Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s in spite of harsh opposition from the art community in France. The name of the style is derived from the title of a Claude Monet work, Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise), which provoked the critic Louis Leroy to coin the term in a satiric review published in the Parisian newspaper Le Charivari.

Characteristics of Impressionist paintings include relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes; open composition; emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time); common, ordinary subject matter; the inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience; and unusual visual angles. The development of Impressionism in the visual arts was soon followed by analogous styles in other media which became known as Impressionist music and Impressionist literature.

Matthew Collings (born 1955) is a British art critic, writer and broadcaster.

In one of his books on art, Collings states that, in his early teenage years, he ran away to Canada. This act was preceded by a period of hanging around in a house in Oakley Street, Chelsea, whose residents included members of various rock bands including Mighty Baby and Family. For many weeks Collings was the object of an internationally coordinated police search.

Collings trained at Byam Shaw School of Art, and Goldsmith's College, and still practises as an artist. He edited Artscribe 1983-7. Collings was a producer and presenter on the BBC The Late Show 1989-95. In the early 1990s, he brought Martin Kippenberger into the BBC studios to create an installation, and he interviewed Georg Herold while this Cologne-based conceptual artist painted a large canvas with beluga caviar.

Collings also wrote and presented documentary films for the BBC on individual artists, such as Donald Judd, Georgia O'Keeffe and Willem de Kooning, as well as broader historical subjects such as Hitler's "Degenerate art" exhibition, art looted in the Second World War by Germany and Russia, Situationism, Spain's post-Franco art world and the rise of the Cologne art scene.

The Nice were an English progressive rock band from the 1960s, known for their blend of rock, jazz and classical music. Their debut album, The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack was released in 1967 to immediate acclaim. It is often considered the first progressive rock album. The Nice are also a forerunner of the much more widely known Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

The Nice consisted initially of keyboardist Keith Emerson, bassist/vocalist Lee Jackson, drummer Brian Davison, and guitarist David O'List, more commonly known as "Davy". The band took their name from Steve Marriott's slang term for being high, a term he used in the song "Here Come the Nice". Marriott originally wanted to give the name to a band he was producing, called The Little People. Andrew Loog Oldham took it upon himself to rename The Little People Apostolic Intervention, and dubbed the Emerson, Jackson, Davison, O'List group "The Nice". Emerson's autobiography Pictures of an Exhibitionist suggests that the name originated with a suggestion from P. P. Arnold. The reference to "being high" is not mentioned, instead a routine by hipster/comic Lord Buckley is quoted.

Rolf Harris, CBE, AM (born 30 March 1930) is an Australian musician, singer-songwriter, composer, painter and television personality.

Born in Perth, Western Australia, Harris was a champion swimmer before studying art. He moved to England in 1952, where he started to appear on television programmes on which he drew the characters. He also began a musical career initially with the piano accordion. He wrote the famous song "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport", and when performing in Canada he introduced his popular routine around his song "Jake the Peg". He often uses unusual instruments in his performances: he plays the didgeridoo, has been credited with the invention of the wobble board, a rhythmic percussion instrument, and was associated with the Stylophone, a small electronic keyboard instrument.

From the 1960s he has become a popular television personality, presenting shows including Rolf's Cartoon Club, Animal Hospital and various programmes about serious art. In late 2005 he painted an official portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, which was the subject of a special episode of Rolf on Art.

Claude Monet (French pronunciation: [klod mɔnɛ/mɔne]) (14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. The term Impressionism is derived from the title of his painting Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant).

Claude Monet was born on 14 November 1840 on the 5th floor of 45 rue Laffitte, in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. He was the second son of Claude Adolphe Monet and Louise Justine Aubrée Monet, both of them second-generation Parisians. On 20 May 1841, he was baptized in the local parish church, Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, as Oscar-Claude, but his parents called him simply Oscar. In 1845, his family moved to Le Havre in Normandy. His father wanted him to go into the family grocery business, but Monet wanted to become an artist. His mother was a singer.

On 1 April 1851, Monet entered Le Havre secondary school of the arts. Locals knew him well for his charcoal caricatures, which he would sell for ten to twenty francs. Monet also undertook his first drawing lessons from Jacques-François Ochard, a former student of Jacques-Louis David. On the beaches of Normandy in about 1856/1857, he met fellow artist Eugène Boudin, who became his mentor and taught him to use oil paints. Boudin taught Monet "en plein air" (outdoor) techniques for painting. Both received the influence of Johan Barthold Jongkind.