Tate Introductions: Impressionists

In 1874, a French satirical magazine ran a mocking headline: “Exhibition of the Impressionists.” The article described a bewildered exhibition-goer wiping his spectacles, thinking they are smudged, before exclaiming, in front of Camille Pissarro’s Hoarfrost (1873), “What on earth is that?” Claude Monet had included an on-the-spot study in the exhibition and called it Impression, Sunrise (1872). A few days later, a sympathetic critic explained, “they are impressionists in the sense that they...