A beautiful tribute to one of Impressionism’s iconic works.Discovering the fascinating world of art through the eyes of Claude Monet and his work “Impression, Sunrise”. Running until 29 January 2023, the exhibition illustrates the evolution of artistic creativity regarding the sun, this star so dear to Monet and the Impressionists, through some one hundred works by Miró, Dürer, Rubens, Vernet, Turner, Courbet, Boudin and Pissarro. To mark the 150th anniversary of this manifesto painting, the Paris museum is presenting the “Facing the Sun, a Star in the Arts” exhibition, exploring how the sun is depicted in art from Antiquity to the present, with Monet’s masterpiece as the linchpin.
Today, the canvas is kept at the Marmottan Monet Museum in Paris. In Paris, a themed exhibition celebrating the painting’s 150 th anniversary As for the painting Impression, Sunrise, it would become one of the painter’s most famous works and a symbol of the movement. I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some impression in it.” The artistic movement of Monet and his friends now had a name: the Impressionists. Impression! Impression, I was certain of it. Arriving in front of Claude Monet’s “impressive canvas”, he writes: “What does that canvas depict? Look at the catalogue: ‘Impression, Sunrise’. Playing on words, Leroy makes fun of the “impressions” that he feels in front of these works with a “messy composition”. “Oh, it was indeed a strenuous day when I ventured into the first exhibition on the boulevard des Capucines,” he begins in a mocking tone. When mockery gives rise to a masterpiece… and an artistic movement!Īmong those detractors was the critic Louis Leroy, who wrote an article entitled The Impressionists’ Exhibition in the newspaper Le Charivari. And while some forward-thinking critics praised the quality of the works exhibited, the press as a whole was not kind to the artists in the exhibition. These names are now internationally renowned, but at the time they were synonymous with dissidence and sometimes mediocrity. In the booklet, you can read Degas, Cézanne, Morisot, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley, etc. A total of 165 works by 30 artists were displayed. The first exhibition by the group – later known as the Impressionists – was held in April 1874. The watchword? Precisely not to have any and not to impose any artistic guidelines. In winter 1873, they set up a cooperative that would allow them to organise their own exhibitions at the heart of Paris. Monet, Manet, Renoir and their friends then decided to join forces. aeroport plus proche : Aéroport de Paris-Charles de Gaulle.However, skittish about anything new, the institution rejected all these works, which it deemed not to comply with its canons. For several years, the artist had been part of a group of painters looking to break away from the codes of the all-powerful Academy of Fine Arts they wanted to explore new topics, try different techniques, shape reality in their own fashion. This is an allusive and subjective painting of which Monet was nonetheless proud. The Academy and the Impressionists: the battle between old and new His subject choices were considered superficial, his strokes unfinished and not technical enough.
In reality, Monet’s work was not rated highly by his peers. He enjoyed painting from nature in the open air facing the subject and had had a few successes ( Woman in the Green Dress in 1866, Bathers at La Grenouillère in 1869), but he was not yet able to live off his painting.
The father of Water Lilies was little known at the time. The 31-year-old painter could not have imagined that this canvas would mark a turning point in his life… and the history of art. On a visit to Le Havre, Claude Monet decided to take his oils, a few brushes and a blank canvas to sketch, from his hotel window, a view of the Normandy port bathed in sunlight and shrouded in mist. It all started in the early morning of 13 November 1872.