British Impressionism

In the late nineteenth century contact with French Impressionist ideas meant that British artists' discontent with academic Victorian art became transmuted into a new concept of the role of art and the artist.

In a new awareness of painting, disparate artists merged and refined their ideas on colour, light and form into an Impressionist style that is distinctly British, evoking what has since become known as the "long Edwardian summer". Artists such as George Clausen and Dame Larva Knight depicted an enormous variety of urban and rural scenes, from fashionable tennis parties, music-hall entertainers and laundry shops, to goose girls, boat-builders, turnip harvesters and picnickers.

This comprehensive book examines the significance and contribution to the Impressionist movement of the British artists, who for a long time were overshadowed by their French counterparts. The author surveys the developments, debates and personalities of the artists and the ferment and challenge of their ideas and achievements, including those who were among the foremost British artists of the early twentieth century.

A handsome, readable and very useful account of some complex episodes in Francophile British art, beautifully and pertinently illustrated.