Impressionism Artists Notebooking Unit Study

Your middle and high school students can study art history and learn about the famous artists of the Impressionism Era with this Notebooking Style Art History Unit Study.

impressionism art history unit for 6 to 12th grades

This Impressionism Artists unit study includes 30 notebooking pages, vetted resources for research, 60 flashcards of artists and their works, as well as ten different multi-modal extension activities to create a quarter (8-week) unit about the more famous artists (paintings) of the Impressionism era.

This 54-page printable pack includes your choice of two title pages, report pages to write about the history and style of Impressionism and twenty artist biography pages, flash cards with each of the artists’ portrait and two of their paintings, plus resources and activities.

For your younger kids, check out our coordinating Impressionism lapbook.

This notebooking unit study was created for middle school or junior high students.

To create a full quarter (8-week) study, add in the additional activities listed below. For example, your student can read some artist biographies, write an in-depth artist report, watch a movie about Vincent Van Gogh, play an Impressionist game, and other activities to create a more extensive high school elective class.

Learn about other High School Fine Arts Credit Options Here

Or simply add in a few of the suggested activities below to create a unit study for your middle schooler.

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Impressionism Art Unit Study Resources

Search online for the answers to the questions on the notebooking pages or gather some books from your local library. I think it is good for students to have to “dig” to find some of the answers and not have them all “handed” to them. Here are a few resources for them to start with in their research.

How Impressionism Began video from the National Gallery of Art

Style of Impressionism Art

What Makes a Van Gogh, a Van Gogh? by Richard Muhlberger

50 Impressionist Paintings You Should Know by Ines Janet Engelmann (Be warned, this book includes nud3s, including ones you might not want little eyes to see. Please use your own judgement as to whether or not that is appropriate for your household. Some parents choose to tape a piece of paper over the pictures they don’t want their kids to see, but we’ve found it’s best to not make a big deal of it–which only makes it more enticing– and to just explain that the artists saw the human body as one of the highest forms of art)

Additional Resources for Your Impressionism Study

Impressionist Artists’ Famous Works from Art Heaven on YouTube

The story of Impressionism

Impressionism History and Biographies

Ten Artists who began the Impressionist Movement

Use this video list from Great Art Explained to learn more about the individual artists’ works.

If your student is very interested in doing a deep dive into Impressionism, I suggest getting the book, How to Look at Impressionism by Francoise Barbe-Gall, which is also available on Open Library for free.

How to Use the Impressionism Notebooking Pages:

to make a little booklet.

prefer. One contains pictures of impressionist art. If you choose the blank title page, you could leave it as is or add your own choice of paintings.

Answer the questions on the Impressionism Begins page. To get an idea of what art was like before the Impressionism movement, choose a picture that was painted right before Impressionism began and glue it on the canvas at the bottom of the page.

There are two Impressionist Style pages. The questions will guide the student through learning about this style of painting.

Learn all about what the public first thought about Impressionism paintings in The Critics of Impressionism notebooking page.

The Franco Prussian War was going on during the Impressionism movement. Learn more about it and how it affected the art and artists.

Record how impressionism affected future art in the Impressionist Contributions page.

Choose your favorite painting from this time period to write about, then print it out and glue to the My Favorite Painting page.

Print out as many of the blank Impressionism notebooking page as you need. You could use this to write more extensively on a topic, do a report, or write a fictionalized account of one of the artists.

Artist Pages – each artist page has a picture of the artist. Fill in the blanks about the artist and add a picture of your favorite painting by that artist.

Impressionist Artists included in this bundle:

Frédéric Bazille
Marie Bracquemond
Gustave Caillebotte
Mary Cassatt
Edgar Degas
Childe Hassam
Konstantin Korovin
Isaac Levitan
Max Liebermann
Édouard Manet
Claude Monet
Berthe Morisot
Camille Pissarro
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Theodore Robinson
John Singer Sargent
Alfred Sisley
Joaquin Sorolla
Philip Wilson Steer
Blank: fill in with any additional artists you’d like to add

Extension Activities to Create an 8-week Impressionism Unit

Complete one of these activities each week in addition to the notebooking pages.

Play an art history game. Your parents might have an old Masterpiece board game in their closet, or make a matching game from the included artists and paintings flashcards.

Read artists‘ biographies. You can find enough information online to fill out the artist notebooking pages, but to really get a feel for what life was like during that time period, read some biographies.

You could also watch one of the following films about Impressionism.

Lust for Life 1956 (not rated) Stars Kirk Douglas playing Vincent Van Gogh. Nominated for and won several awards.
Documentary: The Impressionists (and the Man Who Made Them) 2015 (unrated) Streaming on Kanopy, which is free with your library card.
Exhibition on Screen: I, Claude Mone t 2017 (unrated) Based upon Monet’s letters; shows his paintings in chronological order.
The Impressionists (TV mini series) 2005-06 (unrated, but probably for older teens as it deals with the scandals associated with these artists in their personal lives)

Try your hand at impressionism painting. Either reproduce a famous artwork (Monet’s Water Lilies are good choices.) or paint an original.

Color some Impressionist artwork with this Dover Coloring Book, Impressionist Art Masterpieces to Color: 60 Great Paintings from Renoir to Gauguin or print out some of Van Gogh’s paintings coloring pages from Kids N Fun.

Choose one artist to research and write an in-depth report.

Pretend you are a period art critic. Write a review of one of the paintings or one artist’s collection of paintings.

Create a flyer / brochure for one of the Impressionism art exhibitions.

Create a hands-on art project of your own inspired by the Impressionism movement, like these paper flowers based on Morisot’s peonies, or this tie-dye project based on Monet’s Japanese footbridge.

Listen to some Impressionism music. Claude Debussy is an excellent example of a composer that wrote music to make you think of serene landscapes.