Impression, Sunrise

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 harbour of Le Havre in France, using very loose brush strokes that suggest rather than delineate it. Monet explained the title later: 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: 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. Monet painted the sun as having almost exactly the same luminance as that of the sky, a condition which suggests high humidity and atmospheric attenuation of light. This detail relies on...