Plein-Air Painting
Guide to Ourdoor Painters Like the Impressionists, Artists from Barbizon, Grez-sur-Loing, Pont-Aven, Concarneau, Newlyn Schools.

On the Road to Fontainebleau.
John Lavery.

Plein-Air (Outdoor) Art

En plein air or outdoor landscape painting began with the Romantics (fl.1789-1830) whose search for authenticity accorded particular value to spontaneous sketching from nature. Among the earliest pioneers of plein-air landscapes were John Constable (1776-1837) and Richard Parkes Bonington (1802-28), who along with JWM Turner (1775-1851) exemplified the English School of landscape painting of the 19th century. Although most of his open air work was limited to drawings - in pencil and oils - which were later worked up in his studio, at least one of his works - his masterpiece, Boatbuilding Near Flatford Mill (1815) - was painted wholly out of doors.

June, Inch Beach by John Morris.

Continental Developments

The tradition of painting landscapes en plein-air was greatly developed during the nineteenth century by a series of artist colonies in France, such as the Barbizon School, as well as others at Grez-sur-Loing, Pont-Aven, St. Malo, Louveciennes, and Concarneau, which attracted Romantic naturalist painters like Theodore Rousseau (1812-1867), Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875) as well as Realists like Millet (1814-1875), Charles Daubigny (1817-78) and Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) and others. In addition, numerous Irish landscape artists travelled to France (especially Pont-Aven) such as the rural artist Augustus Nicholas Burke (1838-91), the romantic painter Frank O'Meara (1853-88), the Impressionists Walter Osborne (1859-1903) and John Lavery (1856-1941), the classical Dermod O'Brien (1865-1945), and Newlyn artists Stanhope Forbes (1857-1947) and Norman Garstin (1847-1926).

Reverie (1882). Frank O'Meara. (Detail)

Bridge at Rathwilly, Misty Evening.
Paul Kelly.

ART APPRECIATION
To learn how to read a painting
see: How to Appreciate Paintings.

In Russia, in 1863, Ilya Repin (1844-1930) and other progressive members of the St Petersburg Academy of Art, formed a group of painters known as The Wanderers, who toured the countryside painting rural scenes entirely in the open air to raise awareness of conditions outside the cities.

Impressionism

The high point of plein-air art came with the emergence of Impressionism, the world famous art movement named after the picture Impression, Sunrise (1872) by Claude Monet (1840-1926). As well as Monet - who became famous for a wide range of outdoor works, notably his series of water-lilies - other leading exponents of Impressionist landscape painting included Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), perhaps the greatest painter of 'dappled light' in the history of art, the Parisian-born Englishman Alfred Sisley (1839–1899), and the anarchist-inclined Camille Pissarro (1830-1903).

The Red Houses. (1912)
Norman Garstin, one of the
artists of the Newlyn School
of landscape painting.

Grand Canal Venice. (2007)
Norman Teeling.

Post-Impressionist artists Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) and Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) continued the tradition: Cezanne with his use of grid-like structures with which he slowly built up his compositions in his open air pursuit of French Classical painting traditions; Van Gogh in his manic, highly personal and rapid rendering of the landscape around Arles. One should also note that plein-air work was encouraged and facilitated not only by its freedom from studio rents, but also by the invention of the metal tube in which slow drying oil paint could be stored almost indefinitely.

For details of colour pigments, natural dyes and hues used in fresco, tempera, encaustic, oils and watercolours, see: Colour in Painting.

Early Spring by Henry McGrane.

Plein Air Painting Today

Typically, painting a picture in the open air requires rapid composition and brushwork, neither of which is feasible unless the artist is familiar with the fundamentals of drawing. Thus it is no surprise to learn that many, if not most, outdoor painters were academically trained in life-drawing and linear perspective. Unfortunately, in today's colleges of fine art, this type of basic training is no longer seen as necessary - far less 'essential' - for would-be painters, who instead are encouraged to 'create' and 'express themselves' in a variety of media, without the need for methodical learning. While this focus on freedom of expression may facilitate variety and the development of new forms of artwork, it fails to inculcate the values and skills needed for outdoors painting. Because of this, more and more traditional artists are voicing their dissatisfaction with modern methods of teaching art, and with the reluctance of official arts bodies to promote the principles of painterly craftsmanship.

• For more about plein-air landscape painting, see: Art Encyclopedia.