In Oregon, it’s the season for roses, which thrive under its reliably drizzly skies. “California Impressionism: Selections from The Irvine Museum” opened recently at the Portland Art Museum, interjecting some contrapuntal color from Orange County.

“Many of America’s leading artists studied Impressionism in Paris and brought it back to the United States, invigorating progressive American art,” says the museum. “California’s majestic landscape was the inspiration for artists who came to the burgeoning turn-of-the-century art colonies in Carmel and Laguna Beach. They created a profusion of light-filled paintings that captured its sublime but fragile beauty, in a Post-Impressionist manner that established a new, distinctive modern style. Just as earlier French artists had captured the colors and light of rural France, this indigenous West Coast school of artists dedicated itself to portraying the brilliant and convincing effects of natural light on the local landscape in a fresh American voice.

“This exhibition explores the impact of Impressionism and modernism on American painters from the West Coast and features many of the most important artists of the period, including Franz Bischoff, Emil Kosa, Phil Dike, Edgar Payne, William Wendt, Guy Rose, and Granville Redmond.”

“California Impressionism: Selections from The Irvine Museum” runs through September 9 at the Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW Park Avenue, Portland, Oregon, 503-226-2811, portlandartmuseum.org.

Franklin Einspruch is the art critic for The New York Sun. He blogs at Artblog.net.