Claude Monet

Claude Monet

Claude Monet is the famous French impressionist painter / artist. Claude Monet was born in 1840 in Paris. Monet ‘s family moved to the port town of Le Havre in 1845. 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. He took his early art lessons from the painter, Eugene Boudin. Boudin, who worked up sketches out -of door ways, encouraged Monet to do the same. Suddenly the veil was torn away…. My destiny as a painter opened out to me, Monet later said.

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 Renoir, Sisley, and Bazille. Monet and Pissaro moved to London for a short while in an effort to escape the Franco-Prussian war in 1870. In 1872 they returned to Le Havre to meet back up with fellow impressionist. These fellow painters banded together to form a society of artists. They gave a public exhibition of their work at the studio of a Paris photographer. Monet exhibited a painting called Impression: Sunrise. His painting gave the group its name, coined in derision by critic Louis Leroy referring to the entire exhibition as Impressionistic. Despite the financial failure of this first exhibit, the Impressionist continued to exhibit together until 1886. Monet met his wife, Camille, who would pose for him in several of his paintings. They were married in 1870, where Camille had two kids before she passed way in 1879.

Monet slowly achieved recognition in the years after the Impressionists disbanded. Monet began to emphasize the atmospheric appearance of landscapes. Monet began working on series paintings. The first in these series was Gare St. Lazare. Monet painted motifs over and over, hoping 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). This was a technique that Monet would pursue for the rest of his life, remaining when others departed, staying true to the Impressionist style.

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 painting different things in different lighting ‘s from his large garden he built. He continued to travel widely, visiting London and Venice several times, along with visiting Norway as a guest of Queen Christiana. His attention was focused on the celebrated water – garden he created in 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. He had a special studio built in the grounds of his house so he could work on the huge canvases that overlooked his massive garden. In his final years he was troubled by failing eyesight, but he painted until the end. He became famous towards the end of his career and his painting live on today as masterpieces.

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