From Rejection to Rebellion; The Impressionists Changed Art Forever

Who doesn’t love a rebel? Even when they have a cause. We love those who come along and just shake things up. It’s hard to imagine that one of the most popular art styles to see in galleries now was once considered not just provocative but downright rebellious. Long before we had punk music, we had ‘punk art’, and we’re talking about the 17th century. Born in different eras but with the same results in general culture. It is the art movement Impressionism, which led the way to produce art outside of the norms and to break the rules and guess what, it’s still the most popular form of art. Read more in, From Rejection to Rebellion: The Impressionists Changed Art Forever

Image on the left – The Theatre Box, 1874 (oil on canvas) by Renoir, Auguste (1841-1919); 65×49.5 cm; Courtauld Institute of Art, London, England.

Before the birth of the art movement known as Impressionism, it’s hard to imagine that the French art scene, for almost ten years, had been undergoing a crisis. Art that once turned heads was now considered the norm. Artists produced ideas without any real goals to renovate their field or move concepts forward. What had been done before had worked, so why bother to change? 

This was when The Impressionists entered, younger artists (Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Edouard Manet, Berthe Morisot, Edgard Degas…) with ideas about art that had never been seen before and in doing so were provoking society. They were seen as mad-men, as shocking, and different, and the public went as far as calling them rebels.

The new and mesmerising style was born in the 1860s, these ‘Young Turks’ turned away from painting the more typical biblical scenes, portraits of important figures, and historical representations that had gone before.

Instead, they created life, emotions, colours, and movement. Quick brushstrokes, painting outside, modern life, all of which had never been done before. These vibrant new works began to fill up the streets of Paris, yet the public wasn’t happy.

On top of that, they were despised by the Jury of the Salon (the important movers and shakers in the art world). The Salon was an exhibition of the best paintings of Paris and was held every year between 1667 and 1890; the Jury were certainly not open to new ideas.

Artists submitted their paintings to the jury, who would accept or deny them. The Jury agreed to take only a few paintings from Impressionists and declined most of them. These artists were just seen as provocative and ridiculous, and they were talked about as ‘imbeciles without a sense of decency’. 

Because of their reputation around town, it was very hard for them to make money. But things changed when they met Art Dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, who kept buying their works, and saw their potential. But despite his gestures and interest in the works, his gallery clients were still appalled.

This led the impressionists to finally break with the old art system of showing at The salon. They decided that they would create their own Salon instead of conforming to the historical practice.

On April 15th 1874, they created their own Salon, called the Société des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs et Lithographes, on the Boulevard des Capucines in Paris. 31 artists were invited to collaborate and exhibit their work. This project was a sign of rebellion winning against the system.

They asked some renowned artists to take part in their new exhibition so they wouldn’t become the Salon of the refused and unknown artists.

In that sense, they were rebellious in every angle of their art; from the bright colours to the emotional connectedness of their paintings to the way they chose to represent themselves and sell their works.

They broke the codes of how to produce art. They were mostly painting in the open air, representing landscapes or specific scenes with very few subjects. Their representation was made of quick brushed movements with very bright colours, not necessarily showing the reality but instead their impression of the reality.

They would represent the movement of the sun as it would go during the day; the movement of leaves on a tree through the wind; and the movement of waves in the sea, these details of the world weren’t represented before and were now the centre of the paintings.

It is Claude Monet’s painting Impression, Sunrise, that gave the name to the movement. It was first used derogatorily by the critics but then took a whole other meaning when the artists decided to embrace it. The painting is the representation of a scene in Le Havre port in northern France.

Impression, Soleil Levant, 1872 (oil on canvas) by Monet, Claude (1840-1926); 48×63 cm; Musee Marmottan Monet, Paris, France.

Impression, Sunrise, was the most looked at painting during the Salon but many couldn’t quite understand what was represented in the painting. Hence why it therefore became Impressionism.

Claude Monet would be considered the most famous of all of the Impressionist rebels. He took his inspiration from Eugène Boudin, who was considered a precursor to the movement. Monet loved Boudin’s way of representing landscape through feelings and bright colours, creating a unique representation of a moment.

This is why Monet went on to make most of his paintings “en plein air” (in the open air); he had more liberty to recreate his feelings through a landscape than the real representation of a subject through another portrait.

Monet wasn’t the only one part of this new wave of rebellious artists. Paul Cézanne, the only one not living in Paris, was maybe the most experimental out of all of them. He was often called a madman with his anarchic paintings. After he met with Monet, Cézanne took the movement to another level instead of trying to replicate what the others were doing. He wanted to make his art and participate in this rebellion in his unique way.

