California Tonalism
Encyclopedia
California Tonalism was art movement that existed in California
from circa 1890 to 1920. Tonalist are usually intimate works, painted with a limited palette. Tonalist
paintings are softly expressive, suggestive rather than detailed, often depicting the landscape
at twilight or evening, when there is an absence of contrast. Tonalist paintings could also be figurative, but in them, the figure was usually out of doors or in an interior in a low-key setting with little detail.
Tonalism had its origins in the works of the French Barbizon school
and in the works of American painters who were influenced by them. California Tonalism was born when the emphasis in California landscape painting passed from the grand landscapes of works like those of Thomas Hill
and William Keith
's early career, to more intimate views of a domesticated landscape. At the same time, the parallel Pictorialist Photography movement was born with gauzy landscapes and figurative photographs that bore a strong resemblance to Tonalist Paintings.
, hundreds of American artists went to Europe to study. During this era, the 1870s and 1880s, the French Barbizon school
was at the height of its popularity in France and French Impressionism was just beginning to emerge. In the annual Salons, the American painters were exposed to the soft, simple, muted Barbizon landscapes of forests and ponds painted by artists like Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
(1796–1875), Rosseau and Diaz de la Pena. They also saw the roughly painted peasant scenes by Jean-François Millet
, who lived in the tiny village of Barbizon, south of Paris. Some of the Americans became enthusiastic acolytes of the French movement and actually moved to the Village of Barbizon. The Bostonian William Morris Hunt
(1824–1879) studied under Millet for several years after the conclusion of his Parisian studies. Hunt was responsible for popularizing the works of the French painters with American patrons of the Gilded Age
and by the 1880s, their works were highly sought after and extremely valuable, from New York and Boston to San Francisco. Hunt's student John La Farge (1835–1910) also carried the Barbizon torch and developed his own, expressive versions of the French works. Other painters who were similarly influenced were Alexander Wyant (1836–1892), Henry Ward Ranger
(1858–1916), Dwight William Tryon
(1849–1925) and Charles Warren Eaton
(1857–1937). The established landscape painter George Inness
, who began his career when the Hudson River School
was at its zenith, began to simplify his works and adopt what is know known as the Tonalist style, but then it could be referred to as Quietism. As American artists who had traveled or studied abroad brought the Barbizon style back with them, even homegrown talents were influenced. By the 1890s, dozens of Eastern American painters, in the American Barbizon school
, were painting muted, intimate landscapes with a narrow range of colors and some of them were even exhibiting works of French peasant
s.
and Thomas Hill
were emerging in Northern California
. Their development coincided with the popularity of the French Barbizon School with collectors and the growth of an American school of painters who had been influenced by the French movement. So, it seems natural that they turned to Tonalism to render and express their vision of the Northern California landscape, especially when the climate was often wet and misty.
's intense sunlight, a number of the artists who worked in and around Los Angeles in the last decade of the 19th century and the first few years of the 20th century at least began their careers as Tonalists. At that time, Barbizon paintings were extremely popular among collectors and many of the most successful American painters worked in Barbizon a influential style. The wooded glades that artists in France and Northern California favored were not abundant in Southern California, so some of the painters such as Elmer Wachtel, William Lees Judson, and Charles Ward painted the wooded arroyos in the Barbizon style. When Granville Redmond
returned to California from Europe, he settled in Southern California, rather than farther north where he had grown up. The paintings that he painted in Southern California were not the poppy filled landscapes that most viewers are familiar with today, but very atmospheric landscapes or even scenes of sheep that show the influence of the Barbizon School. It was only many years later that he would turn to poppy fields rendered in an almost pointillist technique. John Bond Francisco, painter and symphony violinist, also began is career with Tonalist landscapes.
