Madrid, Jan 29 (IANS/EFE): Madrid's Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum is opening a new exhibition, "Impressionism and Open-air Painting. From Corot to Van Gogh", Feb 5 that looks at the role that painting outdoors played in the evolution of 19th-century art.

"The theme of outdoor (painting)" is "the heart of impressionism", the museum's artistic director, Guillermo Solana, told EFE.

Outdoor painting had been around for nearly a century when the "First Impressionist Exposition" was inaugurated in 1874, a theme that is highlighted in the exhibition via "the many precursor visions that anticipated impressionism", Solana said.

The exhibition at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum features 116 works from 1780 to 1900.

"It starts with work by some of the founders of plein air landscape painting such as Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes and Thomas Jones, and continues through the work of figures such as Turner, Constable, Corot, Rousseau, Courbet, Daubigny and all the great figures of Impressionism, concluding at the end of the century with Van Gogh and Cezanne among many other key names," the museum said in a statement posted on its web site.

"Impressionism and Open-air Painting. From Corot to Van Gogh" will run from Feb 5 to May 12.