Technical Innovations and Artistic Philosophy

During these years, Monet and his colleagues were developing the technical innovations that would define Impressionism. The availability of new synthetic pigments—chrome yellow, cadmium orange, cobalt blue—expanded their palettes, while the recent invention of collapsible tin tubes allowed them to work more easily outdoors. These material advances coincided with new ideas about the nature of perception itself, influenced by scientific studies of color and light by Michel Eugène Chevreul and others.

Monet's approach became increasingly radical. Rather than mixing colors on his palette to achieve the exact hue he wanted, he began placing small touches of pure color side by side, allowing them to blend in the viewer's eye. This technique, which would later be called "broken color," created a sense of vibration and luminosity impossible to achieve with traditional methods. He abandoned the use of black for shadows, instead creating darks through combinations of deep blues, purples, and greens, making even the shadows luminous.

The subject matter evolved as well. While the Barbizon painters had focused on rural landscapes and peasant life, the Impressionists turned their attention to modern urban and suburban scenes—the new railway stations, the cafés and theaters, the weekend leisure activities of the growing middle class. When they did paint traditional subjects like landscapes or still lifes, they approached them with a fresh eye, emphasizing transient effects over permanent forms.