developed in parallel with Tonalist painting. In fact, one of the most famous figures in the Eastern Pictorialst movement was Edward Steichen
, who was both an artist and a photographer. Two of the California Pictorialist photographers Victor Matson
(1895–1972) and Otis Williams (1888–1962), both Southern Californians, were also painters. Matson was active with the 'Camera Pictorialists of Los Angeles' for several decades and Williams had a number of photographic exhibits in Los Angeles in the 1920s. The camera pictorialist movement lasted for many years in California and so it consisted of photographers who worked in the Tonalist tradition as well as those who favored greater contrast and a more precise focus. Anne Brigman
(1869–1950) was a pioneering Northern California photographer who was known for her Tonalist photographs of nude figures in dramatic landscape settings. She began taking photographs about 1901 and was soon considered one of the leaders of the Pictorialist movement in the San Francisco Bay area. She corresponded with Alfred Stieglitz
and her work was included in his legendary journal Camera Work
and she was listed as a member of the Photo-Secession
.
published Pictoralism in California, Photographs 1900–1940 in 1994. The Santa Barbara Museum of Art
hosted both Lost and Found: Japanese American Photographs from the Dennis Reed Collection and Art Lost and Found: California Pictorialist Photographs from the Dennis Reed Collection in 2006.
which he used to describe paintings done in the Tonalist manner with simplified compositions, a limited but which utilized the brighter, more chromatic palette of Impressionism. He titled an exhibition he curated "Tonal Impressionism." This was held at the Los Angeles Art Association Gallery at the Los Angeles Central Library in June 1937. The artists he included were Charles Bensco, Frank Tolles Chamberlin
, Alson Clark, Clyde Forsyth, Ralph Holmes, Thodore Lukits, J. Mason Reeves, and Seymour Thomas. Kurtzworth's concept was that these painters painted subjects that the Tonalists would have favored, but by painting with a palette without the earth tones many of the earlier painters used, the result became quite different. The large body of work the California artist Theodore Lukits
did in the pastel medium or the hundreds of moonlit scenes painted by the Western painter Frank Tenney Johnson
, may best exemplify this approach. These artists both painted nocturnes, but they are dominated by a blue palette, clearly derived from the colored shadows of Impressionism.
, which covered Southern California Tonalism.
Perhaps the most important exhibition on California Tonalism was "Twilight and Reverie: California Tonalist Painting, 1890–1930" which was curated by Harvey Jones for the Oakland Museum of California
in 1995. While a number of California painters had been recognized as Tonalists and included in different exhibitions, this show was limited to works done in and of California. Works by George Inness
, William Keith
, Maurice Del Mue Sidney Yard, Granville Redmond
, Charles Rollo Peters, Eugen Neuhaus, Giuseppe Cadenasso, Will Sparks, Arthur Mathews
and Lucia Matthews, Arthur Atkins
, and Gottardo Piazonni were included.
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
from circa 1890 to 1920. Tonalist are usually intimate works, painted with a limited palette. Tonalist
Tonalism
Tonalism was an artistic style that emerged in the 1880s when American artists began to paint landscape forms with an overall tone of colored atmosphere or mist. Between 1880 and 1915, dark, neutral hues such as gray, brown or blue, often dominated compositions by artists associated with the style...
paintings are softly expressive, suggestive rather than detailed, often depicting the landscape
Landscape
Landscape comprises the visible features of an area of land, including the physical elements of landforms such as mountains, hills, water bodies such as rivers, lakes, ponds and the sea, living elements of land cover including indigenous vegetation, human elements including different forms of...
at twilight or evening, when there is an absence of contrast. Tonalist paintings could also be figurative, but in them, the figure was usually out of doors or in an interior in a low-key setting with little detail.
Tonalism had its origins in the works of the French Barbizon school
Barbizon school
The Barbizon school of painters were part of a movement towards realism in art, which arose in the context of the dominant Romantic Movement of the time. The Barbizon school was active roughly from 1830 through 1870...
and in the works of American painters who were influenced by them. California Tonalism was born when the emphasis in California landscape painting passed from the grand landscapes of works like those of Thomas Hill
Thomas Hill (painter)
Thomas Hill was an American artist of the 19th century. He produced many fine paintings of the California landscape, in particular of the Yosemite Valley, as well as the White Mountains of New Hampshire.-Biography:...
and William Keith
William Keith (artist)
William Keith was a Scottish-American painter famous for his California landscapes.-Early life:Keith was born in Oldmeldrum, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and emigrated to the United States in 1850. He lived in New York City, and became an apprentice wood engraver in 1856...
