the Musée d’Orsay celebrates the birth of this movement with a flamboyant exhibition-event

The Musée d’Orsay celebrates the birth of Impressionism with nearly 160 exceptional works and a breathtaking virtual reality experience.

Until July 24 at the Musée d’Orsay an exhibition opens which marks the birth of one of the most famous artistic movements in the world. 150 years ago, in Paris, it was in fact the first impressionist exhibition. A date and a place to go back to the origins of this movement: April 15, 1874, boulevard des Capucines, in Paris, in Nadar’s workshop.

Artists breaking with classicism, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Morisot, Pissarro, Cézanne and Sisley, decided to do without juries and dealers to show their works freely.

Their paintings, clear and luminous, translate their impressions with a quick and lively touch. Their way of painting “what they see as they see it” is far from academicism. Artists intend to take the modernity train. “France is emerging from the Franco-German war of 1870 lost against Prussia and from a murderous civil war, the Commune. The artist is then expected to recreate a story. The impressionists, for their part, want to paint the world as it is, in full change. In the second half of the 19th century, it was industry, big cities, globalization, and they believed that painting should reflect this modern world.” explains Sylvie Patry, curator of the exhibition.

“The impression of things and their reality”

But where does the word impressionism come from? There are several explanations. Historians are divided. The adjective “impressionist” would have been used ironically by a journalist, Louis Leroy, in front of the painting Print, rising sun by Claude Monet. The work represents the port of Le Havre at sunrise, an orange sphere standing out against a background of mists and blue maritime reflections. “With this “impression”, Monet transgresses customs. He thus affirms his desire to transcribe a fleeting effect of light, a subjective sensation, rather than describing a place.” A few days after the opening of the exhibition, the critic Jean Prouvaire noted that certain paintings above all give “the impression” things and not “their very reality”.

The Musée d’Orsay is celebrating 150 years of Impressionism with a unique exhibition-event with nearly 160 works (paintings, pastels, drawings, sculptures, engravings, etc.), including numerous exceptional foreign loans. The exhibition, Paris 1874. Inventing impressionism wants to revive the first impressionist exhibition opened in Paris on April 15, 1874, in the studio of the photographer Nadar, about twenty minutes from the Salon, a venerable institution. For almost the majority of painters of the time, the Holy Grail was to be accepted by the Salon, an essential showcase. This is where their success and their careers are at stake. The selection is very rigorous. Not all of the artists who are rejected join the independent exhibition, organized by a group of around thirty artists from all backgrounds who want to free themselves from established rules and routes.

Now essential, virtual reality is also present. The experience is breathtaking, tangible down to the smallest detail. For nearly 45 minutes, visitors stroll through Paris in the 1870s and discover the artists Renoir, Monet, Degas, Pissarro, Cézanne, Morizot and their works during the opening evening of the 1874 exhibition.

“Paris 1874. Inventing Impressionism”, Musée d’Orsay, untiluntil July 14, 2024.