1872 CE: CLAUDE MONET PAINTS IMPRESSION, SUNRISE

–giving name to the impressionist movement

The critics hate it. The subject of the iconic painting, crafted with loose brushstrokes, which suggest, rather than delineate, is a harbor in France, Le Havre.

Monet explained:
“Landscape is nothing but an impression, and an instantaneous one, hence this label that was given us, by the way because of me. I had sent a thing done in le Havre, from my window, sun in the mist and a few masts of boats sticking up in the foreground… They asked me for a title for the catalogue, it couldn’t really be taken for a view of Le Havre, and I said: ‘Put Impression.’”