Impression Sunrise

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Impression Sunrise: Claude Monet

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Claude Monet Oil Painting - Impression Sunrise

Keywords: Impression, Sunrise

Work Overview: Impression, Sunrise
Artist Claude Monet
Year 1872
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 48 cm × 63 cm (18.9 in × 24.8 in)
Location Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris

Impression, Sunrise (French: Impression, soleil levant) is a painting by Claude Monet. Shown at what would later be known as the "Exhibition of the Impressionists" in April 1874, the painting is attributed to giving rise to the name of the Impressionist movement. Impression, Sunrise depicts the port of Le Havre, Monet's hometown, and is his most famous painting of the harbor.

Impression, Sunrise is displayed at the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris.

Monet visited his hometown of Le Havre in the Northwest of France in 1872 and proceeded to create a series of works depicting the port of Le Havre. The six painted canvases depict the port "during dawn, day, dusk, and dark and from varying viewpoints, some from the water itself and others from a hotel room looking down over the port".[1]

Impression, Sunrise became the most famous in the series after being debuted in April 1874 in Paris at an exhibition by the group "Painters, Sculptors, Engravers etc. Inc."[2] Among thirty participants, the exhibition was led by Monet, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley, and showed over two hundred works that were seen by about 4,000 people, including some rather unsympathetic critics.[3]

In 1985 the painting was stolen from the Musée Marmottan Monet by Philippe Jamin and Youssef Khimoun. It was recovered and returned to the museum in 1990,[4], and put back on display in 1991.

Monet claimed that he titled the painting Impression, Sunrise due to his hazy painting style in his depiction of the subject: "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.'" In addition to this explanation for the title of the work, art historian Paul Smith claims that Monet might have named the painting Impression to excuse his painting from accusations of being unfinished or lacking descriptive detail, but Monet received these criticisms regardless of the title.[6]

While the title of the painting seemed to be chosen in haste for the catalogue, the term "Impressionism" was not new. It had been used for some time to describe the effect of paintings from the Barbizon school. Both associated with the school, Daubigny and Manet had been known to use the term to describe their own works.[7]

In critic Louis Leroy's review of the 1874 exhibition, "The Exhibition of the Impressionists" for the newspaper Le Charivari, he used "Impressionism" to describe the new style of work displayed, which he said was typified by Monet’s painting of the same name.

Before the 1860s and the debut of Impression, Sunrise, the term "impressionism" was originally used to describe the effect of a natural scene on a painter, and the effect of a painting on the viewer. By the 1860s, "impression" was used by transference to describe a painting which relayed such an effect.[8] In turn, impression came to describe the movement as a whole.

Initially used to describe and deprecate a movement, the term Impressionism "was immediately taken up by all parties" to describe the style,[7] and Monet’s Impression, Sunrise considered to encapsulate the start of the movement and its name.

Impression, Sunrise depicts the port of Le Havre at sunrise, the two small rowboats in the foreground and the red sun being the focal elements. In the middle ground, more fishing boats are included, while in the background on the left side of the painting are clipper ships with tall masts. Behind them are other misty shapes that "are not trees but smoke stacks of packboats and steamships, while on the right in the distance are other masts and chimneys silhouetted against the sky."[3] In order to show these features of industry, Monet eliminated existing houses on the left side of the jetty, leaving the background unobscured.

Following the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, the regeneration of France was exemplified in the thriving port of Le Havre.[6] Art historian Paul Tucker suggests that the contrast of elements like the steamboats and cranes in the background to the fishermen in the foreground represent these political implications: "Monet may have seen this painting of a highly commercial site as an answer to the postwar calls for patriotic action and an art that could lead. For while it is a poem of light and atmosphere, the painting can also be seen as an ode to the power and beauty of a revitalized France."[3]

The representation of Le Havre, hometown of Monet and a center of industry and commerce, celebrates the "renewed strength and beauty of the country... Monet’s ultimate utopian statement." Art demonstrating France’s revitalization, Monet’s depiction of Le Havre’s sunrise mirrors the renewal of France.

