Louis Leroy

For the baseball player, see Louis Leroy (baseball).
Louis Leroy

This is the critic Louis Leroy
Born 1 January 1812
Died 1 January 1885 (aged 73)
French
Occupation Art critic, journalist, playwright, engraver and painter
Citizenship French
Notable works Coining the term impressionism

Louis Leroy (1812 - 1885) was a French 19th century engraver, painter, and successful playwright. However, he is remembered as the journalist and art critic for the French satirical newspaper Le Charivari, who coined the term "impressionists" to satirise the artists now known by the word.

Leroy's review was printed in Le Charivari on 25 April 1874 with the title The Exhibition of the Impressionists. The term was taken from Claude Monet's painting "Impression: soleil levant". Leroy's article took the form of a dialogue between two sceptical viewers of the work:

Impression I was certain of it. I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some impression in it and what freedom, what ease of workmanship! A preliminary drawing for a wallpaper pattern is more finished than this seascape.

The show (Exposition des Impressionnistes) was held in the salon of the photographer Nadar and organized by the Société anonyme des peintres, sculpteurs et graveurs (Anonymous society of painters, sculptors and engravers), composed of Pissarro, Monet, Sisley, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Guillaumin and Berthe Morisot.

The term was subsequently adopted by the artists themselves and has now become the name of one of the most influential art movements in history.

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