The sunny landscapes and shimmering portraits of the 19th century impressionists adorn candy boxes and designer T-shirts. But as critic Waldemar Januszczak reveals in this four-part documentary, the artistic movement didn't always enjoy the widespread popularity it has today. In their time, impressionists were artistic rebels who threw out the rules set by Paris's prestigious art salons. As Januszczak visits the studios, hot spots, and rustic vistas that inspired the artists, he sheds light on a motley collection of personalities, from Jean-Frederic Bazille, a gifted, nearly seven-foot-tall painter who helped bankroll his fellow artists, to Claude Monet, whose obsession with water compelled him to build a floating studio. When they banded together for eight legendary exhibitions between 1874 and 1886, they forever expanded the boundaries of art.
As Paris underwent massive social and architectural shifts, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Jean-Frederic Bazille, and Camille Pisarro broke artistic ground with unconventional portraits of pleasure spots and unlikely landscapes.
Impressionists trekked where no artists had gone before. Monet risked drowning to paint the coast of Etretat, Renoir deftly navigated the social currents of the Moulin de la Galette, and Paul Cezanne inverted landscape perspective.
The "ballet rats" inhabiting Edgar Degas's luminous pastels pulsed with vitality, while Gustav Caillebotte's Floor Scrapers (1875) portrayed laborers for the first time. Female artists also emerged: Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassat, an American.
Seurat married optical science with artistic inspiration in 1884's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, whose countless dots combine colors in innovative ways. Van Gogh studied Japanese prints, and Monet completed Water Lilies.
