Claude Monet (1840–1926) | Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art Works of Art (19) Essay Claude Monet was a key figure in the Impressionist movement that transformed French painting in the second half of the nineteenth century. Throughout his long career, Monet consistently depicted the landscape and leisure activities of Paris and its environs as well as the Normandy coast. He led the way to twentieth-century modernism by developing a unique style that strove to capture on canvas the very act of perceiving nature. Raised in Normandy, Monet was introduced to plein-air painting by Eugène Boudin ( 2003.20.2 ), known for paintings of the resorts that dotted the region’s Channel coast, and subsequently studied informally with the Dutch landscapist Johan Jongkind (1819–1891). When he was twenty-two, Monet joined the Paris studio of the academic history painter Charles Gleyre. His classmates included Auguste Renoir , Frédéric Bazille, and other future Impressionists.

Monet enjoyed limited success in these early years, with a handful of landscapes, seascapes, and portraits accepted for exhibition at the annual Salons of the 1860s. Yet many of the rejection of his more ambitious works, notably the large-scale Women in the Garden (1866; Musée d’Orsay, Paris ), inspired Monet to join with Edgar Degas , Édouard Manet , Camille Pissarro, Renoir, and others in establishing an independent exhibition in 1874. Impression: Sunrise (1873; Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris), one of Monet’s contributions to this exhibition, drew particular scorn for the unfinished appearance of its loose handling and indistinct forms. Yet the artists saw the criticism as a badge of honor, and subsequently called themselves “Impressionists” after the painting’s title, even though the name was first used derisively. Monet found subjects in his immediate surroundings, as he painted the people and places he knew best. His first wife, Camille ( 2002.62.1 ), and his second wife, Alice, frequently served as models.

His landscapes chart journeys around the north of France ( 31.67.11 ) and to London, where he escaped the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. Returning to France, Monet moved first to Argenteuil, just fifteen minutes from Paris by train, then west to Vétheuil, Poissy, and finally to the more rural Giverny in 1883. His homes and gardens became gathering places for friends, including Manet and Renoir , who often painted alongside their host ( 1976.201.14 ). Yet Monet’s paintings cast a surprisingly objective eye on these scenes, which include few signs of domestic relations. Following in the path of the Barbizon painters , who had set up their easels in the Fontainebleau Forest ( 64.210 ) earlier in the century, Monet adopted and extended their commitment to close observation and naturalistic representation. Whereas the Barbizon artists painted only preliminary sketches en plein air, Monet often worked directly on large-scale canvases out of doors, then reworked and completed them in his studio.

His quest to capture nature more accurately also prompted him to reject European conventions governing composition, color, and perspective. Influenced by Japanese woodblock prints , Monet’s asymmetrical arrangements of forms emphasized their two-dimensional surfaces by eliminating linear perspective and abandoning three-dimensional modeling. He brought a vibrant brightness to his works by using unmediated colors, adding a range of tones to his shadows, and preparing canvases with light-colored primers instead of the dark grounds used in traditional landscape paintings. Monet’s interest in recording perceptual processes reached its apogee in his series paintings (e.g., Haystacks [1891], Poplars [1892], Rouen Cathedral [1894]) that dominate his output in the 1890s. In each series, Monet painted the same site again and again, recording how its appearance changed with the time of day. Light and shadow seem as substantial as stone in his Rouen Cathedral ( 30.95.250 ) series.

Monet reports that he rented a room across from the cathedral’s western facade in 1892 and 1893, where he kept multiple canvases in process and moved from one to the next as the light shifted. In 1894, he reworked the canvases to their finished states. In the 1910s and ’20s, Monet focused almost exclusively on the picturesque water-lily pond ( 1983.532 ) that he created on his property at Giverny. His final series depicts the pond in a set of mural-sized canvases where abstract renderings of plant and water emerge from broad strokes of color and intricately built-up textures. Shortly after Monet died (a wealthy and well-respected man at the age of eighty-six), the French government installed his last water-lily series in specially constructed galleries at the Orangerie in Paris, where they remain today. Laura Auricchio Department of Art & Design Studies, Parsons The New School for Design October 2004 Citation Auricchio, Laura. “Claude Monet (1840–1926).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.

