CLAUDE MONET: IMPRESSIONIST PAINTER

"It really is appallingly difficult to do something which is complete in every respect, and I think most people are content
with mere approximations. Well, my dear friend, I intend to battle on, scrape off and start again..." (Claude Monet)

Oscar Claude Monet was born November 14, 1840 in Paris, France. He was the second son of Louise-Justine and Claude-Adolphe Monet. In 1845, when he was five years old, his family moved to the town of LeHavre, on the northern coast of France, where Monet spent the majority of his youth.

His early experimentation with art was in drawing caricatures of his teachers, and other local individuals and selling these to Gravier the local picture frame craftsman. Living in LeHavre, Monet had plenty of occasion to observe the appearance of the sea and sky as well as the effects of light upon the water. Monet loved the water all of his life. Jokingly he said that he would like to be buried in a buoy.

Cezanne supposedly said of him, "Monet is just an eye - but God, what an eye!" At age 16, he met an artist Eugin Boudin who gave him some art lessons. It was Boudin's opinion that an artist should paint from his first impression of a scene. Monet's life long career in art was spent "capturing" these first impressions on canvas. He also told the young Monet that he should be painting out of doors. The youth seems to have immediately put this advice into practice. By 1858, he was exibiting at the Le Harvre art exhibition. " Monet decided early in life that he wanted to become a painter. His aunt, Marie-Janne Lecadre, (who was also a painter) encouraged him in the field of art. After the premature passing of his mother Louise in 1857, young Oscar-Claude developed a closer relationoship with his aunt who gave him money to study art in at the Swiss academy "Atelier Suisse," in Paris when he was nineteen years old. His art education was interrupted by when he spent two-years in military service stationed in Algeria, a period of time resulting in typhoid fever. Monet's aunt intervened in obtaining his release from military duty on the condition that he enroll in the formal l'École des Artistes for an art education. Monet however, chose to study at Gleyre's salon and studio, where he established lifelong friendships with Frédéric Bazille, Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley. The three began painting together en plein aire (in the outdoors) in the forest of Fontainbleau, south of Paris. Simultaneously Monet a young woman named Camille Doncieux. They fell in love, and married. In 1876 the Monets met a banker and his wife, by the name of Ernest and Alice Hoschedé, with whom they enjoyed a lasting friendship.

Monet's favorite was Camille. In his painting "Women in the Garden," he used Camille as the subject for all four women. Two sons were born of their union, the first son Jean was born in 1867, and second son Michel in 1877. In 1878 the Monets were invited to move into the home of the Hoschédés, in Vétheuil. From the moment of the second infants birth, Camille’s health began deteriorating. Monet was experiencing difficulty selling his paintings and, Camilles illness caused her to need constant care. The majority of the money Monet made from his paintings went for paints, art supplies and medicine. As their financial condition became worse, the rent payments fell behind. Camille died a year after the move to Vetheuil.

In 1862, Monet entered the studio of Gleyre in Paris. Monet settled in the village of Saint-Michel, and during that summer he worked alongside Renoir and began to emerge as the leading figure in the new techniques of outdoor impressionism.

Claude Monet and his family lived in several locations, mostly in Argenteuil, from 1871-1878. In 1874, Monet together with some other artists, formed the Société Anonyme des Artistes. He submitted his painting Impression, Sunrise for the group’s first exhibition. It was actually an early painting of Monet's for which the term "impressionism" was coined. The painting was of a sunrise, so Money entitied it "Impression: Sunrise." Impressionist art is a style in which the artist captures the image of an object as someone would see it if they just caught a glimpse of it. Monet created the "Grandes Décorations" (1918-1926) on a large-scale. These paintings which reflected the light captured in his lily pond, were painted on panels larger than 6 feet high and 9 feet wide.

In 1883, Monet took a train trip, and it was while looking out of the train window, that he discovered the village of Giverny, located in a rural farming community on the River Seine, 40 miles Northwest of Paris. He liked the picturesque village with it's quaint stone cottages, terraced gardens and 300 inhabitants, who were mostly farmers, with a few middle-class families. He rented a large farm house wich he purchased 7 years later, as his financial situation improved. The house overlooked a valley of the Ru, with a small stream on the property that is a tributary of the River Epte. By the end of April had moved in. The house had vegetable garden and an orchard. Monet cultivate a water-lily garden.

In 1896, Monet began an art study of the Seine river near his home at Giverny, arising before sunrise so as to be at his easel when the sun arose. After sharing breakfast with his step-daughter Blanche, who was also a painter, Monet would climb into the flat-bottomed boat anchored to the river bank, from which he would sketch and paint.

He was diagnosed with a cataract in his right eye in 1912, and this condition spread to both eyes, forcing him to rely upon his memory of colors and shapes to paint his artwork. In the 1920's, even while Monet was going blind, he began an art project consisting of 12 large canvases (each measuring 14 feet in width) of water lilies, which he planned to donate to France. His doctor estimated that Monet was entirely blind in his right eye and had only 10 percent vision in his left. In 1923 he had eye surgery to remove the cataracts from his eyes. Claude Monet died on December 5, 1926.

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