In the 1860's European art was on the verge of the impressionistic movement. The art world was working in more classical style with subject matters that included mythology and history.
French artist Honore Daumier used journalistic awareness -- capturing his society with sometimes harshs realism. Daumier created many prints for publication tha tdealt with the human condition. He helped set the mood for realism and impressionism.
Realists like Gustave Courbet, Edouard Manet, and American James McNeill Whistler rejected academic views and would only paint what could be seen. In th elate 1860's Claude Monet, Edgar Degas and other impressionists captured light through daubs of color and texture. He and others such as Pierre Auguste Renoir began trying to capture light as impressions of pure color that eventually created forms; this is how they perceived that human vision worked.
Impressionists broke rules and were received harshly by critics. Their work was called common and crude.
Meanwhile, the Edo (or Tokyo) period was ending in Japan in the 1860's. Japanese art of the period, especially prints, became a great inspiration to impressionists and post-impressionist artists like Vincent Van Gogh. The Japanese works were admired for their formalistic concerns, especially the use of color and flat, unmodeled shapes.
Like Van Gogh, other post-impressionists, such as Paul Cezanne, Georges Seurat and Paul Gaugin used impressionism as their starting point.
SPECIAL NOTE: At the end of World War II, as the Soviet Army was withdrawing from Germany, they took many art masterpieces with them. It was only recently discovered that many of Van Gogh's paintings had hung for fifty years in a basement in Leningrad. They have since been returned to Germany.
