Claude Monet 1840 -1926
 Monsieur
Monet was born in Paris on November 14, but when still a
child his family moved to Le Havre. Monet did not take
schooling very seriously and so began to draw caricature in
the margins of his books. He became quite proficient at this
and was soon creating caricature portraits of the
townspeople and shop owners in and around Le Havre. In 1858
he met up with Eugene Boudin who encouraged the young Monet
to expand beyond caricature. While Monet was at first not
impressed with Boudin's work or his advice, the younger
artist soon saw the wisdom in Boudin's words and began
exploring nature and it's colors and forms.
In 1861, Monet entered the
cavalry regiment of the military and traveled to Algeria. He
returned to Paris in 1862 and began his artistic study in
Gleyre's studio against the wishes of his family. It was at
Gleyre's studio where Monet met fellow aspiring artists
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, and Frederic Bazille.
But soon these students became dissatisfied with Gleyre's
methods and they moved on. Monet went to Honfleur to work
with Jongkind and Boudin, and it was in Honfleur where Monet
began to emphasize the atmospheric appearance of landscapes.
This was a technique that Monet would pursue for the rest of
his life…remaining, when others departed, true to the
Impressionist style.
Early in his career, Monet
found some success at the Salon. At the 1865 Salon, he
exhibited "The Mouth of the Seine at Honfleur" and "The
Pointe de la Heve at Low Tide". In 1866, his painting of
"Camille" or "The Green Dress" was very well received and
many stories have been recounted about how people
congratulated Edouard Manet mistaking the painting for one
of his (a great embarrassment to Manet to be sure). Camille
posed for Monet in several paintings and in 1870 they
married. She bore him two children but sadly she passed away
in 1879.
In the late 1860's Monet
continued to study landscape painting working with Courbet
at Trouville and working frequently with Renoir at Le
Grenouillere. It was at Le Grenouillere, that the first pure
Impressionist painting took form. It was a radical departure
from academic standards. It was sketchy. And it was poorly
received. During the 1860's Monet met most of his
contemporaries and worked with most of them in various
locations throughout France. In Bernard Denvir's book "The
Impressionists at First Hand", Monet recounts his second
meeting with Edouard Manet:
"It was only in 1869 that
I saw him again, and then we at once became firm friends.
At our first meeting he invited me to join him every
evening at a café in the Batignolles district, where he
and his friends gathered at the end of the day to talk.
There I met Frantin-Latour, Cézanne, Degas, who had
recently returned from Italy, the art critic Duranty,
Emile Zola, who was then making his first foray into
literature, and several others. For my part I used to take
Sisley, Bazille and Renoir there. Nothing could have been
more interesting than the discussions we had, with their
perpetual clash of opinions. They kept our wits sharpened,
encouraged us to press ahead with our own experiments, and
provided us with enough enthusiasm to keep at it for weeks
on end until our ideas became clear and coherent. From
them we emerged more finely tempered, our wills firmer,
our thoughts clearer and less confused."
 In
1870, to escape the Franco-Prussian war, Monet went to
London and was joined there by Lucien Pissarro. Together the
two went to the National Gallery and studied the works of
Turner and Constable. Monet returned to Paris via Holland,
and in 1872 he went back to LeHavre where he painted "An
Impression, Sunrise". It was this painting which gave the
Impressionists their name. It was first displayed at the
First Impressionist Exhibition in 1874, and during this time
and for many years thereafter, Monet struggled with
hostility from critics and often poverty seemed overwhelming
for him. Fortunately his fellow artists often helped soften
these difficult times by helping one another make ends meet
and lending emotional support.
In 1877, the year in which
Courbet died, Monet began working on 'series paintings'. The
first in these series was Gare St. Lazare. Monet painted
motifs over and again, to capture the effect of differing
light on the subject. Other series, which followed Gare St.
Lazare, were the famous Haystacks series (1891), Poplars
(1891), and the Rouen Cathedral (1892). The late 1880's
through the 1890's, Monet's perseverance paid off. He had
his first big success at an exhibition with Rodin in 1889
and he was well on his well to establishing himself as a
successful artist.
1883 Monet settled at
Giverny where he created a magnificent garden. This garden
was the inspiration for most of his later work and inspired
the series Water Lilies and the Japanese Bridge (begun in
1899). As age and deteriorating eyesight descended upon the
artist his works lost almost all sense of form and are now
referred to as 'Abstract Impressionism'. Cézanne once said
that Monet was "only an eye, but my God, what an eye." Monet
died on December 5, nearly blind…he was known to have said
that he "feared the dark more than death."
 Parliament
in the style of Monet By Douglas Carpenter |
 Lilies
like Monet by Douglas Carpenter (detail) |
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