150 Years of Impressionism in Amsterdam
In 2024, it will be 150 years since Claude Monet's *Impression, soleil levant* (1872, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris) prompted a critic to write disparagingly about 'The Exhibition of the Impressionists'. This marked a major art-historical event: 'the birth' of Impressionism. In honor of this anniversary, the exhibition 'Vive l'impressionnisme! Masterpieces from Dutch Collections' is on view at the Van Gogh Museum until January 26, 2025.
Impression, rising sun
Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Rising Sun) is a painting by the French painter Claude Monet from 1872, from which the art movement Impressionism derives its name.
The subject of the painting is the port of Le Havre on a foggy day, painted in very loose brushstrokes that suggest the subject rather than truly outline it. In a bluish mist, besides a small boat, we can barely see the masts of a few sailing ships, and in the background, almost invisible in the mist, the quays with cranes and chimneys sketched with a few vertical and diagonal lines. The orange sun, just above the horizon, casts a beam of light on the water. Monet captures the fleeting moment where land, water, and sky in the mist still seem to be one, before the bright daylight sharply defines everything.
According to a very recent study, the most likely date for the creation of the painting appears to be November 13, 1872. The work is signed “Monet 72” in the lower left corner and has been part of the collection of the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris since 1940. The name “Impressionism” quickly became a sensation, but the work itself was forgotten very quickly; it would take until May 1931 before the work was shown to the public again.
The work was exhibited on April 15, 1874, in the former studio of the photographer Nadar at the first exhibition of the Impressionists, organized by the Groupe des Batignolles, the group of friends around Édouard Manet, where they exhibited on their own initiative their works, which were usually rejected by the official academic Salon de Paris. Monet himself said of this canvas in 1897: "I had sent something done in Havre, from my window, the sun in the buoy and in the foreground some masts of ships pointing… They asked me for the title for the catalogue, that really couldn't pass for a view of Havre; I replied: 'put impression'." The catalogue was compiled by Edmond Renoir, brother of the famous painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, who added the subtitle *soleil levant* (rising sun) to *Impression*.
The critic Louis Leroy, who felt that the work was painted rather freely and was essentially unfinished, wrote a scathing critique in the satirical magazine Le Charivari under the title: “The Exhibition of the Impressionists,” thereby unintentionally giving a name to the group of painters surrounding Monet and to the art movement that emerged from this painting style. Incidentally, Leroy was not the only one who could not appreciate the work; Montifaud spoke of a “childish work by a schoolboy who is messing around with paint for the first time.”
In May 1874, the work was purchased by the collector Ernest Hoschedé for the sum of 800 francs. Four years later, upon Hoschedé's bankruptcy, the painting was sold for 210 francs to Doctor Georges de Bellio, who bequeathed the work to his daughter Victorine. In the meantime, the canvas was renamed *Impression, soleil couchant*. Victorine de Bellio donated the painting to the Musée Marmottan in 1940, where it was included in the collection under its new name. It was not until 1965 that the work was catalogued again under its original name. The painting was stolen from the museum in 1985 and recovered in 1990. It has been on display there again since 1991.
Impressionism
Artists such as Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Berthe Morisot, Alfred Sisley, and Paul Cézanne captured the personal experience and the play of light of a specific and ever-changing moment—an impression—in loose brushstrokes and vibrant colors on canvas. Their finest paintings in Dutch public and private collections are displayed side by side with Impressionist pastels, sculptures, drawings, and prints that can also be found in Dutch collections.
But when and how did these French works end up in the Netherlands? And was the Netherlands really ready to embrace a modern art movement from Paris? The exhibition shows how the visionary eye and decisive actions of a number of private collectors, including Theo van Gogh, ensured that various gems found their way to the Netherlands. But which masterpieces have we let slip through the cracks in the Netherlands, and how can that be explained?
In the installation Gallery of Missed Opportunities by light artist Nick Verstand, you can see which Impressionist masterpieces could have been part of the national collection if different choices had been made.
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