Style
The hazy scene of Impression, Sunrise strayed from traditional landscape painting and classic, idealized beauty. Paul Smith suggested that with this style, Monet meant to express "other beliefs about artistic quality which might be tied to the ideologies being consolidated by the emergent bourgeoisie from which he came."[9] Loose brush strokes meant to suggest the scene rather than to mimetically represent it demonstrate the emergent Impressionist movement. In the wake of an emergent industrialization in France, this style expressed innovative individuality. Considering this, Smith claims that "Impression, Sunrise was about Monet’s search for spontaneous expression, but was guided by definite and historically specific ideas about what spontaneous expression was."[9]

Colour
The group of studies made from Monet’s hotel room were made from canvas with a base layer of gray in different tones. The layered effect provides depth in spite of imprecise details, creating a rich and tangible environment that seems like Le Havre, though not an exact likeness. Gordon and Forge discuss boundaries and the use of color in Impression, Sunrise, claiming that sky and water in Impression, Sunrise are hardly distinguishable, boundaries between objects are not obvious, and the paint "becomes the place" and effect, the colors of the paint melding together in "its glooming, opalescent oneness, its foggy blankness, its featureless, expectant emptiness that resembles, for the painter, an empty, uninflected canvas." They comment that the accents of blue-gray and orange cutting through the haze "are like last-minute revelations that had to wait, not only for the particular glimmer of orange to burn its way through the fog and find its reflective path onto the water and Monet’s eye but for the canvas itself, pregnant with the foggy space outside, to be ready to receive it."

Luminance
Desaturated version of the painting: the sun is virtually invisible.[11]
Although it may seem 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.[11] 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."[11]

Livingstone said that this caused the painting to have a very realistic quality, as the older part of the visual cortex in the brain — shared with the majority of other mammals — 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 other primates — which perceives colour.

In an interview with Maurice Guillemot for La Revue Illustrée, Monet reflected on his handling of landscape like the port of Le Havre in consideration of the movement and the 1874 exhibition: "A landscape is only an impression, instantaneous, hence the label they’ve given us-- all because of me, for that matter. I’d submitted something done out of my window at Le Havre, sunlight in the mist with a few masts in the foreground jutting up from the ships below. They wanted a title for the catalog; it couldn’t really pass as a view of Le Havre, so I answered: "Put down Impression." Out of that they got impressionism, and the jokes proliferated...."[13]

Following 1874 and the rise of the Impressionist movement, Monet recalled Impression, Sunrise by naming other works with similar titles. The subtitles recalled Impression, Sunrise in style and influence, though their subjects varied. Examples of similarly titles works are Effet de brouillard, impression in 1879, L’Impression in 1883, Garden at Bordighera, Impression of Morning in 1884, Marine (impression) in 1887, and Fumées dans le brouillard, impression in 1904. These works then seemed as a continuation of his Le Havre scene, "one of the sequence of canvases in which he was seeking to capture the most fleeting natural effects, as a display of his painterly virtuosity."[14] Evoking the name of Impression, Sunrise, but also providing stylistic connections, the later paintings are similarly "quite summary and economical in handling, and depict particularly hazy or misty effects" that is characteristic of Monet’s impressionism in particular.[14]

While the movement and the painting initially garnered controversy, Monet’s Impression, Sunrise gave rise to the name and recognition of the Impressionist movement, arguably exemplifying more than any other work or artist the Impressionist movement as a whole in style, subject, and influence.

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Throughout the years, Claude Monet’s Impression, Sunrise has been celebrated as the quintessential symbol of the Impressionist Movement. This renowned work of art which illustrates a view of the port of Le Havre in north-western France is considered to be one of Monet’s “most poetic expressions” of his engagement with France’s revitalization efforts after the Franco-Prussian War.[1] Unlike other artworks of the time, the subject matter and specific painting techniques evident in Impression, Sunrise seek to transcribe the feelings initiated by a scene rather than simply rendering the details of a particular landscape. This act of expressing an individual’s perception of nature was a key characteristic and goal of Impressionist art, and is a common motif found in Monet’s paintings. While Impression, Sunrise and Monet’s artistic technique fell under harsh criticism at their outset, Monet’s masterpiece gave birth to a new movement and created a revolution in the world of art.