's early career, to more intimate views of a domesticated landscape. At the same time, the parallel Pictorialist Photography movement was born with gauzy landscapes and figurative photographs that bore a strong resemblance to Tonalist Paintings.
The Barbizon Influence
In the years after the American Civil WarAmerican Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, hundreds of American artists went to Europe to study. During this era, the 1870s and 1880s, the French Barbizon school
Barbizon school
The Barbizon school of painters were part of a movement towards realism in art, which arose in the context of the dominant Romantic Movement of the time. The Barbizon school was active roughly from 1830 through 1870...
was at the height of its popularity in France and French Impressionism was just beginning to emerge. In the annual Salons, the American painters were exposed to the soft, simple, muted Barbizon landscapes of forests and ponds painted by artists like Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot was a French landscape painter and printmaker in etching. Corot was the leading painter of the Barbizon school of France in the mid-nineteenth century...
(1796–1875), Rosseau and Diaz de la Pena. They also saw the roughly painted peasant scenes by Jean-François Millet
Jean-François Millet
Jean-François Millet was a French painter and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France...
, who lived in the tiny village of Barbizon, south of Paris. Some of the Americans became enthusiastic acolytes of the French movement and actually moved to the Village of Barbizon. The Bostonian William Morris Hunt
William Morris Hunt
William Morris Hunt , American painter, was born at Brattleboro, Vermont to Jane Maria Hunt and Hon. Jonathan Hunt, who raised one of the preeminent families in American art...
(1824–1879) studied under Millet for several years after the conclusion of his Parisian studies. Hunt was responsible for popularizing the works of the French painters with American patrons of the Gilded Age
Gilded Age
In United States history, the Gilded Age refers to the era of rapid economic and population growth in the United States during the post–Civil War and post-Reconstruction eras of the late 19th century. The term "Gilded Age" was coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their book The Gilded...
and by the 1880s, their works were highly sought after and extremely valuable, from New York and Boston to San Francisco. Hunt's student John La Farge (1835–1910) also carried the Barbizon torch and developed his own, expressive versions of the French works. Other painters who were similarly influenced were Alexander Wyant (1836–1892), Henry Ward Ranger
Henry Ward Ranger
Henry Ward Ranger , American artist, was born in western New York State. He became a prominent landscape and marine painter, much of his work being done in the Netherlands, and showing the influence of the modern Dutch school. He became a National Academician , and a member of the American Water...
(1858–1916), Dwight William Tryon
Dwight William Tryon
Dwight William Tryon was an American landscape painter in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His work was influenced by James McNeill Whistler, and he is best-known for his landscapes and seascapes painted in a tonalist style.-Biography:Tryon was born in Hartford, Connecticut...
(1849–1925) and Charles Warren Eaton
Charles Warren Eaton
Charles Warren Eaton was an American artist best known for his tonalist landscapes. He earned the nickname "the pine tree painter" for his numerous depictions of Eastern White Pine trees....
(1857–1937). The established landscape painter George Inness
George Inness
George Inness was an American landscape painter; born in Newburgh, New York; died at Bridge of Allan in Scotland. His work was influenced, in turn, by that of the old masters, the Hudson River school, the Barbizon school, and, finally, by the theology of Emanuel Swedenborg, whose spiritualism...
, who began his career when the Hudson River School
Hudson River school
The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by romanticism...
was at its zenith, began to simplify his works and adopt what is know known as the Tonalist style, but then it could be referred to as Quietism. As American artists who had traveled or studied abroad brought the Barbizon style back with them, even homegrown talents were influenced. By the 1890s, dozens of Eastern American painters, in the American Barbizon school
American Barbizon school
The American Barbizon School was a group of painters and style partly influenced by the French Barbizon school. American Barbizon artists concentrated on painting rural landscapes often including peasants or farm animals....
