The term
Impressionism
was first used in 1874 by an art critic to describe the atmospheric background—with no sharply defined foreground—of Claude Monet's painting Impression: soleil levant. Although intended to be derogatory, the label stuck and went on to define a whole art movement. Impressionism, in its most general sense, refers to a somewhat ambiguous representation of a subject. In a musical context, it is applied above all to the work of
Claude Debussy
, especially...