Widely regarded as Monet’s single most famous painting, Impression, Sunrise was completed during the late nineteenth century in 1872. The most significant aspect of the painting is its credit with giving the Impressionist Movement its name. When the painting was first shown to the public in the L’Exposition des Révoltés—an exhibition independent of the Salon that was organized by Monet, Bazille, Pissarro, and their friends—many critics were extremely disapproving of the rebel group’s work, especially that of Monet.[2] In the April issue of Le Charivari, a critic named Louis Leroy judgmentally entitled his article “Exhibition of the Impressionists,” thereby coining the term inspired by the title of Monet’s work Impression, Sunrise. Although this oil painting was disparaged during the time of its creation, today it is viewed as an austere example of the mindset and purpose behind Impressionism. Currently, Impression, Sunrise is located in the Musée Marmottan in Paris, France.[3]

The imagery of this work of art presents a focus on the calm feeling of a misty maritime scene. Slightly below the center of the painting, a small rowboat with two indistinct figures floats in the bay. The early morning sun is depicted rising over the foggy harbour with ships and other various boats at port. The shadows of the boats and figures and the reflection of the sun’s rays can be seen on the water’s surface. Monet incorporates a palette of mostly cool, dull colors into the painting with blues and grays, but also includes splashes of warm colors noticed in the sky and the red-orange sun. This usage of a noticeably bright color draws attention to the main focus of the painting, the sun. Numerous vertical elements can be found throughout this hazy landscape. To the left of the center of the canvas, a four-masted clipper ship enters the harbor while smoke-stacks of steamboats fill the atmosphere. Cranes and heavy machinery can be detected to the right side of the painting. The emissions of the factories, ships, and machinery mix with the early rays of the sun to generate a sort of beauty that is “both surprising and seductive.” [4] Off in the distance, more vertical forms break the horizon—chimneys of various factories and masts of other ships may be observed.

Through the examination of specific characteristics apparent in the painting, we are able to identify the distinguished artistic style of Monet. As a notable artist, Claude Monet was acknowledged for his awareness of color harmony and his ability to enforce viewers’ attention. He was widely known for capturing rich atmospheric effects and a particular moment in time in his works of art.[5] To accomplish these feats, Monet employed broken brushwork and heightened color. He was also very sensitive to the moods created by a landscape; in his own words he explained his method of depicting the feeling of a scene:

When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have in front of you, a tree, a field…Merely think, here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact color and shape, until it gives your own naïve impression of the scene.[6]

Throughout his work, Monet maintained an imaginative grasp of the essential structure and pattern of the subject he was painting. Other artists such as Boudin, Jongkind, and Courbet had a strong influence on this ability of Monet’s, which can be recognized in his landscape paintings made during the fifteen-year span of 1865-1880.[7] He was capable of extracting meaningful design from apparently casual scenes, thereby emphasizing the true nature of a place. This manner of illustration can be seen in Impression, Sunrise—he places an accent on the fogginess of the harbor that is created by the smoke from the steamboats, which relates to its chief status as a major trading port.

An important part of Monet’s artistic style was the way in which he transformed an outdoor painting into a finished masterpiece. Every painting Monet created had to meet a certain criteria before he could begin to consider it a finished piece, and even then he could find the potential for change and growth in a painting and deny its completion—“Anyone who says he has finished a canvas is terribly arrogant.” [8] Using different terms to distinguish each step, Monet followed a precise process in order to make his paintings. The beginning step was called the croquis which defined the first outline of the artist’s first idea actually drawn out on paper or canvas. He referred to the second step as the esquisse which was a quick, small trial work focused on the painting’s composition. The esquisse was characterized by a free and bold handling of the pen or brush and expressed the “heat of improvisation.” [9] The next stage of a painting was named ébauche, used to describe the first real painting done on the canvas that evolves into the completed work in the end of the process. Pochades, the fourth step, were viewed as draft works that were abrupt but performed with more care and attention than an esquisse. Monet explained his fifth stage of a painting as an etude, a work painted entirely outside but not deemed a finished painting. Closely related to etudes were impressions, the step that Impression, Sunrise refers to. Impressions were stages of a painting used to capture natural effects and the emotions radiated by an outdoor scene. The tableau was the last stage of the painting process and considered the final product which needed no other preparations.

