In 1874, a group of artists called the Anonymous Society of
Painters, Sculptors, Printmakers, etc. organized an exhibition in
Paris that launched the movement called Impressionism.
• Its founding members included Claude Monet,Edgar Degas,
and Camille Pissarro, among others.
• The group was unified only by its independence from the
official annual Salon, for which a jury of artists from the
Académie des Beaux-Arts selected artworks and awarded
medals.
• The independent artists, despite their diverse approaches to
painting, appeared to contemporaries as a group.
• While conservative critics panned their work for its unfinished,
sketch like appearance, more progressive writers praised it for
its depiction of modern life.