Tonalism

A little known movement which occurred around this same turn of the century era in the United States was Tonalism which began when American painters began to focus on landscapes around 1880.  Artists used a dark palette which produced a shadowy almost misty effect.  The repetition of blues browns and greys is what prompted art critics to start referring to such work as "tonal" in the late 1890's.  The most famous of the tonalism artists were  George Inness and James McNeill Whistler who are thought to have been influenced greatly by an earlier movement known as the French Barbizon style.  Although it experienced some positive critique Tonalism was eventually overshadowed (no pun intended) by European Impressionism and Modernism.