Claude Monet created the world-famous Impression Sunrise. This painting delineated a scene that the sun rising through the mist at the harbor of Le Havre. The loose brush strokes depicted a picture in the mist in the morning, a variety of colors made the water brilliant. Those boats above the water could be seen clearly. It was the visual scene that the painter enjoyed when the sun rising with light and colors in harbor city of France.

From this painting, we might think that the sun was the focus of the light as the brightest point in the painting. However, we would find it not accurately right because the sky was as bright as the sun if we looked at this painting more carefully. Let’s imagine if we make a black and white copy of Impression: Sunrise, we will be surprised to seen that the sun is almost gone. Yes, it is disappeared. And what have happened? To explain this phenomenon in a professional way is that “the older part of the visual cortex in the brain registers only luminance and not color, so that the sun in the painting would be invisible to it.”

This painting broke the bondage of traditional painting, a critic quoted from the title of this painting to ridicule the young innovative painters that Claude Monet represented as Impressionism, This school of painting derived its name from it. And this painting was shown in the first joint exhibition of Impressionist artists in 1874, becoming the most typical works of Monet. The name impressionist also had its story. Shortly after the exhibition of 1874, a critic whose name was Louis Leroy posted a review in the newspaper with the title of “The Exhibition of the Impressionists”.

In the mind of Monet, landscape was nothing but an instantaneous impression. He just painted what he had seen from his window in Le Havre: the sun in the mist and some boats floating on the sea. He searched a proper title for this picture, and then he found it. He made Impression as the title but not Le Havre. Impression was telling people that we have some impression in it when we are impressed through its free and ease techniques.