, were painting muted, intimate landscapes with a narrow range of colors and some of them were even exhibiting works of French peasant
Peasant
A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...
s.
Whistler influence
The other major influence on the development of American Tonalism was the expatriate American painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Whistler was eccentric and unique and there were a number of different influences that were responsible for his artistic development. Because he lived and studied in Paris, he was familiar with the Barbizon School and knew a number of the French artists, but he was also a major exponent of Japonisme, the European and American movement influenced by Japanese art, especially their woodblock prints. Whistler was a major influence on a number of younger American artists with whom he came into contact with in Europe. He advocated close color harmonies and simplified compositions, devoid of what he considered extraneous detail.Tonalism in Northern California
At the same time the California landscape became domesticated and its cities and towns were becoming well-developed, a group of artists a generation younger than William KeithWilliam Keith (artist)
William Keith was a Scottish-American painter famous for his California landscapes.-Early life:Keith was born in Oldmeldrum, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and emigrated to the United States in 1850. He lived in New York City, and became an apprentice wood engraver in 1856...
and Thomas Hill
Thomas Hill (painter)
Thomas Hill was an American artist of the 19th century. He produced many fine paintings of the California landscape, in particular of the Yosemite Valley, as well as the White Mountains of New Hampshire.-Biography:...
were emerging in Northern California
Northern California
Northern California is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The San Francisco Bay Area , and Sacramento as well as its metropolitan area are the main population centers...
. Their development coincided with the popularity of the French Barbizon School with collectors and the growth of an American school of painters who had been influenced by the French movement. So, it seems natural that they turned to Tonalism to render and express their vision of the Northern California landscape, especially when the climate was often wet and misty.
Tonalism in Southern California
In spite of Southern CaliforniaSouthern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
's intense sunlight, a number of the artists who worked in and around Los Angeles in the last decade of the 19th century and the first few years of the 20th century at least began their careers as Tonalists. At that time, Barbizon paintings were extremely popular among collectors and many of the most successful American painters worked in Barbizon a influential style. The wooded glades that artists in France and Northern California favored were not abundant in Southern California, so some of the painters such as Elmer Wachtel, William Lees Judson, and Charles Ward painted the wooded arroyos in the Barbizon style. When Granville Redmond
Granville Redmond
Granville Redmond was an American landscape painter and exponent of Tonalism and California Impressionism.- Early years :...
returned to California from Europe, he settled in Southern California, rather than farther north where he had grown up. The paintings that he painted in Southern California were not the poppy filled landscapes that most viewers are familiar with today, but very atmospheric landscapes or even scenes of sheep that show the influence of the Barbizon School. It was only many years later that he would turn to poppy fields rendered in an almost pointillist technique. John Bond Francisco, painter and symphony violinist, also began is career with Tonalist landscapes.
California Pictorialist Photography
There was also a strong Camera Pictorialist movement in California and many of these photographers worked in a Tonalist manner, shooting and developing gauzy photographs of figures or landscapes or even figures in the landscape with a soft focus and absence of dramatic contrast. The aim of the early Pictorialists (a term that came into wide use about the turn of the 20th century) was for their photography to emulate painting and etching and Camera PictorialismPictorialism
Pictorialism is the name given to a photographic movement in vogue from around 1885 following the widespread introduction of the dry-plate process. It reached its height in the early years of the 20th century, and declined rapidly after 1914 after the widespread emergence of Modernism...
developed in parallel with Tonalist painting. In fact, one of the most famous figures in the Eastern Pictorialst movement was Edward Steichen
Edward Steichen
Edward J. Steichen was an American photographer, painter, and art gallery and museum curator. He was the most frequently featured photographer in Alfred Stieglitz' groundbreaking magazine Camera Work during its run from 1903 to 1917. Steichen also contributed the logo design and a custom typeface...
, who was both an artist and a photographer. Two of the California Pictorialist photographers Victor Matson
Victor Matson
Victor Stanley Matson was one of the California Plein-Air Painters and he was active from the 1920s until his death. He was an active organizer for a number of Southern California arts organizations and served as President of the historic California Art Club from 1961 to 1962...