Over time, Monet’s painting techniques evolved and matured from the type he implemented in Impression, Sunrise to that seen in his later, larger paintings such as his water lilies. One area in which he developed his technique was pigment mixture. While Impression, Sunrise displays several different tones of color, Monet’s later works exhibit a wider variety of color juxtaposed against one another. Monet would come to use layer upon layer of paint in his future paintings. He applied many layers to succeed in creating the perfect combination of pigment, but also to cover undesired portions when he changed his mind in the process of completing a painting, which happened often. Up to fifteen layers of paint have been counted in a cross-section by scientists who have analyzed Monet’s paintings.[10] Another future technique not seen in Impression, Sunrise that Monet employed was corrugation. This technique is seen in several of his water lily paintings. The effect of corrugation was produced by layering thick, but open brushstrokes of paint onto the canvas which then served as the textural basis for the thin strokes of color placed on top. Monet applied these thin strokes perpendicularly to the under-layer so as to lightly brush the ridges of the texture. If Monet acquired layers of paint that were too heavy, he often used a technique called scraping down to remove the unwanted or excess paint. A final technique Monet later utilized in his water lily paintings was named leaching. In this process, Monet would squeeze the paint out of the tubes onto paper blotters to drain the oil from the paints. This technique was commonly used when he desired a softer and more matte-like appearance.[11]

Because Impression, Sunrise is regarded as the painting that gave birth to the Impressionist Movement, we can clearly observe specific details in this work of art that allude to its Impressionist style. An important characteristic of Impressionist painting is the type of brushstrokes utilized. Short, thick strokes of paint are applied to the canvas to quickly capture the essence of the subject. The brushstrokes visible in the water in Impression, Sunrise create a sense of rhythm which reflects the feeling produced by the motion of the sea. Another feature of Impressionist painting was the distinct application of color. Colors are placed side by side and are mixed optically by the viewer’s eye. This technique is evident in the sky and water portions of Impression, Sunrise. Lastly, Impressionist painters consigned heavy emphasis on natural light—a practice that can be detected throughout Monet’s work including the sunlight reflection in this particular artwork. To achieve this natural ambience of light, he often mixed his pigments with large amounts of lead white.[12] During his career, Monet’s innate skill to capture this effect was recognized through his reputation as the “incomparable painter of [. . .] light.” [13]

There are many cultural influences that permeate Impression, Sunrise. The masterpiece is a combination of two themes in landscape painting that would have been extremely familiar during the late nineteenth century. Scenes of sunrises and French ports were subjects that were commonly portrayed in artworks of this time; therefore Monet’s decision to combine these two topics is logical.[14] We can also explain his choice of subject matter through his own personal background. Le Havre port, the one seen in Impression, Sunrise, was located in Monet’s hometown. He was extremely familiar with this area of France and had special connections to the harbor itself. Therefore, viewers and researchers can clearly recognize why he would select this location as the main subject in many of his works.

One cultural event that had an immense effect on the artwork of Monet was the Franco-Prussian War. Lasting from 1870-1871, the war was a conflict between the Kingdom of Prussia and the Second French Empire. France ultimately lost the war, marking the end of Napoleon III’s empire, and was forced to relinquish the territory of Alsace-Lorraine to Prussia. While the war only lasted a year, the results of the war were damaging to French government, society, and morale. As France began its recovery from the war, individuals began to unite for the purpose of reconstructing the nation. Monet had a heavy engagement with the revitalization of French pride and spirit, depicting his fervor in many of his paintings made at that time. In particular, his Impression, Sunrise strongly emphasizes France’s determination to rebuild and recover from the devastation of the war.[15] Since the 1850s, Le Havre had slowly grown to become the second largest port of France. In Impression, Sunrise, Monet’s inclusion of many large ships in the painting depicts this fact. After the Franco-Prussian war, however, the harbor experienced a more steady increase in population and business. The expansion of the port was seen in the early 1870s as a testimony to France’s post-war renewal.[16] At the time of Impression, Sunrise’s creation, Le Havre harbor was the site of many of the city’s largest and most important industries. Many indications of this fact can be found in Monet’s painting. The haziness in Impression, Sunrise is due not only to the morning mists of the channel, but also to the emissions produced by factories and steam ships. The heavy machinery noticeable in the artwork was part of a construction project that was taken up following the armistice signed between Prussia and France.[17] Although it is hard to believe an industrialized, smoggy scene could be viewed as one of beauty, to the people of the time like Monet, this scene would have been a source of inspiration for the prosperity of the future.

