break new ground, to find a style of my own. Georges Seurat |
 There is only nature, and the eye is trained through contact with her. It becomes concentric through looking and working. An apple, a ball, a head, there is a culminating point; and this point is always — in spite of tremendous effect; light and shade, color sensations — the closest to your eye; the edges of the objects flee towars a center on our horizon. With a small temperament one can be very much of a painter. One can do good things without being very much of a harmonist or a colorist. Paul Cézanne | 
Look for the kind of nature that suits your temperament. The motif should be observed more for shape and color than for drawing. . . . Do not define too closely the outline of things; it is the brush-stroke of the right value and color which should produce the drawing. Don't work bit by bit, but paint everything at once by placing tones everywhere. . . . Don't proceed according to rules and principles, but paint what you observe and feel. Camille Pissarro |