Impressionism has, then, hitherto been very badly judged.  It is contained in two chief points:  search after a new technique, and expression of modern reality.  Its birth has not been a spontaneous phenomenon.  Manet, who, by his spirit and by the chance of his friendships, grouped around him the principal members, commenced by being classed in the ranks of the Realists of the second Romanticism by the side of Courbet; and during the whole first period of his work he only endeavoured to describe contemporary scenes, at a time when the laws of the new technique were already dawning upon Claude Monet.  Gradually the grouping of the Impressionists took place.  Claude Monet is really the first initiator:  in a parallel line with his ideas and his works Manet passed into the second period of his artistic life, and with him Renoir, Degas and Pissarro.  But Manet had already during his first period been the topic of far-echoing polemics, caused by his realism and by the marked influence of the Spaniards and of Hals upon his style; his temperament, too, was that of the head of a school; and for these reasons legend has attached to his name the title of head of the Impressionist school, but this legend is incorrect.

To conclude, the very name “Impressionism” is due to Claude Monet.  There has been much serious arguing upon this famous word which has given rise to all sorts of definitions and conclusions.  In reality this is its curious origin which is little known, even in criticism.  Ever since 1860 the works of Manet and of his friends caused such a stir, that they were rejected en bloc by the Salon jury of 1863.  The emperor, inspired by a praiseworthy, liberal thought, demanded that these innovators should at least have the right to exhibit together in a special room which was called the Salon des Refuses.  The public crowded there to have a good laugh.  One of the pictures which caused most derision was a sunset by Claude Monet, entitled Impressions.  From this moment the painters who adopted more or less the same manner were called Impressionists.  The word remained in use, and Manet and his friends thought it a matter of indifference whether this label was attached to them, or another.  At this despised Salon were to be found the names of Manet, Monet, Whistler, Bracquemont, Jongkind, Fantin-Latour, Renoir, Legros, and many others who have since risen to fame.  Universal ridicule only fortified the friendships and resolutions of this group of men, and from that time dates the definite foundation of the Impressionist school.  For thirty years it continued to produce without interruption an enormous quantity of works under an accidental and inexact denomination; to obey the creative instinct, without any other dogma than the passionate observation of nature, without any other assistance than individual sympathies, in the face of the disciplinary teaching of the official school.

[Illustration:  DEGAS