Impression, Sunrise
Encyclopedia
Impression, Sunrise is a painting by Claude Monet
. It gave rise to the name of the Impressionist
movement.
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 by Philippe Jamin and Youssef Khimoun but recovered in 1990. Since 1991 it has been back on display in the museum.
Although it seems that the sun is the brightest spot on the canvas, it is in fact, when measured with a photometer, the same brightness (or luminance
) as the sky.
Dr. Margaret Livingstone
, a professor of neurobiology at Harvard University, said "If you make a black and white copy of Impression: Sunrise, the Sun disappears [almost] entirely."
Livingstone said that this caused the painting to have a very realistic quality, as the older part—shared with the majority of other mammals—of the visual cortex in the brain registers only luminance and not colour, so that the sun in the painting would be invisible to it, while it is just the newer part of the visual cortex—only found in humans and primates—which perceives colour.
Claude Monet
Claude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
. It gave rise to the name of the Impressionist
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
movement.
History
Dated 1872, its subject is the harbour of Le HavreLe Havre
Le Havre is a city in the Seine-Maritime department of the Haute-Normandie region in France. It is situated in north-western France, on the right bank of the mouth of the river Seine on the English Channel. Le Havre is the most populous commune in the Haute-Normandie region, although the total...
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
Louis Leroy
Louis Leroy was a French 19th century engraver, painter, and successful playwright. However, he is remembered as the journalist and art critic for the French satirical newspaper Le Charivari, who coined the term "impressionists" to satirise the artists now known by the word.Leroy's review was...
, inspired by the painting's name, titled his hostile review of the show in Le Charivari
Le Charivari
Le Charivari was an illustrated newspaper published in Paris, France from 1832 to 1937. It published caricatures, political cartoons and reviews...
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 by Philippe Jamin and Youssef Khimoun but recovered in 1990. Since 1991 it has been back on display in the museum.
Colour and luminance
Luminance
Luminance is a photometric measure of the luminous intensity per unit area of light travelling in a given direction. It describes the amount of light that passes through or is emitted from a particular area, and falls within a given solid angle. The SI unit for luminance is candela per square...
) as the sky.
Dr. Margaret Livingstone
Margaret Livingstone
Margaret Livingstone is a researcher at Harvard Medical School in the field of vision. She authored the book Vision and Art: The Biology of Seeing.-References:...
, a professor of neurobiology at Harvard University, said "If you make a black and white copy of Impression: Sunrise, the Sun disappears [almost] entirely."
Livingstone said that this caused the painting to have a very realistic quality, as the older part—shared with the majority of other mammals—of the visual cortex in the brain registers only luminance and not colour, so that the sun in the painting would be invisible to it, while it is just the newer part of the visual cortex—only found in humans and primates—which perceives colour.