A new work on impressionism can¡¯t claim to throw new light on a subject, which has been repeatedly and thoroughly discussed and written about. Attitudes toward and ideas about art, like everything else, undergo changes, modifications, and shifts of emphasis. Today, we look upon the impressionists not only as revolutionaries who defied the academic traditions of their age, not only as the successors of Delacroix, Courbet, and Corot, but also as the prophets and precursors of modern painting. Impressionism heralded a new attitude toward art. The impressionist, in overthrowing the old, gave birth to a new tradition. .

             The spirit of youthful creativity fired impressionism. Never before in the history of art had a group of young, inspired painters be friend each other, worked together so fruitfully, and eventually represents nothing more, nothing else than the history of theses friendships, which painting as its common denominator. .

             In 1859, the young Claude Monet came to Paris a bit lost, but full of enthusiasm. Soon he was to become the master, He had met the already established marine painter Bounden in Le Havre, and the friendliness and honesty of the old painter had soon won him over. He needed Boudin¡¯s advice ¡°study, learn to see and paint, do landscapes. The ocean and the sky, animals, people, and trees. The Ocean and the sky, animals, people, and trees- just as nature created them- are so beautiful in their own setting of light and air, just as they are---All that is painted directly, at a given moment, has a force, power, and vitality which can never be duplicated in the studio.¡± (Mathey 39) Monet went out into the country of France. To him, the treasures of nature seemed far more precious than those enclosed within museum walls. He took his friends to Chailly on the edge of the Fontainebleau forest near Barbizon. This flight from the city led to the first encounter of these young painters with the plain air motif, here, under the open sky, they found themselves being carried away by the sense of newly discovered freedom, they became intoxicated with what Theodore Rousseau had called the ¡°Virginal contract with nature.