(1895–1972) and Otis Williams (1888–1962), both Southern Californians, were also painters. Matson was active with the 'Camera Pictorialists of Los Angeles' for several decades and Williams had a number of photographic exhibits in Los Angeles in the 1920s. The camera pictorialist movement lasted for many years in California and so it consisted of photographers who worked in the Tonalist tradition as well as those who favored greater contrast and a more precise focus. Anne Brigman
Anne Brigman
Anne Wardrope Brigman was an American photographer and one of the original members of the Photo-Secession movement in America. Her most famous images were taken between 1900 and 1920, and depict nude women in primordial, naturalistic contexts.-Life:Brigman was born in the Nuuanu Valley above...
(1869–1950) was a pioneering Northern California photographer who was known for her Tonalist photographs of nude figures in dramatic landscape settings. She began taking photographs about 1901 and was soon considered one of the leaders of the Pictorialist movement in the San Francisco Bay area. She corresponded with Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an accepted art form...
and her work was included in his legendary journal Camera Work
Camera Work
Camera Work was a quarterly photographic journal published by Alfred Stieglitz from 1903 to 1917. It is known for its many high-quality photogravures by some of the most important photographers in the world and its editorial purpose to establish photography as a fine art...
and she was listed as a member of the Photo-Secession
Photo-Secession
The Photo-Secession was an early 20th century movement that promoted photography as a fine art in general and photographic pictorialism in particular. A group of photographers, led by Alfred Stieglitz and F...
.
California Pictorialist Photography exhibitions
There has been a revival of interest in Camera Pictorialism in California and a number of museum exhibitions have been mounted and books published. Getty Publications, an offshoot of the J. Paul Getty MuseumJ. Paul Getty Museum
The J. Paul Getty Museum, a program of the J. Paul Getty Trust, is an art museum. It has two locations, one at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, and one at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California...
published Pictoralism in California, Photographs 1900–1940 in 1994. The Santa Barbara Museum of Art
Santa Barbara Museum of Art
The Santa Barbara Museum of Art is an art museum located at 1130 State St. in downtown Santa Barbara, California.It was founded in 1941 and currently ranks amongst the top 10 regional art museums in the United States . It is home to both permanent and special collections, the former of which...
hosted both Lost and Found: Japanese American Photographs from the Dennis Reed Collection and Art Lost and Found: California Pictorialist Photographs from the Dennis Reed Collection in 2006.
California Tonal Impressionism
Harry Muir Kurtzworth, who was Fine Art Curator for the Los Angeles County Museum of History, Art and Architecture from 1930 to 1932 seems to be the first one to establish the term Tonal ImpressionismTonal Impressionism
Tonal Impressionism is an art historical term that refers to works of art that are "mood" paintings with simplified compositions, done in a limited range of colors, as with Tonalist works, but using the brighter, more chromatic palette of Impressionism...
which he used to describe paintings done in the Tonalist manner with simplified compositions, a limited but which utilized the brighter, more chromatic palette of Impressionism. He titled an exhibition he curated "Tonal Impressionism." This was held at the Los Angeles Art Association Gallery at the Los Angeles Central Library in June 1937. The artists he included were Charles Bensco, Frank Tolles Chamberlin
Frank Tolles Chamberlin
Frank Tolles Chamberlin was an American artist.He studied at the Art Students League with George DeForest Brush and George Bridgman....
, Alson Clark, Clyde Forsyth, Ralph Holmes, Thodore Lukits, J. Mason Reeves, and Seymour Thomas. Kurtzworth's concept was that these painters painted subjects that the Tonalists would have favored, but by painting with a palette without the earth tones many of the earlier painters used, the result became quite different. The large body of work the California artist Theodore Lukits
Theodore Lukits
Theodore Nikolai Lukits was a California portrait and landscape painter. His initial fame came from his portraits of some of the most glamorous actresses of the Silent Film era, but since his death, his Asian-inspired works, figures drawn from Hispanic California and his pastel landscapes have all...
did in the pastel medium or the hundreds of moonlit scenes painted by the Western painter Frank Tenney Johnson
Frank Tenney Johnson
Frank Tenney Johnson was a painter of the american west, and he popularized a style of painting cowboys which became known as "The Johnson Moonlight Technique". Somewhere on the Range is an example of Johnson's moonlight technique...
