Definition of "impressionism" [im•pres•sion•ism]

• A theory or style of painting originating and developed in France during the 1870s, characterized by concentration on the immediate visual impression produced by a scene and by the use of unmixed primary colors and small strokes to simulate actual reflected light. (noun)
• A literary style characterized by the use of details and mental associations to evoke subjective and sensory impressions rather than the re-creation of objective reality. (noun)
• Music A style of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, using somewhat vague harmony and rhythm to evoke a mood, place, and natural phenomena. (noun)
• The practice of expressing or developing one's subjective response to a work of art or to actual experience. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "There was also a large light green summer landscape – an experiment in impressionism – but thin and plain as far as colouring went."
• "- impressionism; impressionism is to painting what friggin 'Yanni is to classical music."
• "This is what has come to be known as impressionism, i.e., a painterly illusion - ism that turns up in very different forms and in very different degrees."