BEFORE IMPRESSIONISM THERE WAS:

Here is a general overview of different art movements that took place before yet highly influenced impressionist and post-impressionist artists. NOTE: This list does not exhaust all art movements. *Information found on britannica.com

CLASSICISM AND NEOCLASSICISM:

historical traditions or aesthetic based on the art of Greece and Rome in antiquity (meaning harmony, clarity, restraint, universality and idealism).

Artists: Nicolas Poussin 1594-1665 (Classicism), Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres 1780-1867 (Neoclassicism)

ROMANTICISM:

is best described as going against classicism/neoclassicism and even the Enlightenment and rationalism. Romanticism has a deepened appreciation of the beauty in nature, emotion over reason and senses over intellect. The study of figures, instead of likeness, turned into the examination of human personality and mood.

Artists: J.M.W. Turner 1775-1851 and John Constable 1776-1837

LUMINISM:

late 19th-century style of painting that had a unique clarity of light.

Artists: John Fredrick Kensett 181-1872, Fitz Hugh Lane 1804-1865 and Martin Johnson Heade 1819-1904

REALISM:

the accurate, detailed, unembellished depiction of nature or of contemporary art (inspired by Caravaggio and Dutch painters from the 17th-century) .  

Artists: Gustave Courbet 1819-1877