by Jennifer Buckett

Created on: September 21, 2011

Impressionism is one of the most widely known and appreciated styles of painting but relatively few art fans know that the entire movement was inspired by Claude Monet’s 1872 masterpiece, Impression, Sunrise.

Currently housed in the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris, Impression, Sunrise portrays a vibrant sunrise over a harbor in Le Havre, France. The majority of the painting is blue and green except for the bright, orange sun and its reflection on the water. The loose brush strokes that Monet employed suggest the scenery rather than define it, allowing the viewer to understand the impression that the scenery left on Monet and the resulting mood it created.

For this very reason, Monet did not want to call the painting simply “The Port of Le Havre”, which would have been an accurate description of the subject. But Monet felt that the painting communicated a mood and feeling, rather than just depicting a strict reproduction of what Monet saw. The short, light strokes and overall atmosphere marginalize the objects in the painting, instead highlighting the feeling they created. Therefore, he chose to title the painting simply Impression, Sunrise.

Monet later described his rationale for the title: “Landscape is nothing but an impression, and an instantaneous one, hence this label that was given us, by the way because of me. I had sent a thing done in Le Havre, from my window, sun in the mist and a few masts of boats sticking up in the foreground....They asked me for a title for the catalogue, it couldn't really be taken for a view of Le Havre, and I said: 'Put Impression.'”

The painting was first displayed in 1874 during the first independent art show of the Impressionist movement, hanging alongside works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, and Camille Pissarro. At the time the Impressionist movement was still unnamed, but a review of the show by art critic Louis Leroy in the satirical newspaper “Le Charivari” ridiculed Monet’s provocative painting.  Titled “Exhibition of the Impressionists”, the review was meant to mock the loose, unfinished, and undefined style of the paintings but the name stuck and is now the name we have adopted for this style of painting.

Impressionism’s goal is to capture the fleeting effects of nature, emphasizing short, light strokes, an open composition of an ordinary subject, and the intricate depiction of light. Impression, Sunrise achieved all of these qualities and left a true impression on the art community, inspiring a movement that would change the art world forever.

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