His Most Famous Painting (Impression Sunrise Or Impression, Soleil Levant) – Claude Monet

Claude Monet is one of the greatest French ‘Impressionist’ painters of all times. His “Impression Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant)” is counted among the most famous paintings in the world. Made in 1872, this painting gave the ‘Impressionist’ movement its name. This oil on canvas painting, measuring 48cm x 63cm (19″ x 24 3/8″), gives a view of the Le Havre Harbor in France.

“Impression Sunrise” is, as mentioned above, instrumental in imparting ‘Impressionism,’ its identity. Although, it was painted somewhere around 1873, it is registered as an 1872 creation. Monet had once explained the title saying, “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 catalog, it couldn’t really be taken for a view of Le Havre, and I said: Put Impression.”

The debut exhibition of “Impression Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant)” was held in 1874. Louis Leroy, a critic inspired by the painting’s name, wrote a negative review on it in Le Charivari newspaper titled, ‘The Exhibition of the Impressionists,’ thereby unknowingly christening the movement as ‘Impressionist.’ “Impression Sunrise” was once stolen in 1985 from the Museum in Paris, Mus