OCALA, FLORIDA.- The Appleton Museum of Art presents American Impressions: An Arcadian Vision Saturday, December 18, 2004 through Sunday, February 27, 2005. This is an exhibit of 35 paintings from the Akron Art Museum in Ohio, which features such American Impressionists as William Merritt Chase, Thomas Dewing, Frank Duveneck, Frederick Frieseke, and Childe Hassam. Spanning the years 1860-1917, the collection displays a broad range of subject matter and technical developments, which captivated European painters and motivated them to depart from their studio and paint in plein air. The Impressionists’ radical experiments with atmospheric effects, optical relationships between color and light, and brighter palettes greatly influenced their American counterparts, who absorbed their new approaches to painting and applied them successfully to American landscapes and portraiture. This exhibit encompasses studio portraits, figure studies, still life, and landscape paintings, all of which display the virtuosity of American painters of the time, through widely divergent techniques.