How are you?
Currently, I am
introducing the stories about various artists and their paintings with the
title “Interesting
Art Stories”.
The 43rd story is “Impression,
Sunrise” by Claude Monet.
“Impression, Sunrise” is a painting by Claude Monet that was first shown at the “Exhibition of the Impressionists” in Paris in April 1874 and inspired the birth of the name of the Impressionist movement.
 |
| Claude Monet |
Depicting the port of Le Havre, Monet's
hometown, it is now on display at the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris.
 |
| Musée Marmottan Monet |
Monet visited his hometown
of Le Havre in 1872 and painted a series of six works depicting the port of Le
Havre. This series depicts the varying viewpoints of the sea and the port of Le
Havre from a hotel room looking down over the port at different times such as
dawn, day, dusk, and dark.
 |
| Le Havre (2019) |
This painting became the
most famous in the series after being displayed at the Paris exhibition in
April 1874. Among thirty artists who participated in the exhibition, Monet,
Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley led the
exhibition, and about 4,000 people, including unsympathetic critics, saw more
than 200 works on display at the exhibition.
 |
| Catalogue for the 1874 Impressionist Exhibition |
In 1985, the painting was
stolen by Philippe Jamin and Youssef Khimoun from the Musée Marmottan Monet,
recovered and returned to the museum in 1990 and displayed again in 1991.
Monet claimed that he titled
the painting as “Impression, Sunrise” due to the hazy painting style. The
critic Louis Leroy, who saw the 1874 Impressionist exhibition, wrote a review
about the exhibition for the newspaper Le Charivari, using the term
"Impressionism" to describe the new style of work displayed in the
exhibition, which he said that Monet’s painting represents the term.
 |
| Louis Leroy |
The painting depicts the
port of Le Havre at sunrise, the two small ships in the foreground and the red
Sun as the subject element of the painting, and the hazy scene of the painting
deviates from traditional landscape paintings and the classic, ideal beauty.
There are more fishing boats
in the middle of the painting and fishing boats with tall masts on the left side
of the background. Behind them are other misty shapes that are not trees, but
smokestacks of pack boats and steamship, while on the right in the distance are
other masts and chimneys against the sky. In order to express these features of
industry in the Le Havre at the time, Monet excluded existing houses on the
left side of the jetty from the painting, leaving the background unobscured.
The port of Le Havre, which
flourished after the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71,
was one of the centers of French regeneration. Representing Le Havre, Monet's
hometown and a center of French industry and commerce, this painting represents
the renewed strength and beauty of France and the ultimate utopian ideal of
Monet, demonstrating France’s revitalization after the war.
After the 1874 exhibition
and the rise of the Impressionist movement, although their subjects varied,
Monet recalled the painting by giving similar titles to other works. Examples
of such works are “Effet de brouillard, impression (1879)”, “L’Impression
(1883)”, “Garden at Bordighera, Impression of Morning (1884)”, “Marine
(impression) (1887)” and “Fumées dans le brouillard, impression (1904)”.
 |
| Garden at Bordighera, Impression of Morning (1884) |
In addition to this
painting, Monet's other paintings on the theme of Le Havre are as follows.
 |
| The Sea at Le Havre (1868) |
 |
| The Entrance to the Port of Le Havre (1870) |
 |
| Le Bassin du Commerce, Le Havre (1874) |
 |
| Le Havre, Bâteaux de Peche Sortant du Port (1874) |
 |
| Port of Le Havre (1874) |
Thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment