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Impressionism Impressionism began in the 19 century where it became popular in the 1870s and into the early 1880s. The middle class were particularly interested in impressionists’ work, as it was they who the impressionists depicted. They captured their lives doing everyday things seemingly unaware of the artist capturing them. As most work consisted of moving objects, the artist had to capture it. Photography, which was becoming increasingly popular was used by many artists, including Degas. He took photographs of models for his Ballet paintings, posing in such ways that would be impossible to hold for long periods of time. But as photography was a new practise they found that the long exposure time of photographs taken outside, meant that often images caught in motion would be blurred. You often see impressionist pictures consisting of water. This is because a lot of artists were fascinated by it. The light bounced off the water and with the ripple effects the image became unfocused and sketchy. There impressionist paintings are usually pale and mellow. This is because black was a banned colour in this movement. I t is described as zero light. Pure colour was used in all paintings described as a rainbow pa