, may best exemplify this approach. These artists both painted nocturnes, but they are dominated by a blue palette, clearly derived from the colored shadows of Impressionism.
California Tonalism Exhibitions
Although the term Tonalism was in common usage earlier in the century to describe "mood" painters, it seems to have reemerged in 1972 when the art historian Wanda Corn curated the exhibition "The Color of Mood:American Tonalism, 1880–1910" at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco. This exhibition was accompanied by an exhibition catalog that laid out the history of American Tonalism and connected a wide range of artists and photographers as having similar motivations and as being part of the same movement. It has been described as a "landmark" exhibition in the art historical media. Nancy Moure explored the origins of art in Los Angeles in a 1995 exhibition, "Loners, Mavericks & Dreamers, Art in Los Angeles before 1900", for the Laguna Art MuseumLaguna Art Museum
The Laguna Art Museum is a museum located in Laguna Beach, California on Pacific Coast Highway.An exhibition titled ...
, which covered Southern California Tonalism.
Perhaps the most important exhibition on California Tonalism was "Twilight and Reverie: California Tonalist Painting, 1890–1930" which was curated by Harvey Jones for the Oakland Museum of California
Oakland Museum of California
Oakland Museum of California or Oakland Museum is a museum dedicated to the art, history, and natural science of California located in Oakland, California....
in 1995. While a number of California painters had been recognized as Tonalists and included in different exhibitions, this show was limited to works done in and of California. Works by George Inness
George Inness
George Inness was an American landscape painter; born in Newburgh, New York; died at Bridge of Allan in Scotland. His work was influenced, in turn, by that of the old masters, the Hudson River school, the Barbizon school, and, finally, by the theology of Emanuel Swedenborg, whose spiritualism...
, William Keith
William Keith (artist)
William Keith was a Scottish-American painter famous for his California landscapes.-Early life:Keith was born in Oldmeldrum, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and emigrated to the United States in 1850. He lived in New York City, and became an apprentice wood engraver in 1856...
, Maurice Del Mue Sidney Yard, Granville Redmond
Granville Redmond
Granville Redmond was an American landscape painter and exponent of Tonalism and California Impressionism.- Early years :...
, Charles Rollo Peters, Eugen Neuhaus, Giuseppe Cadenasso, Will Sparks, Arthur Mathews
Arthur Frank Mathews
Arthur F. Mathews was an American Tonalist painter who was one of the founders of the American Arts and Crafts Movement. Trained as an architect and artist, he and his wife Lucia Kleinhans Mathews had a significant effect on the evolution of Californian art in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...
and Lucia Matthews, Arthur Atkins
Arthur Atkins (Painter)
Arthur Atkins was a tonalist landscape painter who emigrated to San Francisco as a young child. He was essentially self-taught, but studied briefly at the San Francisco School of Design...
, and Gottardo Piazonni were included.
See also
- Tonal ImpressionismTonal ImpressionismTonal Impressionism is an art historical term that refers to works of art that are "mood" paintings with simplified compositions, done in a limited range of colors, as with Tonalist works, but using the brighter, more chromatic palette of Impressionism...
- American ImpressionismAmerican ImpressionismImpressionism, a style of painting characterized by loose brushwork and vivid colors, was practiced widely among American artists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.-An emerging artistic style from Paris:...
- California Plein-Air PaintingCalifornia Plein-Air PaintingThe term California Plein-Air Painting describes the large movement of 20th century California artists who worked out of doors, directly from nature in California, United States. Their work became popular in the San Francisco Bay Area and Southern California in the first three decades after the...
- En plein airEn plein airEn plein air is a French expression which means "in the open air", and is particularly used to describe the act of painting outdoors.Artists have long painted outdoors, but in the mid-19th century working in natural light became particularly important to the Barbizon school and Impressionism...