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The Impressionist artists were interested in trying to capture the changing effects of light on the landscape by using a more exact analysis of tone and color. Their ideas were inspired by Eugene Chevreul's scientific research into color theory.
The Impressionist artists abandoned the old idea that the shadow of an object was made up from the color of the object with some brown or black added. Instead, they enlivened their canvases with a new idea that the shadow of any color could be mixed from pure hues and broken up with its opposite color. For example, the shadows on a yellow surface could have some strokes of lilac painted into it to increase its vitality.
