Claude Monet (1840 - 1926) was a French painter and a founder of the Impressionist movement, whose approach to depicting light and atmosphere transformed European art. [1] His 1872 canvas Impression, Sunrise gave the movement its name after a critic used the word derisively. [2] Over a long career he produced series of paintings recording the same subjects under shifting conditions of light, culminating in the monumental water lily murals of his garden at Giverny. [1]
Early life and education
Monet was born on 14 November 1840 in Paris and spent his childhood in the Normandy port of Le Havre, where he first gained local attention for caricatures. [1] The landscape painter Eugène Boudin encouraged him to work outdoors and to paint directly from nature, a practice that shaped his lifelong commitment to plein air painting. [1] He later studied in Paris, where his associations at the Académie Suisse and the studio of Charles Gleyre brought him into contact with the artists who would form the Impressionist circle. [3]
Impressionism
In the 1860s and 1870s Monet worked alongside Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley and Camille Pissarro, developing a style built on visible brushstrokes, bright unmixed colour and the transient effects of natural light. [1] His painting Impression, Sunrise, shown at the first independent exhibition of the group in 1874, prompted a critic to coin the term "Impressionism," which the artists eventually adopted. [2] The group rejected the conventions of the official Salon and sought instead to capture immediate visual sensation rather than idealised subjects. [3]
Series paintings
From the late 1880s Monet increasingly painted the same motif repeatedly to record the changing appearance of light across hours and seasons. [1] These series included haystacks, poplars, the façade of Rouen Cathedral and views of the River Thames in London, each canvas registering subtle shifts in colour and weather. [1] The method underscored his central interest: not the object itself but the atmosphere and illumination surrounding it. [3]
Giverny and later work
In 1883 Monet settled at Giverny in Normandy, where he cultivated an elaborate garden with a water lily pond and a Japanese footbridge that became his principal subjects for the rest of his life. [1] Despite failing eyesight in his final years, he worked on large-scale decorative panels of water lilies, a group of which he presented to the French state; they were installed after his death in the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris. [1] Monet died at Giverny on 5 December 1926. [1]
Legacy
Monet is regarded as one of the most influential figures in modern painting, and his late abstractions of colour and light are often seen as a bridge toward twentieth-century movements. [3] His works are held by major museums worldwide, and Giverny remains a place of pilgrimage for visitors drawn to the landscapes he immortalised. [1]
