Lecture 42: Manet and Monet—The Birth of Impressionism
with the “Bloody Week” of May 2128, during which the last 147 supporters
of the Commune were massacred, as we see in another photo, Corpses of
Executed Communards (1871).Art historians often talk about the “painting of modern life” in late-19th-
century France, but the politics of modern life affected everyone, artists
included, although not every artist reÀ ected politics in his or her work.
Monet had already seen military service and had no love for the emperor;
thus, he crossed the Channel, followed by Camille and their son, Jean. In
England, he joined Camille Pissarro and their future dealer, Paul Durand-
Ruel. From this period, we see The Thames below Westminster (1871). The
dark pier in the foreground played against the Houses of Parliament makes
this a memorable picture.Manet, who had a surprisingly resonant response to the politics of the day,
produced two lithographs at around this time, including Civil War (1871).
The aged and poverty-stricken Daumier also was still in the game, producing
a lithograph of a woman—Monarchy—in a cof¿ n; the picture is captioned,
And all this time they maintained she never felt better! (1872).Monet returned from London and soon produced the wonderful painting that
accidentally gave its name to a disparate group of painters, then to a whole
movement, Impression: Sunrise (1873 [misdated 1872]).This painting was number 98 in the ¿ rst group exhibition of those painters
who would soon become known as the Impressionists. It has been
reported that Monet had not yet titled his painting when the ¿ nal list was
being compiled and, upon being pressed, decided on this title, in French,
Impression, soleil levant. An art critic, Louis Leroy, wrote a review of the
exhibition and played with heavy-handed irony on the word impression.
Another critic borrowed Leroy’s satiric use of the painting’s title to refer to
the “School of Impressionism.” As a style name, Impressionism is even less
helpful than most, yet people generally think they know what it is. Ŷ