Which art movement includes Monet, Renoir, and Degas?

Monet, Renoir, and Degas are associated with the Impressionist art movement.

Impressionism emerged in France during the 1860s and 1870s as artists challenged the conventions of academic painting. Impressionists often worked outdoors, used visible brushstrokes, and explored changing effects of natural light, colour, weather, and modern urban life. Their paintings could appear sketch-like compared with the polished historical scenes favoured by official institutions.

Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Edgar Degas were all central figures, although they did not paint in exactly the same way. Monet became especially known for landscapes and repeated studies of subjects under different light. Renoir frequently depicted people and social leisure, while Degas focused on dancers, theatres, racecourses, and carefully observed movement.

The movement’s name came from Monet’s 1872 painting Impression, Sunrise, shown in the first independent Impressionist exhibition in Paris in 1874. A common mistake is treating every bright or loose painting as Impressionist; the label refers to a particular historical movement, not simply a visual effect. Expressionism, Surrealism, and Cubism developed later or pursued different aims.