4 A New “Salon”

Chapter 4 A New "Salon" Year after year, Monet's paintings were still being rejected by the Salon. More often than not, his three friends—Renoir, Pissarro, and Sisley—were also turned down. They all thought their pictures looked fresh and lively, even if critics said they looked "sketchy" and "unfinished." Monet thought that if they were ever going to make any money, they had to put on their own show. So in 1874, that's what they did. It started two weeks before the Salon show opened. Thirty artists took part. Each day only about one hundred people came to look at their pictures, while thousands flocked to the Salon.

Visitors to the show made fun of it. Not many pictures were sold. People were puzzled by the dabs of bright paint on a canvas. They said each artist must have loaded a gun with paint and fired away at a canvas. They made the most jokes about Monet's paintings. A critic wrote that "Monsieur Monet... seems to have declared war on beauty."

One of Monet's paintings was of two little boats with a red sun rising. The picture needed a title for the exhibit catalog. Monet decided to call it Impression: Sunrise. What made him choose this name? Monet and his friends often talked about the importance of catching the first impression of a scene in a painting. People made fun of the title. Soon all the painters in the show were being called "Impressionists." It was meant as an insult. But Monet and the other painters cheerfully agreed that they were indeed

Impressionists. The Impressionists continued to hold their own show for several years. At the one in 1875, police had to keep people from destroying the canvases with canes and umbrellas. Only a few pictures were sold, and those brought very low prices. Monet once again was asking his friends for loans. Things looked really dark in the fall of 1876, when Camille became ill. Once again, a rich art collector came to Monet's rescue. This time a man named Ernest and his wife Alice bought lots of Impressionist paintings. They were part owners of a Paris department store and they had a large, beautiful home not far from Paris. Ernest asked Monet to come stay there and paint some panels in one of the rooms.

In 1876, Monet spent all summer working at Ernest's house. Camille and Jean joined him there for part of the time. They had good food, servants, and pleasant company. It must have been a wonderful rest for Camille, who was thin and sick.

Once back in Paris, Monet became interested in painting train stations. He painted the crowds, the steam coming from the huge, black locomotives, and the sky through the glass roof of the station. One stationmaster liked to help out Monet. He would order the engineers to blow white smoke if that was what Monet wanted for a picture.