New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. (October 2004) Further Reading House, John. Monet: Nature into Art. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986. Tucker, Paul Hayes. Claude Monet: Life and Art. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. Additional Essays by Laura Auricchio Claude Monet | French painter | Britannica.com French painter Vincent van Gogh Claude Monet, in full Oscar-Claude Monet (born November 14, 1840, Paris , France —died December 5, 1926, Giverny), French painter who was the initiator, leader, and unswerving advocate of the Impressionist style. In his mature works, Monet developed his method of producing repeated studies of the same motif in series, changing canvases with the light or as his interest shifted. These series were frequently exhibited in groups—for example, his images of haystacks (1891) and the Rouen Cathedral (1894).

At his home in Giverny, Monet created the water-lily pond that served as inspiration for his last series of paintings. His popularity soared in the second half of the 20th century, when his works traveled the world in museum exhibitions that attracted record-breaking crowds and marketed popular commercial items featuring imagery from his art . Claude Monet. Underwood & Underwood/Corbis Childhood and early works When Claude, the eldest son of Adolphe Monet, a grocer, was five years old, the family moved to the Normandy coast, near Le Havre , where his father took over the management of his family’s thriving ship-chandlering and grocery business. This event has more than biographical significance, for it was Monet’s childhood, spent along the beaches, and the intimate knowledge he gained of the sea and the rapidly shifting Norman weather, that would one day give rise to his fresh vision of nature. Monet’s first success as an artist came when he was 15, with the sale of caricatures that were carefully observed and well drawn. In these early years he also executed pencil sketches of sailing ships, which were almost technical in their clear descriptiveness.

His aunt, Marie-Jeanne Lecadre, was an amateur painter, and, perhaps at her suggestion, Claude went to study drawing with a local artist. But his life as a painter did not begin until he was befriended by Eugène Boudin , who introduced the somewhat arrogant student to the practice—then uncommon—of painting in the open air. The experience set the direction for Monet, who for more than 60 years would concentrate on visible phenomena and on the innovation of effective methods to transform perception into pigment. Although oil landscapes had been painted at least since the 16th century, they usually were produced in the studio—recollections, rather than direct impressions, of observations of nature. The English painters John Constable and J.M.W. Turner made small oil sketches out-of-doors before 1810, but it is unlikely that Monet knew these studies. He first visited Paris in 1859–60, where he was impressed by the work of the Barbizon-school painters Charles Daubigny and Constant Troyon . To his family’s annoyance, he refused to enroll in the École des Beaux-Arts .

Instead, he frequented the haunts of advanced artists and worked at the Académie Suisse, where he met Camille Pissarro . This informal training was interrupted by a call to military service; he served from 1861 to 1862 in Algeria , where he was excited by the African light and colour. Monet’s choice of Algeria for service was perhaps a result of his admiration for the Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix , whose colouristic work had been influenced by a visit to Morocco in 1832. Britannica Stories Ringling Bros. Folds Its Tent In 1862 Monet returned to Le Havre, perhaps because of illness, and again painted the sea with Boudin, while also meeting the Dutch marine painter Johan Barthold Jongkind . Later that year he continued to study in Paris, this time with the academician Charles Gleyre , in whose atelier he met the artists Frédéric Bazille , Alfred Sisley , and Pierre-Auguste Renoir . After disagreements with their master, the group departed for the village of Chailly-en-Bière, near Barbizon in the forest of Fontainebleau.

It was also during this period—or at least before 1872—that Monet discovered Japanese prints, the decorativeness and flatness of which were to have a strong influence on the development of modern painting in France. This or That? Manet vs. Monet The exceptional achievements of Monet’s prolific youthful period can be measured in works completed between 1865 and 1870, before he had begun to fragment his brushstrokes into the characteristic broken touches that were to become the hallmark of Impressionist style. One of the most ambitious of these early works (which was never finished, supposedly because of negative comments by Gustave Courbet) was Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1865–66; “Luncheon on the Grass”), named after Édouard Manet ’s notorious painting shown in the Salon des Refusés in 1863.

In contrast to Manet’s masterpiece, which was a shocking adaptation of a Renaissance visual idea to a contemporary setting, Monet’s painting, about 15 feet high by 20 feet wide, was an utterly contemporary, yet unprovocative representation of a group of fashionably dressed picnickers in the forest of Fontainebleau. Monet did share with Manet, however, a concern for representing actual scenes of modern life rather than contrived historical, romantic, or fanciful subjects. Thus, Monet’s Déjeuner was an extension, by virtue of a more immediate empiricism, of the Realism of Courbet. Women in the Garden, oil on canvas by Claude Monet, 1866–67; in … Giraudon/Art Resource, New York Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies Impressionism, broadly viewed, was a celebration of the pleasures of middle-class life; indeed, Monet’s subject matter from this period often involved domestic scenes featuring his wife, son, and garden . Yet, painting la vie moderne (“modern life”) was not to be the primary aim of Monet’s art.

