Announcing The First Impressionist and Claude Monet NFT
“Spring Sunshine” as the world’s first tokenized Impressionist art work
Non-fungible token (NFT) technology is the latest innovation driving culture forward by radically challenging our preconceptions of “art” and empowering artists to experiment in ways never before possible.
The task of fully realizing the possibilities of this technology is left up to a new era of artists, creators, and collectors. However, this new medium also allows us a chance to revisit and revitalize the works of the previous generations of masters who’s contributions laid the cultural foundation we are familiar with today.
We believe there is no better work with which to facilitate this occasion, as Claude Monet and the Impressionists perfectly epitomize the defiant pioneering spirit being carried forward by today’s Cypherpunks and cryptocurrency enthusiasts.
The Impressionists
In the nineteenth century, a group of young visionaries began challenging the strict conventions and gatekeeping that were actively stifling the growth and evolution of art. They sought to paint their personal impressions of the surrounding world, capturing fleeting moments in time as they perceived and felt them. These renegades of self expression, led by the likes of Monet, Manet, Pissarro and Renoir, combated not just the orthodoxy of their day but also the government backed institutions which enforced it. Rejecting the officially sanctioned exhibitions and art competitions who systematically discriminated against them, they chose to self organize their own independent alternatives. Despite these efforts largely amounting to financial failure, they remained undeterred. This tenacity earned them the ire of the art establishment and made them the target of scathing criticism.
Indeed, the very term “impressionist” was coined by French writer Louis in a derogatory manner. Leveraging the cutting wit of a critic to play off the title of the painting “Impression, Rising Sun” (1873), Leroy attacked and laid heavy satirical critiques in the press against Monet and the other “impressionist painters” featured at one of these independent exhibitions.
It stuck, but not as Leroy would have liked.
After persevering through many long years of merciless derision, the Impressionists would continue to gradually, then suddenly, become one of the most celebrated styles in the history of western art. The very force of their cultural impact continues to reverberate today after well over a century, having cleared the path for so many post-impressionist artists and movements of note. Today, their very name stands as a timeless testament to the power of vision and conviction in overcoming stifling conformity, unabating ridicule, and fierce opposition.
While every human innovation is unique to the cultural and technological context of its time, the lessons they reflect are universal and enduring. Innovation necessitates creativity. Manifesting creativity, demands free expression. To genuinely express one’s self, with complete indifference to the disposition of the crowd, is always a courageous act of rebellion.
The Cypherpunks
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes” -Mark Twain
Today NFTs are actively crossing their own chasm of mainstream acceptance, as the artists behind them seek to make their own impressions on what is gradually unfolding as the most significant artistic disruption in recent memory. This is fundamentally thanks to the work of the Cypherpunks, who like the Impressionists and many other such countercultures before them, are building their own alternative movement rooted in a vision which stands in stark contrast to the status quo.
Since announced on the Cypherpunk mailing list in 2008, the defining trait of the Bitcoin project and others it has spurned lies in their peer-to-peer nature and ability to circumvent all manner of gatekeepers and middlemen. Such privileged positions are unfortunately still the norm in the world of fine art, setting the stage for exciting opportunities as these spaces collide.
Besides serving as simply a new medium, NFT auctions present the first open and permissionless alternative to traditional auction houses, saving on fees, and greatly widening accessibility to all manner of both artists and collectors. Catalogue raisonnés, often the source of much controversy, also stand to be transformed by the permissionless nature of blockchain time-stamping and attestations for transparent record keeping.
While NFTs have taken noteworthy strides in a short period of time, the most disruptive developments are surely to come. With each notable work introduced, the path is paved for other creators to push even further.
By offering Spring Sunshine as the first tokenized Impressionist painting for direct auction via smart contract, we hope to simultaneously celebrate two world shaping movements that epitomize the same eternal human struggle, while continuing to push forward NFTs as a legitimate, democratizing, and empowering source of livelihood for today’s artists.
Attributed to Monet’s earliest period of professional work in the 1860s, Spring Sunshine is a striking early example of the personal rebellion pursued by Monet in close collaboration with his friend Renoir. Together in the countryside of France, they pioneered the techniques that would later come to be recognized and celebrated as Impressionism.
Painted at the astonishing age of 25, Spring Sunshine is a masterwork of brush and pallet knife and one of only a handful of attributed Monet paintings done on wood due to a lack of funds for canvas in his earliest years. This makes it a preciously rare historical link to the humble beginnings of a defiant artistic career and defining cultural phenomenon.
The winner of the Spring Sunshine NFT auction will receive both the token, and the physical masterwork which it represents. The auction is set to begin this week at a starting bid just below the estimated $2 million value of the painting. New details and information will be published via official social media. Further details of the work, provenance, and physical delivery can be found on the official website here.
As the world continues to digitize at an increasing pace, NFTs too will only continue to proliferate and grow in importance and value. In the near future, NFTs promise to become prominent hallmarks of virtual worlds and properties where they will hold the same, and then potentially even greater, weight than analog art does today in the physical world. As these possibilities begin to be explored and gradually realized, the winner of this auction will possess a unique piece of history in both worlds, as well as a bridge from an iconic artistic revolution of the past to one of the present.
