Monet gets his place in the art timeline because of his leading role in the Impressionist art movement, and through the enduring appeal of his artistic style. Looking at this painting, done early in his career, it may not seem one of Monet's best paintings, but the big deal about it is that it was the painting that gave Impressionism its name.
Monet exhibited the painting he titled Impression: Sunrise in what we now call the First Impressionist Exhibition, in Paris. Monet and a group of about 30 other artists, frustrated by restrictions and politics of the official annual art salon, had decided to hold their own independent exhibition, an unusual thing to do at the time. They called themselves the Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, Engravers, etc (Société Anonyme des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs, etc.) and included artists who are now world famous such as Renoir, Degas, Pissarro, Morisot, and Cézanne. The exhibition was held from 15 April to 15 May 1874 in the former studio of the photographer Nadar (Félix Tournachon) at 35 Boulevard des Capucines, a fashionable address1.
In his review of the exhibition, the art critic for Le Charivari, Louis Leroy, used the title of Monet's painting as the headline, calling it the "Exhibition of Impressionists". Leroy had meant it sarcastically as the term 'impression' was used "to describe a rapidly notated painting of an atmospheric effect, [that] artists rarely, if ever exhibited pictures so quickly sketched"2. The label stuck. In his review published on 25 April 1874, Leroy wrote:
"A catastrophe seemed to me imminent, and it was reserved to M. Monet to contribute the last straw. ... What does the canvas depict? Look at the catalogue.
"Impression, Sunrise".
"Impression--I was certain of it. I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some impression in it...and what freedom, what ease of workmanship. Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished than that seascape."3
In a supportive review published a few days later in Le Siècle on 29 April 1874, Jules Castagnary was the first art critic to use the term Impressionism in a positive way:
"The shared point of view that makes them a group with a collective force of its own... is their decision not to strive for detailed finished, but to go no further than a certain overall aspect. Once the impression has been discerned and set down, they declare their task finished. ...If we are to describe them with a single word, we must invent the new term Impressionists. They are Impressionists in the sense that they depict not the landscape but the sensation produced by the landscape."4
Monet said he'd called the painting "Impression" because "it really couldn't pass as a view of Le Havre".5
Next, let's look at how Monet painted it...
References:
1. Eyewitness Art: Monet by Jude Welton, Dorling Kindersley Publishers 1992, p24.
2. Turner Whistler Monet by Katharine Lochnan, Tate Publishing, 2004, p132.
3. "L'Exposition des Impressionnistes" by Louis Leroy, Le Charivari, 25 April 1874, Paris. Translated by John Rewald in The History of Impressionism, Moma, 1946, p256-61; quoted in Salon to Biennial: Exhibitions that Made Art History by Bruce Altshuler, Phaidon, p42-43.
4. "Exposition du Boulevard des Capucines: Les Impressionnistes" by Jules Castagnary, Le Siècle, 29 April 1874, Paris. Quoted in Salon to Biennial: Exhibitions that Made Art History by Bruce Altshuler, Phaidon, p44.
5. Letter from Monet to Durand-Ruel, 23 February 1892, quoted in Monet: Nature Into Art by John House, Yale University Press, 1986, p162.