Of more significance in his case was his ceaseless search for painterly means to implement his radical view of nature. More so than his ambitious figure paintings, such works as The River (1868) or The Beach at Sainte-Adresse (1867) give a clear accounting of Monet’s advance toward the Impressionist style. In the beach and sea pictures of 1865–67 Monet was plainly not trying to reproduce faithfully the scene before him as examined in detail but rather attempting to record on the spot the impression that relaxed, momentary vision might receive—what is seen rather than what is known, with all its vitality and movement. Boats, buildings, incidental figures, and the pebble beach are swiftly brushed in as flat colour patterns, with little attention paid to their weight or solidity. The Beach at Sainte-Adresse, oil on canvas by Claude Monet, 1867; in the Art Institute of … Mr. and Mrs.

Lewis Larned Coburn Memorial Collection, 1933.439/Photography © The Art Institute of Chicago First Impressionist paintings Monet’s life during the 1860s was precarious and itinerant, and he sold almost nothing; but several works were accepted for exhibition in the yearly Salons, most notably, and with great success, a fine but not yet Impressionist portrait of his future wife, Camille. Having already painted in Paris, Le Havre, Chailly, Honfleur, Trouville, and Fécamp and at other stations between Paris and the sea, Monet ended the 1860s at the Seine River resort known as La Grenouillère, at Bougival, where he and Renoir worked together for the first time. In canvases almost identical in style, they made rapid notations of pleasure-seekers and bathers, rowboats bobbing in the foreground, and the scintillating reflections in the lapping water. Regarded by Monet as “bad sketches,” they were precursors of the Impressionist style.

Both artists’ Bougival studies interpret the light and movement of outdoor life in strong, abbreviating strokes, improvised at the moment of perception, that serve as equivalents for visual experiences never before committed to canvas in such a direct manner. In 1870 at Trouville, in broad, assured gestures, Monet painted a study of Camille on the beach. It is as animated an example of visual realism as had ever been painted: grains of sand remain embedded in the pigment. Camille Monet on a Garden Bench, oil on canvas by Claude Monet, 1873; in the Metropolitan … Photograph by Katie Chao. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, The Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg Collection, gift of Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg, 2002, bequest of Walter H. Annenberg, 2002 (2002.62.1) Connect with Britannica Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest As the 1870s began, Monet continued his pursuit of natural phenomena. In order to avoid the Franco-German War , he left his son and Camille, whom he had just married, and traveled to London.

There, with Pissarro , he was introduced by Daubigny to Paul Durand-Ruel , who was to become his dealer. In 1871 and 1872 he painted canals, boats, and windmills in the Netherlands and worked again at Le Havre. On his return, Monet rented a house at Argenteuil , on the Seine near Paris. The years he lived there mark the height of the Impressionist movement. He helped organize an independent exhibition, apart from the official Salon, of the Impressionists’ work in 1874. Impression: Sunrise (1872), one of Monet’s works at the exhibition, inspired the journalist Louis Leroy to give the group their name.

Poppies; near Argenteuil, oil on canvas by Claude Monet, 1873; in the … Giraudon/Art Resource, New York Opium Wars Monet’s celebrated method of producing works in series, each representing the same motif under different light and weather conditions, was not fully implemented until the 1890s, but what is usually regarded as the first series was executed in or around the Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris during the winter of 1876–77. A total break with the customary Impressionist subjects, these works portray the train engines belching smoke and steam in the great shed, recalling J.M.W. Turner’s Rain, Steam, and Speed—The Great Western Railway of 1844 and prefiguring the mechanical subjects painted by Italian Futurists after 1909. Monet’s life was less happy after he moved to Vétheuil, farther from Paris. In 1876 a liaison began between Monet and Alice Hoschedé, the wife of a department-store owner and collector. Monet had incurred a burden of debts in Argenteuil, and Camille was pregnant and ill.

