FREE ESSAY ON IMPRESSION, SUNRISE

IMPRESSION, SUNRISE

Impression, Sunrise
Towards the later half of the nineteenth century, many artists were pursuing new avenues
in their artistic representations. They were perturbed at the rigid and constricting
regulations of the Salon, and some artists decided to form and independent exhibition.
Cluade Monet and his friends founded the Societe anonyme de artistes, etc. . . and
continued to pursue an alternative to the Salon. On April 15th, 1874 this group of
artists held their own show that directly challenged the authority of the Salon.
Eventually, Monet and his colleagues became known as the Impressionists which stems from
one of his works that was displayed at the first show, Impression, Sunrise. This painting
was hardly recognized at the primier exhibition, but has since become a very significant
work. Monet had just returned to Paris after the end of the Franco-Prussian War, and he
felt that the country was in desperate need of a resurgence of nationalism. His painting,
Impression, Sunrise, is a landscape of the avant-port of Le Havre which was the second
largest port in France. The depiction of a richly commercial location can be interpreted
as patriotic ode to a revitalized France. "It shows a site that all Frenchmen would have
been proud of and seems to celebrate the renewed strength and beauty of the country. . ."
(Tucker 157). This canvas testifies to the city's economic and commercial prowess through
innovative techniques that possess a sense of renewal. These new methods of rendering an
image became the backbone for a new art movement, Impressionism.
In conclusion, Claude Monet and his comrades were pioneers in the field of art. Their
antagonistic views of the traditional Salon led to new ground-breaking techniques for
representing an image on a canvas. Their paintings at the first Impressionist Exhibition
of 1784 contained sketchy renderings and an unfinished feel which left some critics
looking for more. In contrast, a number of critics praised the Impressionists for their
bold triumph of a new art that embodied the rejuvenated land of France. A new art
movement for a new France that began with the painting Impression, Sunrise.