“I had submitted something done in Le Havre, from my window, the sun in the mist and a few masts of ships in the foreground … They asked me the title for the catalog; it could not really pass for a view of Le Havre, so I replied: ‘Put Impression.’ From that came ‘Impressionism,’ and the jokes proliferated.” —Claude Monet, 1985
Claude Monet’s Impression, Soleil Levant, 1872, oil on canvas
Who did it take to set the art world straight about the painting that launched an entire movement?
A Texas astrophysicist
by JAKE CIGAINERO
A Texas State University astronomer and physics professor has settled a debate that has been churning for more than 140 years.
Before Claude Monet painted his misty Water Lilies at Giverny, he painted a foggy, early-morning scene of Normandy’s Le Havre port. The painting, originally titled Impression, is considered the founding work of Impressionism — and gave the movement its name. But over the years, historians and writers have mangled the details of the when/what/where. It has been called both a sunrise and sunset. Catalogs have flip-flopped between the years 1872 and 1873. One writer called the picture a view of the Seine from a Paris suburb.
Texas State University astrophysicist Donald Olson
To mark its 80th anniversary, the Musée Marmottan Monet museum in Paris asked TSU’s Donald Olson, who calls himself a “celestial sleuth,” to bridge art and science by using his “forensic astronomy” expertise to set the record straight. Based on a sophisticated study comprising more than 400 19th-century photographs plus moon phases, the sun’s position, a historical map and detailed weather archives, Olson placed Monsieur Monet in a window at the Hotel de L’Amirauté on November 13, 1872, around 7:35 a.m., thus once and for all closing the book on the debate.
Excerpts from TSU’s release in September, outlining just some of the components of Olson’s hypothesis: “For several other Monet paintings from Le Havre, we can be certain that the artist depicted the topography of the port accurately,” Olson said. “Impression, Soleil Levant likewise appears to be an accurate representation of a sparkling glitter path extending across the waters of the harbor, beneath a solar disk seen through the mist accompanying a late fall or winter sunrise.” … To further narrow the possible dates, Olson then looked at the tides. Since the large sailing ships could only enter and exit the shallow outer harbor during a few hours near the time of high tide, he used computer algorithms to calculate the tides of that era. … Weather reports were the next clue in Olson’s detective work. … Six dates remained after eliminating [days]with stormy, rainy or windy weather and heavy seas. To narrow the field even further, Olson examined the smoke columns rising over the harbor on the left side of the painting. The smoke appears to be blowing to the right, which would indicate a wind from the east.
This is not the first time Olson has employed such forensic astronomy, in the art world or otherwise. He has used his precise methods relative to the Boston Tea Party, Julius Caesar’s invasion of Britain, Shakespeare, Geoffrey Chaucer, Walt Whitman, Edvard Munch and Vincent van Gogh. The cases are chronicled in his book Celestial Sleuth: Using Astronomy to Solve Mysteries in Art, History and Literature, out this year.
The latest investigation, though, is surely a most satisfying one, and it is presented alongside Monet’s works and other master impressionists — Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro — in the museum’s exhibition “Monet’s Impression, Sunrise: The Biography of a Painting” through January 18. The painting’s life is also mapped out in a book by the same name.
JAKE CIGAINERO, a native Texan, lives in Paris, where he is studying for a dual master’s degree in international affairs and journalism at the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po).