At the height of Impressionism, critics and artists began to doubt whether or not the movement would have a lasting effect and value. Even Monet, the most highly regarded Impressionist painter and leader of the style, questioned the permanence of his work.[18] It was around this time that Monet’s subject matter and method of painting somewhat changed. He began to depict objects that held more religious and historical significance, such as his “Liberty Trees” paintings, which referred to the trees that people planted during the French Revolution to signify French democracy.[19] By illustrating items that had important connotations, Monet hoped to bring a similar importance to Impressionism. He also started painting the same objects or scenes over and over again, but at different times of the day. This method is manifested in his series paintings, such as his grain stacks, water lilies, and the Rouen Cathedral in northwestern France. While these series represented his interest in light effects, they also symbolized Monet’s attempt to find stability in his artwork.

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Through the generosity of Mrs. Donop de Monchy (see Monet’s Friends) and Michel Monet, the Marmottan Monet Museum owns the largest Monet collection, from Impression, Sunrise to Giverny's Water Lilies.

This collection, presented in a room specially built for this purpose, gives the public the unique opportunity to admire all the significant stages of the master painter's career and follow the evolution of his technique: from his youth caricatures of Le Havre’s personalities or Parisian critics, to the paintings inspired by his Giverny garden.

The 1966 Michel Monet donation immediately turned the museum into the custodian of the largest Monet collection in the world. The collection is all the more historic, since it came directly from the artist's descendants.
Among others the collection holds the pieces painted on the Normand coast: the Trouville beach, Camille, and the movement's eponymous painting Impression, Sunrise; the Argenteuil pieces: walks or railway bridges; the views of Paris: the Tuileries, the Saint-Lazare station; the travel memories: the London Parliament, the Charing Cross Bridge; the water lilies, Japanese bridges, and rose alleys that will lead to the Grandes Décorations.

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The great French artist, Claude Monet, was responsible for introducing the idea of impression to the art movement of those who painted what they perceived at a certain point in time. Impressionists paint colors perceived with natural light, with little importance given to details. Shapes are formed by how the colors of the scene are detected, forming pictures naturally. Monet originally named the painting Marina, but changed the title to Impression, Sunrise (Impression, Soleil Levant) for the 1874 Exhibition catalog listing. Little did he know, Impression, Sunrise would become the name of a historical art movement.

Conception of the Painting
The scene painted in this Monet painting was of the harbor of LeHavre, in France. It characterizes Monet’s work throughout his lifetime, and is sketched in oil paints on canvas, and executed quickly, to capture the atmospheric or natural light moment. While on vacation, Impression, Sunrise was sketched, while Monet was looking out his window one spring morning. Monet’s quick sketches, or pochade, capture a particular light effect, therefore are very spontaneous. Because Monet did not feel that there was enough detail to title the painting Harbor of LeHavre, the name Impression, Sunrise was given, and Monet titled most of his paintings with “Impression” for this reason.

Description
In this Monet painting, the sun is placed against the dawn sky, with orange and blue-violet contrast. Because it was a very misty morning on the harbor, the clouds are colored by the rising sun, in the dense mist, and the boats take shape, without great definition. The abbreviated, darker brushstrokes in the water, create motion, and ripples, while hints of orange and yellow appear as a reflection of the sunrise in the harbor water. The ships’ masts are sometimes disrupted by the rippling water, as the silhouettes of the boats seem to be disappearing into the mist.

An interesting observation about this painting is that although the sun seems to be much brighter than the rest of the scene, if viewed removing all color, the sun almost disappears. This supports Monet’s mastery of depicting light effects on scenes which he painted. This accurate reproduction of Monet’s impression, and resulting mood of atmospheric conditions dominate, and limit the importance of great detail. The viewer almost feels that he is looking out the same window that Monet did that Spring morning. Once called an abstract piece of unfinished work by critics, over one-hundred years later, Monet’s work Impression, Sunrise is part of a historic art movement, and Monet helped to make a name for the Impressionistic artists as well.

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