NPR’s Susan Stamberg continues here series of reports from the birthplace of Impressionism:

[audio:http://www.artmarketmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/NPR-on-Impressionism.mp3|titles=NPR on Impressionism]

In 1872, in the French port city of Le Havre, 32-year-old Claude Monet made a painting that would give an art movement its name. Monet called his painting Impression, Sunrise. It was a quick, brushy harbor scene — small boats and watery reflections in pinks and blues and oranges. When Monet displayed the painting in Paris, along with similar works by artist friends, a sneering critic called the show “The Exhibition of the Impressionists” — and a movement was baptized.

Visitors to the Andre Malraux Museum on the Le Havre waterfront can see what the great impressionists saw — the English Channel, full of glints and glimmers as light catches its currents.

[…] The impressionists broke all the formal academic rules — they used quick brush strokes, changed perspective, made their shadows out of color, not black. And it all started with a young painter, sitting by the water’s edge in Le Havre.

Monet’s Canvas Cathedrals: A Life Study of Light (NPR/Morning Edition)