The sketch-like painting of the pleinarist originated in the technique of the academic study, but soon stopped being an intermediate step towards the finished work to become a work in its own right. At the same time, one of the characteristics of plein-air painting is its link to the fleeting moment, the changing light, the impression on the retina. Impressionism emerged from these two circumstances and, through multiple interpretations, became a style –both of painting and of life– that characterised the artist in the modern age, in the transcendental sense of freedom and autonomy in art as well as in parody and caricature.