Silly art terminology rant

I think that paint­ing out­doors, from life, is a fine thing to do. I have the utmost respect for those who prac­tice this kind of paint­ing, as it is very dif­fi­cult to do well. But I find the term most com­monly used to describe out­door paint­ing to be insuf­fer­ably precious.

“Do you paint en plein air?”

“Why yes! I painted en plein air yes­ter­day in the park. Alas, it rained.”

I can cer­tainly under­stand adopt­ing a tech­ni­cal art term from French (e.g., ebauche) or Ital­ian (e.g., velatura) if there is no good Eng­lish equiv­a­lent. But, with apolo­gies to those who might find the term evoca­tive (or mar­ketable), using “en plein air” to mean “out­doors” is just too high­fa­lutin for me.