While he wasn’t often in Paris, he still shared the same values and ideas with the other painters who were all rejected by the Salon. He became more and more against it and was one of the artists who initiated the project of making their own Salon.

A Modern Olympia, 1873-74, (oil on canvas) by Cézanne, Paul (1839-1906); 46.2×55.5 cm; Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France

Auguste Renoir was another of the big painters of the movement. Renoir was particularly aware of the rules as he was enrolled at the Paris Ecole des Beaux-Arts (art school) in Charles Gleyre’s workshop, where he met Claude Monet in 1860.

He excelled in his nude classes by representing the model according to the norms of the time, with few colours and realistic representation. But this wasn’t what he wanted to do; his goal was to represent bodies the way his impressions were, with far more colours and life in the paintings.

The Dancer, 1874, (oil on canvas) by Renoir, Auguste (1841-1919); 142.5×94.5 cm; National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA

But despite his desire to follow his own ideas, the need to be accepted by the Salon was still very important for him. Ultimately changing some paintings to possibly stand a chance of being accepted.

Frédéric Bazille and Alfred Sisley also met Renoir and Monet at the Charles Gleyre’s workshop. These two other painters had a very similar style to Monet and nowadays can often be mistaken for one or the other. These painters were fanatics of the two other major figures of their movement: Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas. 

Degas and Manet often joined at the Nouvelle-Athènes restaurant, where their fanatics would tag along to learn more about the techniques. 

Both painters had a friendship filled with rivalry about who would achieve the most in representing emotions in paintings. Degas was more of an intellectual and found interest in modern life. His most famous paintings revolved around dance and his representation of the movement.

The Dancing Class, 1870 (oil on canvas) by Degas, Edgar (1834-1917); 83.5×77.2 cm; The Met, New York, USA

Edouard Manet could be considered the first painter of the movement. He mainly painted everyday life scenes and represented them through his feelings of each instant.

In his work, Manet mostly cared about the impact he could have on the Jury of the Salon and the vision of the public on this brand-new way of producing art. While having a rivalry with Degas, Manet was the mentor of the only female in the movement: Berthe Morisot. 

While being a woman in this industry was not easy, Berthe Morisot had clear objectives; to have the same opportunities as men. Her relationship with Manet built her desire to represent the emotions of life even more. Her pathway feminist; in many ways, she even more rebellious than the men in the group.

The Harbor at Lorient, 1869 (oil on canvas) by Morisot, Berthe (1841-1895); 43.5×73 cm; National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA

While mentoring other painters, Manet wanted to use his art as a voice to advocate for his ideas, which he thought were rational compared to all the fuss Paris was making about them.

Manet had prohibited Berthe Morisot from going and exhibiting, as she was finally making her name and couldn’t be associated with these madmen. But as rebellious as she was, she went on to exhibit her work. A man wouldn’t decide what she did with her art.

Mother and Sister of the Artist, 1869-70 (oil on canvas) by Morisot, Berthe (1841-1895); 101×81.8 cm; National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA

These artists allowed art to be about emotions and free will with colours, light, outside subjects, and more. Monet went on to inspire many modern artists, such as Vincent Van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Jackson Pollock, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and David Hockney. 

Boulevard des Capucines, 1873–74 (oil on canvas) by Monet, Claude (1840-1926); 80.3×60.3 cm; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, USA

A new film, Dawn of Impressionism: Paris, 1874, retraces the history of these rebellious artists from their beginnings at the Salon to the huge criticism they had to undergo until the breakthrough of their project, which snapped the rules and became an uprising against the system set up at the time.

The director Ali Ray made an ode to the painters who created the movement of Impressionism and changing art forever. To do so, he immersed the movie into exhbitions at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris and The National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, which revisted the Salon created by the Impressionists.

Wandering in a museum would never be the same anymore; their punk actions transformed art, and their rebellious attitude freed the art world. When the modern viewer looks at these candy colours of outdoor spaces with loose brushstrokes, it’s hard to imagine them as being the punks of their day, that they were seen as insane and that their rebellious spirits changed art forever. Thankfully their madness is our gain.

Find more about the film here Dawn of Impressionism: Paris, 1874, a film by Ali Ray in cinemas on March 18th 2025

If you enjoyed reading From Rejection to Rebellion: The Impressionists Changed Art Forever, then why not read Songs That Carry the Challenges of the World

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