At Vétheuil the Monets were joined by Hoschedé, who had left her husband, and six of her children. Using funds from her dowry she assumed Monet’s debts and cared for Camille, who died in September 1879. Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare, oil on canvas by Claude Monet, 1877; in … Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection, 1933.1158/Photography © The Art Institute of Chicago By 1881 the original Impressionist group had begun to disintegrate, although it was still to hold two more exhibitions—the eighth and last (in which Monet did not show) in 1886, after the advent of Neo-Impressionism . Only Monet continued with the same fervour to carry on the scrutiny of nature.

Among the sites he chose during the 1880s were Pourville, Étretat, Fécamp, and Varangéville in Normandy; the rugged and isolated Breton island of Belle-Île; the wild Creuse River valley; Menton and Antibes in the Midi; and Bordighera in Italy. In 1886 he made a second visit to the Netherlands, to paint the tulip fields, before important sojourns at Étretat and Belle-Île. Bordighera, oil on canvas by Claude Monet, 1884; in the Art Institute … Potter Palmer Collection, 1922.426/Photography © The Art Institute of Chicago In 1883 Monet, Hoschedé, her children, and Monet’s sons, Jean and Michel, settled at Giverny, a hamlet near Vernon, 52 miles (84 km) from Paris, on the tiny Epte River. There Monet purchased a farmhouse surrounded by an orchard, which was to be his home until his death and is now a French national monument.

After the travels of the 1880s, Monet spent the ’90s at or near Giverny, concentrating on one series after another. Claude Monet’s home in Giverny, France. ©Adam & Chelsey Parrott-Sheffer Stacks of Wheat (Sunset, Snow Effect), oil on canvas by Claude Monet, 1890–91; in the … Potter Palmer Collection, 1922.431/Photography © The Art Institute of Chicago Last years After 1900, two ambitious projects, both far from Giverny, concluded Monet’s search for new motifs. The first (for which he made at least three trips to London between 1899 and 1904) was the extensive multiple series representing the River Thames , the Waterloo and Charing Cross bridges, and the Houses of Parliament . The works—exotic coloration and mysterious romantic mood—recall the Thames paintings of Turner and James McNeill Whistler .

In these paintings it is atmosphere, more than the particularities of these structures, that is Monet’s subject; buildings and bridges are less tangible than the pulsating brushstrokes that give volume to the light-filled fog and mist. The second and last of the architectural motifs Monet pursued was the canals and palaces of Venice. Monet began this series in 1908 and continued in 1909, although he worked on these subjects at Giverny until 1912. Venice was a perfect Impressionist subject, but the light, water, movement, architecture, and reflections in the water are more generalized in these works than the specific weather effects of the haystack and cathedral series. Waterloo Bridge, Sunlight Effect, oil on canvas by Claude Monet, 1903; … © Photos.com/Thinkstock Houses of Parliament, oil on canvas by Claude Monet, 1900–01; in … © Photos.com/Thinkstock In 1893 Monet had bought a strip of marshland across the road from his house and flower garden, through which flowed a tributary of the Epte.

By diverting this stream, he began to construct a water-lily garden. Soon weeping willows, iris, and bamboo grew around a free-form pool, clusters of lily pads and blossoms floated on the quiet water, and a Japanese bridge closed the composition at one end. By 1900 this unique product of Monet’s imagination (for his Impressionism had become more subjective) was in itself a major work of environmental art—an exotic lotusland within which he was to meditate and paint for almost 30 years. The first canvases he created depicting lilies, water, and the Japanese bridge were only about one square yard, but their unprecedented open composition, with the large blossoms and pads suspended as if in space, and the azure water in which clouds were reflected, implied an encompassing environment beyond the frame. The Japanese Footbridge, oil on canvas by Claude Monet, c. 1920–22; in the Museum … Photograph by Stephen Sandoval. Museum of Modern Art, New York City, Grace Rainey Rogers Fund.

© 2008 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris Water Lily Pool, oil on canvas by Claude Monet, c. 1900; in the Art Institute of … Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Larned Coburn Memorial Collection, 1933.441/Photography © The Art Institute of Chicago This concept of embracing spatiality, new to the history of painting and only implicit in the first water-lily paintings, unfolded during the years from 1915 until the artist’s death into a cycle of huge murals to be installed in Paris in two 80-foot oval rooms in the Orangerie of the Tuileries . These were described in 1952 by the painter André Masson as “the Sistine Chapel of Impressionism.” This crowning achievement of Monet’s long, probing study of nature—his striving to render his impressions, as he said, “in the face of the most fugitive effects”—was not dedicated until after his death.

