Impressionism is a style of painting that records a scene as it looks in one passing moment of light, with quick visible brushstrokes and bright color, often painted outdoors. It began in Paris in the 1870s and takes its name from Claude Monet's Impression, Sunrise, a view of the harbor of Le Havre painted in 1872.
The painters behind it, among them Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro and Berthe Morisot, wanted to be judged outside the official Salon, the yearly state exhibition that decided careers in France. In April 1874 they showed their work on their own, in the former studio of the photographer Nadar on the boulevard des Capucines. A month later the show was over.
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The name the movement still carries came out of that show, and it began as an insult. On 25 April 1874, the critic Louis Leroy printed a mock review of the show in the satirical newspaper Le Charivari. He invented a landscape painter of the old school, a man covered in medals named Joseph Vincent, and walked him from picture to picture until the poor man lost his mind.
In front of Monet's harbor at dawn, Vincent reasons that since he is impressed, there must be some impression in it. A wallpaper pattern in its first sketch, he adds, is more finished than this seascape.
Leroy had taken the word from the catalogue, where it stood in the title of Monet's harbor. The painters had not picked it to name their group, yet it stayed with them through seven more shows.
What You'll Discover
How one word ended up on the label.
Why a group of friends skipped the Salon.
Who never fit the Impressionist mold.
What a metal tube changed for painters.
Why the strokes look unfinished up close.
How a dealer took Impressionism to America.