Impressionism, an art movement pioneered by a handful of avant-garde painters based in Paris in the 1870s, gave academic oil painting a vivacity and spontaneity it had previously lacked, and remains to this day the single most popular style of art for gallery-goers and amateur painters alike. This elegantly-written book, by a professional artist and scholar, is both an instructional guide to incorporating Impressionist techniques into your own painting, and an illuminating investigation into how those first Impressionists actually painted their pictures. As such, it will fascinate both the painter and the art historian. This new book provides detailed advice on paints, brushes and canvas, as used by the original Impressionists and still widely available today. It discusses the process of making an Impressionist painting from initial vision to final completion and analyses the role of composition, light and tone, colour and paint handling. Finally, it gives an overview of the subject matter most closely associated with the Impressionists.