20/10/2020
One of my favorite Monet masterpieces
https://www.facebook.com/MiaFeigelson Claude Monet - Mia Feigelson Gallery
"Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant)", 1872 Impressionism Post-Impressionism - Mia Feigelson
By Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926)
oil on canvas; 50 cm × 65 cm (19.7 x 25.6 in.)
© Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris
Gift of Eugène et Victorine Donop de Monchy - Acquired 23 May, 1940 https://bit.ly/3ketSqo
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"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'." ― Claude Monet
It was displayed in 1874 during the first independent art how of the Impressionists (who were not yet known by that name). Critic Louis Leroy, inspired by the painting's name, titled his hostile review of the show in Le Charivari newspaper, 'The Exhibition of the Impressionists', thus inadvertently naming the new art movement. He wrote:
“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."
Although it seems that the sun is the brightest spot on the canvas, it is in fact, when measured with a photometer, the same brightness (or luminance) as the sky.
Dr. Margaret Livingstone, a professor of neurobiology at Harvard University, said "If you make a black and white copy of Impression: Sunrise, the Sun disappears [almost] entirely."
Livingstone said that this caused the painting to have a very realistic quality, as the older part—shared with the majority of other mammals—of the visual cortex in the brain registers only luminance and not colour, so that the sun in the painting would be invisible to it, while it is just the newer part of the visual cortex—only found in humans and primates—which perceives color.
"Monet later explained that he had selected for the exhibition a painting done in Le Havre from his window: the sun appearing in damp vapors, in the foreground a few shipmasts pointing.
"I was asked to give a title for the catalogue; I couldn't very well call it a view of Le Havre. So I said: 'Put Impression.' Indeed, the painting was catalogued as Impression, Sunrise." ― Rewald, "The History of Impressionism"
"The common view that brings these artists together in a group and makes of them a collective force within our disintegrating age is their determination not to aim for perfection, but to be satisfied with a certain general aspect.
Once the impression is captured, they declare their role finished. The term Japanese, which was given them first, made no sense. If one wishes to characterize and explain them with a single word, then one would have to coin the word impressionists.
They are impressionists in that they do not render a landscape, but the sensation produced by the landscape. The word itself has passed into their language: in the catalogue the Sunrise by Monet is called not landscape, but impression. Thus they take leave of reality and enter the realms of idealism." ― [Jules-Antoine] Castagnary, Le Siècle, 29 April 1874
Overview:
"A stay at the Hôtel Amirauté in Le Havre around November 1872 provided Monet with the subject of his most famous painting, Impression, Sunrise. From the window of his room, the artist quickly painted a view to the southeast of the outer harbor, seen in the early morning hours.
The outlines of the Quai au Bois on the left and, on the right, of the Quai Courbe, where work is under way, structure the composition. The central opening indicates the location of the tide lock for transatlantic ships that opens onto the Bassin de l’Eure. Cranes, smokestacks, and masts are bathed in the vapors and mists of an autumn dawn.
The rowboats of ferrymen in the foreground and the bright orange sun and its reflections were added at the end, when Monet was completing his picture. Painted in just a few hours, this hazy image surprised viewers with the unusual freedom of its handling.
The artist decided to include it in the first exhibition by the Société Anonyme des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs et Lithographes, held in Nadar’s former studio in 1874. When enjoined to come up with a title for the catalogue, and reckoning that the work couldn’t decently pass for a view of Le Havre, he called it Impression.
The term, springing from the jargon used by painters, had been an artistic watchword since the middle of the century, reflecting the growing interest in capturing the atmosphere of a scene, or impression, rather than giving a painstaking description of nature. Sent to report on the event by the satirical magazine Le Charivari, the very conservative Louis Leroy, immediately made the connection between the title chosen by Monet and the controversial aspirations of young painters championing this practice of outdoor work.
It provided the inspiration for the title of his biting article, 'L’exposition des impressionniste' (25 April, 1874).
A few days later he critic Jules Castagnary, a fervent champion of these artists, used the term Impressionists with a positive meaning.
From then on it designated the group formed by Monet and his friends. Today, all this is symbolized by Impression, Sunrise." — Find out more https://bit.ly/3ketSqo
