En plein air, or plein-air painting, is the act of painting outdoors.
En plein air painter on the Côte d'Argent in Hourtin, France
Claude Monet Painting by the Edge of a Wood (1885) by John Singer Sargent. Oil on canvas. 54.0 × 64.8 cm. Tate Gallery, London.
Robert Antoine Pinchon, 1898, painting Le chemin, oil on canvas, 22 × 32 cm
Australian impressionist Arthur Streeton painting en plein air, c. 1892
The Barbizon school of painters were part of an art movement toward Realism in art, which arose in the context of the dominant Romantic Movement of the time. The Barbizon school was active roughly from 1830 through 1870. It takes its name from the village of Barbizon, France, on the edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau, where many of the artists gathered. Most of their works were landscape painting, but several of them also painted landscapes with farmworkers, and genre scenes of village life. Some of the most prominent features of this school are its tonal qualities, color, loose brushwork, and softness of form.
Corot, Road by the Water, c. 1865–70, oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute
Charles-François Daubigny, The Pond at Gylieu, 1853
Théodore Rousseau, Becquigny, Somme, c. 1857
The Gleaners. Jean-François Millet. 1857. Musée d'Orsay, Paris.