Impressionism, French Impressionnisme, a major movement, first in painting and later in music, that developed in France during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A school of late 19th century French painters who pictured appearances by strokes of unmixed colors to give the impression of reflected light. Impressionist painting comprises the work produced between about 1867 and 1886 by a group of artists who shared a set of related approaches and techniques. The name of the movement is derived from the title of a Claude Monet work: “Impression, Sunrise” (Impression, soleil levant).