Impression, Sunrise

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Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant) is a painting by Claude Monet, for which the Impressionist movement was named.

Dated 1872, but probably created in 1873, its subject is the harbor of Le Havre, using very loose brush strokes that suggest rather than delineate it. Monet explained the title later: "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.'"

It was displayed in 1874 during the first independent art show 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.

The painting was stolen from the Musée Marmottan-Monet in 1985 and recovered in 1990. Since 1991 it has been back on display in the museum.

An interesting detail about the painting is that the color of the Sun has almost exactly the same luminance as that of the the sky--which is, of course, not true to nature. This detail however seems to add an eerie quality to the Sun's appearance in the painting, making it stand out against the background sky much more proeminently than it would have in a more realistic rendering.

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