|
Monet Painting Gallery
Monet
and Impressionism
A Brief History
Home
About Us
Monet: Claude Monet Biography
Monet: Claude Monet Books
To help you locate a
favorite Monet painting
by subject:
Monet
water lily pictures
Monet Landscapes
Monet Gardens
Monet Flowers
Monet Seascapes
Themes by
Monet
London
Venice
Haystacks
La Gare St Lazare
MORE
Claude Monet prints
Selection
of
Famous Impressionist Prints
Sites
to Visit
More
Impressionist Artists
Impressionist
Art Prints
Other
popular artists and subjects
Art-Prints-Posters-Books
FamousArtPrints.com
impressionist
landscapes and
florals on canvas
Impressionist Prints
Miniature Art Prints
(great gifts)
Canvas Art Prints
|
Claude
Monet biography and paintings
Claude
Monet
(1840-1926). French Impressionist painter. He is regarded as the
archetypal Impressionist in that his devotion to the ideals of
the movement was unwavering throughout his long career, and it
is fitting that one of his pictures---Impression: Sunrise (Musée
Marmottan, Paris; 1872)---gave the group his name.
Monet 's
youth
was spent in Le Havre, where he first excelled as a caricaturist
but was then converted to 
landscape painting by his early mentor Boudin, from whom he derived
his firm predilection for painting out of doors. In 1859 he studied
in Paris at the Atelier Suisse and formed a friendship with Pissarro.
After two years' military service in Algiers,Monet returned to
Le Havre and met Jongkind, to whom he said he owed `the definitive
education of my eye'. He then, in 1862, entered the studio of
Gleyre in Paris and there met Renoir, Sisley, and Bazille, with
whom he was to form the nucleus of the Impressionist group. Monet's
devotion to painting out of doors is illustrated by the famous
story concerning one of his most ambitious early works, Women
in the Garden (Musée d'Orsay, Paris; 1866-67). The picture is
about 2.5 meters high and to enable him to paint all of it outside
he had a trench dug in the garden so that the canvas could be
raised or lowered by pulleys to the height he required. Courbet
visited him when he was working on it and said Monet would not
paint even the leaves in the background unless the lighting conditions
were exactly right.
During the
Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) Monet took refuge in England with
Pissarro: he studied the work of Constable and Turner, painted
the Thames and London parks, and met the dealer Durand-Ruel, who
was to become one of the great champions of the Impressionists.
From 1871 to 1878 Monet lived at Argenteuil, a village on the
Seine near Paris, and here were painted some of the most joyous
and famous works of the Impressionist movement, not only by Monet,
but by his visitors Manet, Renoir and Sisley. In 1878 he moved
to Vétheuil and in 1883 he settled at Giverny, also on the Seine,
but about 40 miles from Paris. After having experienced extreme
poverty, Monet began to prosper. By 1890 he was successful enough
to buy the house at Giverny he had previously rented and in 1892
he married his mistress, with whom he had begun an affair in 1876,
three years before the death of his first wife. From 1890 he concentrated
on series of pictures in which he painted the same subject at
different times of the day in different lights---Haystacks or
Grainstacks (1890-91) and Rouen Cathedral (1891-95) are the best
known. He continued to travel widely, visiting London and Venice
several times (and also Norway as a guest of Queen Christiana),
but increasingly his attention was focused on the celebrated water-garden
he created at Giverny, which served as the theme for the series
of paintings on Water-lilies that began in 1899 and grew to dominate
his work completely (in 1914 he had a special studio built in
the grounds of his house so he could work on the huge canvases).
In his final years Claude Monet was troubled by failing eyesight,
but he painted until the end. He was enormously prolific and many
major galleries have examples of his work.
Biography courtesy of Web Museum, Paris
|
