Plein Air (plen-er'): French, "open-air or fresh-air;" Al fresco.
Plein Air is a term used for landscape paintings accomplished directly from nature, in the the outdoors and in natural light, as opposed to being created in the studio from collected sketches and color studies.
The curriculum taught at the École, for example, preferred painting in the studio to working in the open air.
"The practice of open-air painting was only tolerated to make sketches and preparatory studies, for the sole purpose of preparing... compositions [to be] painted in the workshop."1
Painting outdoors was inspired by naturalists, such as the French Barbizon school, which preceeded the impressionist movement. The Macchiaioli (e-mäk-keiô´le) movement in Italy, and the American Boston School (marriage of impressionism and realism) also favored painting landscapes directly from life.
While there is no objection to landscape painting from sketches and color studies outdoors and then painted in the studio, Plein Air painting accomplished entirely outdoors, is respected and taught at realist / naturalist ateliers and academies today.
Adrian Gottlieb
1 Painters, the Salon and Critics,Musée d'Orsay.
GottliebStudios.com/Classical_Glossary
HOME