April 15, 1874: A group of young painters, Société Anonyme Coopérative des Artistes, Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs, gives their first exhibition, at the studio of the photographer Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, known professionally as "Nadar," in Paris.
On April 25, the Paris newspaper Le Charivari -- a "charivari" is a parade designed to shame wrongdoers -- printed a review of the exhibition by Louis Leroy. It was titled The Exhibition of the Impressionists, because the most-discussed painting in it was Impression: soleil levant (Impression: Sunrise), painted in 1872 by Claude Monet. To borrow the words of 20th Century singer Harry Chapin, no one could accuse him of being overkind:
The review backfired: Now, everybody wanted to see these paintings. Le Charivari was printed from 1832 to 1937. The exhibition only ran from April 15 to May 15, 1874. But its effect remains.
Claude Monet, 1899.
Photo taken by the aforementioned Nadar.
Impressionism was characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject matter, unusual visual angles, and inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience.
In addition to Monet, the leading Impressionists included Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and an American woman living in Paris, Mary Cassatt.
The development of Impressionism in the visual arts was soon followed by analogous styles in other media, including the "impressionist music" of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel; and the "impressionist literature" of Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, Joseph Conrad and Virginia Woolf.
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April 15, 1874 was a Wednesday. The only professional sport in North America at the time was baseball. And the National Association didn't begin its season until the next day. So there were no scores on this historic day.
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