The Île des Impressionnistes (), or Île de Chatou, is an island in the

Seine ) , mouth_location = Le Havre/Honfleur , mouth_coordinates = , mouth_elevation = , progression = , river_system = Seine basin , basin_size = , tributaries_left = Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle , tributarie ...

located to the west of

Île-de-France , timezone1 = CET , utc_offset1 = +01:00 , timezone1_DST = CEST , utc_offset1_DST = +02:00 , blank_name_sec1 = Gross regional product , blank_info_sec1 = Ranked 1st , bla ...

, between the communes of

Chatou Chatou () is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. Chatou is a part of the affluent suburbs of western Paris and is on the northwest side of the Seine river about from the city's center. Histo ...

Yvelines Yvelines () is a department in the western part of the Île-de-France region in Northern France. In 2019, it had a population of 1,448,207.Rueil-Malmaison Rueil-Malmaison () is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, in the Hauts-de-Seine department, Île-de-France region. It is located from the centre of Paris. In 2017, it had a population of 78,152. It is one of the wealthiest suburbs of Par ...

Hauts-de-Seine Hauts-de-Seine (; ) is a Departments of France, département in the Île-de-France Regions of France, region, Northern France. It covers Paris's western inner Banlieue, suburbs. It is bordered by Paris, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne to the e ...

, on the left bank.

Toponymy

The island got its name because it was popular with

impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

painters, including Claude Monet, in the second half of the 19th century.

History

Towards the end of the 18th century, the great and the small island of Chatou were connected by a dike to reinforce the current and thus improve the efficiency of the ''

Machine de Marly The Machine de Marly, also known as the Marly Machine or the Machine of Marly, was a large hydraulic system in Yvelines, France, built in 1684 to pump water from the river Seine and deliver it to the Palace of Versailles.Thompson 2006, p. 251 ...

''. The small island is also joined to the commune of

Croissy-sur-Seine Croissy-sur-Seine (, literally ''Croissy on Seine'') is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It is a suburban town on the western outskirts of Paris. Many expatriates reside in Croissy, given a ...

by a long dike. The left arm of the Seine is called Marly arm and right arm, widened and expanded in the 19th century, is called the Rivière Neuve Arm. The late 19th and early 20th century was a unique period. In the 1860s, the ''

Maison Fournaise The Maison Fournaise (; "House of Fournaise") is a restaurant and museum located on the Île des Impressionnistes, a long island in Seine river in Chatou, west of Paris. History In 1857, Alphonse Fournaise bought land in Chatou to open a boat r ...

'' prospered there. Artists like

Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...

and

Guy de Maupassant Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (, ; ; 5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) was a 19th-century French author, remembered as a master of the short story form, as well as a representative of the Naturalist school, who depicted human lives, destin ...

often described the pleasures of the boating and the Maison Fournaise in its short stories
Réalier-Dumas
decorated the north facade of the House (his restored fresco is still visible today).

Gustave Caillebotte Gustave Caillebotte (; 19 August 1848 – 21 February 1894) was a French painter who was a member and patron of the Impressionists, although he painted in a more realistic manner than many others in the group. Caillebotte was known for his early ...

who possessed several boats introduced his friends to the boats and to the sail. A dam was built in 1933 (demolished in 2013) and a hydraulic test laboratory was established there. Located in the extension of the historic Parisian axis, the island served as an extension to the latter, unless, as shown in a study, its northern part remains for a long time only in a wasteland. After the war, many installations were carried out by

EDF EDF may refer to: Organisations * Eclaireurs de France, a French Scouting association * Education for Development Foundation, a Thai charity * Électricité de France, a French energy company ** EDF Energy, their British subsidiary ** EDF Luminus, ...

on this site which became the Chatou Research and Test Center. The ''Parc des Impressionnistes'' was inaugurated in 1980. Between 1982 and 2003, the ''Maison Fournaise'' and the ''Maison Levanneur'' were restored and the ''Centre National de l'Estampe et de l'Art Imprimé'' (CNEAI) was opened. File:P1030758 parc des impressionistes.JPG, Parc des Impressionistes. File:Barge at Chatou lock 001.jpg, Barge next to Île de Chatou. File:P1030787 vue de la seine depuis le parc des impressionistes.JPG, View of the

from the Parc des Impressionistes.

Events

* The since 2017. * The Disko Park festival 2018 in Chatou. * The Island Festival organized by the CNEAI.

References

{{Reflist Islands of the River Seine Monuments historiques of Île-de-France