impressionism

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. 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.
2. n. 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.
3. n. 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.
4. n. The practice of expressing or developing one's subjective response to a work of art or to actual experience.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In art and lit., the doctrines and methods of the impressionists; the doctrine that natural objects should be painted or described as they first strike the eye in their immediate and momentary effects—that is, without selection, or artificial combination or elaboration.
2. n. The name was first given to an advanced school of modern painting in France, based on the principle that effects of light in nature are momentary, and that the painter, if he wishes to be true to nature, should confine his attention and effort as closely as possible to the moment of their occurrence. In order to express the high key of natural light, a coterie of extreme impressionists, called pointillists, have used pure color laid on in points or dots. See the extract.

Wiktionary

1. n. art a movement in art characterized by visible brush strokes, ordinary subject matters, and an emphasis on light and its changing qualities
2. n. music a style that avoided traditional harmony, and sought to invoke the impressions of the composer
3. n. poetry a style that used imagery and symbolism to portray the poet's impressions

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Fine Arts) The theory or method of suggesting an effect or impression without elaboration of the details; -- a disignation of a recent fashion in painting and etching.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a school of late 19th century French painters who pictured appearances by strokes of unmixed colors to give the impression of reflected light