D-Day, Saving Private Ryan and War Memorials, John Hillman thinks that Le Havre should be remembered for much more than that.

Le Havre nestles on a bank at the mouth of the Seine River as it flows out into the English Channel, the scene of much bloody fighting during the D-Day landings of 1945, and now a living testament to the fact as a concrete UNESCO World Heritage Site.

But long before Normandy became synonymous with invading armies this town was the scene of one of the most critical moments in the history of art, when an unknown painter created a work that’s name would be given to an entire movement, a movement that would change western civilization’s very idea of art and spawn some the most famous works of the 20th Century.

Claude Monet moved to Le Havre when he was five years old and it was from here that he developed his love of painting. Despite his father wanting him to become a grocer he managed to talk his way out of it and attended Le Havre Secondary School of the Arts.

This painting, Impression, Soleil Levant (Impression Sunrise), 1872, of the harbour of Le Havre, was made from Monet’s bedroom window using quick broad brush-strokes to produce the hazy forms and atmosphere of light and shade that, when exhibited in a studio on the Boulevard des Capucines, in April 1874, lead the art critic Loius Leroy to coin the term Impressionism.

The Impressionist’s slapped the art world out of its stagnant demise and fired the creative passions of the young men who followed in their wake. The 29 other artists who exhibited with Monet included Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Morisot, Pissarro and Sisley, artists who would inspire Picasso and all those who followed him.

This little scene of Le Havre harbour changed the art world for good. From now on art stood for rebellion against the concise outline and linear perspective of classic academic painting, and instead focussed on light and atmosphere and a need to capture the immediate visual effect, whilst rejecting historical and classical themes in favour of the contemporary.

Despite being viciously ridiculed by the critics and generally ignored by the public, this painting is a milestone on the journey towards what we now call Modern Art and part of Western Civilisation’s story as much as the discovery of America or the D-Day landings.

You can see Monet’s Impressio, Soleil Levant at the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris or visit the Malraux Museum in Le Havre where you will find the largest collection of Impressionist paintings outside of Paris.

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Image: C. Monet, Impression, Soleil Levant, 1872, Oil on canvas, 48 cm × 63 cm (19 in × 25 in), Musée Marmottan Monet

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