Impressionism: the story of a look that became revolution

Monet paints the port of Le Havre in a blue and gray atmosphere crossed by an orange sun. The boats, masts and chimneys are not detailed with the precision expected of an official landscape. They appear through the mist. When the work was included in the 1874 catalog, Monet chose the title Print, rising sun, who assumes the perceptual character of the scene.

In the satirical newspaper The Charivari, Louis Leroy publishes a dialogue review which makes fun of the exhibition. He uses the title of Monet to describe these painters as "impressionists". The term suggests a simple sketch, a sensation prior to the completed painting. But this attack precisely identifies their novelty: they consider the visual impression not as a draft, but as a complete subject.

The word circulates, first with negative connotations, then as a claimed designation. In 1877, during the third exhibition, the participants used it openly and even published a journal entitled The Impressionist. However, not all members always accept etiquette, and their exhibitions continue to accommodate varied approaches. The name simplifies the story as much as it makes it memorable.

Finally, we must distinguish the picture from the movement. Print, rising sun is not a recipe applied by Degas, Morisot, Cassatt or Caillebotte. It gives a name to a constellation. What artists share is not the obligation to paint a port mist, but the belief that painting can start from a current, visible and personal experience.

Historical Impressionism first refers to the network of artists and the eight exhibitions from 1874 to 1886. Its boundaries remain flexible: Manet is a precursor and a companion without exhibiting with the group; Cézanne participated in certain events but soon continued a denser construction; Degas shares independence without adopting Monet's outdoors.

Neo-impressionism appeared in the 1880s with Seurat and Signac. He systematizes the division of colors by a more scientific method, based on separate and regular touches. Seurat exhibits A Sunday afternoon on Grande Jatte Island during the last demonstration in 1886. The presence of the work signals less the peaceful continuity of the group than the emergence of a new generation.

The term post-impressionism then brings together very different artists - Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne, Toulouse-Lautrec - who start from the freedoms won by impressionism to reinforce structure, expression, symbolism or colored intensity. They are not members of the core of 1874. Say that Starry Night is a post-impressionist masterpiece is accurate; presenting it as an impressionist work erases Van Gogh's own choices.

This distinction does not diminish the influence of movement. On the contrary, it makes it clearer. By releasing touch, color, modern subject matter and exhibition circuits, the Impressionists provide several starting points. The following artists do not simply imitate Monet or Renoir: they answer the new question that the group has made possible - what can become of painting when it no longer obeys a single standard?