The Painting That Inspired the Term ‘Impressionism’ Debuts in America

In 1874, a group of rebellious painters—including Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne and Edgar Degas—exhibited their work in Paris. They would become known as the Impressionists, and they painted scenes from everyday life using bright colors and visible brushstrokes.

Now, an exhibition marking the 150th anniversary of that historic show has landed in Washington, D.C. First shown at Paris’ Musée d’Orsay and now on display at Washington’s National Gallery of Art, “Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment” reunites many of the paintings first featured in the 1874 exhibition—including Monet’s Impression, Sunrise, which has never before been shown in the United States.

“If there’s one painting that is the absolute icon of this moment and show, it’s Claude Monet’s Impression, Sunrise,” Kimberly Jones, curator of 19th-century French painting at the National Gallery of Art, tells Town & Country’s Adam Rathe. “It’s the painting that gave the movement its name.”

For the very first time, Claude Monet’s “Impression, Sunrise”—the painting that gave the impressionist movement its name—is now in the United States. pic.twitter.com/1JVRhGnx1l

— National Gallery of Art (@ngadc) September 6, 2024

Impression, Sunrise depicts the port of Le Havre in the Normandy region of France. Monet appears to have painted the scene quickly. The bluish-gray colors are contrasted by a rising sun that “accounts for the dirty smudge of pink and orange in the sky,” as the Washington Post’s Sebastian Smee writes. The painting’s colors, lack of detail and mundane subject matter were all controversial artistic choices in Monet’s time.

“It’s an industrial part of the port,” as Sylvie Patry, who curated the exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay, tells CBS News’ Michelle Miller. “You can see a chimney with the smoke. It’s very ordinary—something you generally hide. And the other reason why it was shocking at the time [is] if you look carefully at this painting, it’s just brush strokes. It’s very sketchy; it’s not finished. But there is a signature, and there is a date—’72—so it means that, according to the artist, it is finished.”

In 19th-century France, the art world was ruled by the Paris Salon, an exclusive exhibition organized by the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, which sought to preserve tradition in a time of war and civil unrest. The 1874 exhibition was organized by a group of 30 outsider artists who were frustrated by the Salon’s elite nature and adherence to conservative standards.

“Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment” displays some of the works from the controversial 1874 show, such as Camille Pissarro’s Hoarfrost and Berthe Morisot’s The Cradle, alongside establishment-approved paintings of the same era, like Jean-Léon Gérôme’s L’Eminence Grise, which was celebrated at the Salon that year. 

The Impressionists’ exhibition in 1874 showcased nearly 200 artworks, but only four of them sold, as Patry tells CBS News. Monet, for his part, displayed seven pastel sketches and five oil paintings, including Impression, Sunrise, which “went quite unnoticed when it was shown in 1874,” she adds.

The painting usually lives in Paris’ Musée Marmottan Monet, which boasts the world’s largest collection of Monet’s works. Today, the piece is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, but upon its debut, a critic dismissed it as “an impression, indeed.” The artwork’s title, and the criticism, birthed an enduring label for the movement.

Impression, Sunrise is displayed near the end of the show. “So, all the way through, you’re seeing all the other themes, and then, finally, as your big reward, you get to see this iconic work,” Jones tells Town & Country.

“Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment” is on view at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. through January 19, 2025.

Sonja Anderson | READ MORE

Sonja Anderson is a writer and reporter based in New York City.