Impressionism is a style that today’s art experts and enthusiasts — particularly those visiting the legendary Marmottan Museum in Paris, where Claude Monet’s fabulous work Impression, Rising Sun (which gave the movement its name) is permanently placed — view as an established custom.

Nevertheless, it is interesting to go to the very beginning of this cultural shift in order to understand its origin and its history. It all happened exactly a century and half ago when, on April 15, 1874, the first ever exhibition devoted to this so far unheard of movement was inaugurated in Paris.

The exhibition showcased works by a group of young and enthusiastic artists, such as Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissaro, Alfred Sisley and Paul Cézanne — not to forget the female painter Berthe Morisot, whose nearly 30 paintings are also part of Marmottan Museum’s permanent collection.

To celebrate 150 years of this event, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, located right across the river Seine and facing the Louvre Palace, is currently unveiling some 130 works of these pathbreaking artists, thus allowing visitors to take a fresh look at the event that led a revolution in the world of art. The Orsay exhibition, titled ‘Paris 1874 —The Invention of Impressionism’, shows the works of these painters who were humorously, but also disdainfully, called by the art experts of the era “a clan of rebels who can only work under a blue sky.”

An exhibition in Paris pays tribute to the Impressionists who began their movement 150 years ago

The exhibition at Musée d’Orsay showcases the contradictions and infinite variety of contemporary creation in that spring of 1874, while highlighting the radical modernity of those young artists. The main exhibition also features a virtual reality segment titled ‘Tonight with the Impressionists.’ The goal of the VR exhibit is to have visitors relive that evening of April 15, 1874.

However, all the works by these artists whom we hold in such high esteem today were rejected in 1874 by the Paris Salon of Paintings and Sculptures, the most celebrated and honoured art event of the epoch. Instead of accepting the disappointing event as a defeat, the above-mentioned artists decided to organise an independent exhibition of their chef d’oeuvres, using their own modest resources.

Though they were laughed at by all the experts of the day, their adventure was more than an immense success — it was a revolution that not only created the term Impressionism, but also turned all these painters into legends of the art world.

The name of the movement itself is the result of a rather amusing event. Monet was still undecided over a suitable title for his painting, depicting many boats in the sea lit by a glowing red sun, slowly rising in the background. When a critic insisted on knowing what the artwork was called, a half-confused Monet hesitatingly answered: “Oh, according to my own impression, this canvas only represents a rising sun!”

The critic wrote in his article the next day about a painting titled Impression, Rising Sun. Soon enough, all the art critics of the era started calling Monet’s style Impressionism, a term that soon turned into a part of the artistic vocabulary and came to define a movement that would shake the art world to its very core.

‘Paris 1874 —The Invention of Impressionism’ is on display at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris from March 26-July 14, 2024

The writer is an art critic based in Paris.
He can be reached at zafmasud@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 26th, 2024