The 15 April 1874 has a good claim to be the founding moment of modern art. A group of 31 artists, who’d often been rejected by the official Paris Salon, had decided to stage their own show at 35 Boulevard des Capucines, a photographers’ studio. They included Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley, all of whom were regarded as part of the “avant-garde” (a military term that had only recently acquired its modern meaning). The show had some 3,500 paying visitors (400,000 visited the Salon) and it made a loss. Most of the reviews were negative. But it launched impressionism as a movement.
How did it get the name “impressionism”?
Why was the art felt to be so novel and shocking?
Sign up for The Week’s Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.