The many large studies for the Orangerie murals, as well as other unprecedented and unique works painted in the water garden between 1916 and 1925, were almost unknown until the 1950s but are now distributed throughout the major private collections and museums of the world. Despite failing eyesight due to cataracts, Monet continued to paint almost until his death in 1926. Water Lilies, oil on canvas by Claude Monet, 1906; in the Art Institute of Chicago. Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection, 1933.1157/Photography © The Art Institute of Chicago Assessment Although critical acclaim was slow in coming, Monet attracted the dedicated support of collectors throughout his career, most notably from Americans who discovered his work in the 1880s. His influence on other artists was wide-ranging, from his near contemporaries such as Vincent van Gogh to a diverse new generation of artists such as Émile Bernard , Pierre Bonnard , Henri Matisse , and Maurice de Vlaminck .

During the years 1886 to 1914, a predominantly American colony of artists gathered around him in Giverny and regarded him as an exemplar of modern French painting. They adopted his fresh palette, subject matter, and spontaneous style, eventually introducing these elements to American art. After his death, Monet’s influence on contemporary art ebbed among the avant-garde, who favoured the more radical examples of artists such as van Gogh, Paul Cézanne , Matisse, and Marcel Duchamp . A revival of interest in his work occurred in the early 1950s. Monet’s epic scale and formal innovations influenced Abstract Expressionist painters such as Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock , and a general scholarly reassessment of his importance began to develop. Wildly popular retrospective exhibitions of his work toured the world during the last decades of the 20th century and established his unparalleled public appeal, sustaining his reputation as one of the most significant and popular figures in the modern Western painting tradition.

Claude Monet Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works | The Art Story Web Services & Hosting by The Computer Studio | Designed by DesArtLab Impressionism Impressionism A movement in painting that first surfaced in France in the 1860s, it sought new ways to describe effects of light and movement, often using rich colors. The Impressionists were drawn to modern life and often painted the city, but they also captured landscapes and scenes of middle-class leisure-taking in the suburbs. Edouard Manet Edouard Manet Edouard Manet was a French painter and a prominent figure in the mid-nineteenth-century Realist movement of French art. Manet's paintings are considered among the first works of art in the modern era, due to his rough painting style and absence of idealism in his figures. Manet was a close friend of and major influence on younger artists who founded Impressionism such as Claude Monet, Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Pierre-Auguste Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir was one of the leading figures of French Impressionism during the late-nineteenth century.

Renoir tended to favor outdoor scenes, gardens bathed in sunlight, and large gatherings of people. Known as a master of light, shadow and color, Renoir was also highly esteemed for his depiction of natural movement on the canvas. In terms of the French Impressionists' lasting popularity and fame, Renoir is perhaps second only to Monet. Alfred Sisley Alfred Sisley Alfred Sisley was an English Impressionist landscape painter who spent much of his life working in France. As an enthusiast of plein air painting, Sisley was among the group of artists that included Monet, Renoir and Pissarro who dedicated themselves to capturing the transient effects of sunlight. He was a true Impressionist and committed landscape painter who never deviated from this style or subject into figurative work like many of his contemporaries. Camille Pissarro Camille Pissarro Camille Pissarro was a French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painter. Known as the "Father of Impressionism," he used his own painterly style to depict urban daily life, landscapes, and rural scenes.

Jacques Louis David Jacques Louis David Jacques Louis David was a French neoclassical artist who is best known for his historical and mythological paintings. In 1774, he won the coveted Prix de Rome prize. His most famous paintings include 'The Oath of the Horatii,' 'The Death of Marat' and 'The Coronation of Napoleon.' He was Napoleon's official court painter until the regime dissolved and David exiled himself to Brussels. Eugéne Boudin Eugéne Boudin Eugéne Boudin was a French marine and landscape painter who worked primarily in the second half of the nineteenth century. His reputation steadily grew throughout his long career, eventually being awarded the Legion of Honor in 1892. His plein air method of working had a significant influence on the young Monet and consequently the Impressionist movement. The French Salon The French Salon The Salon was a biannual Paris exhibition that, in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, became the most important regular exhibition in Europe. Initially restricted to members of the French Academy, it was later opened up; however, it remained strongly associated with the Academy's conservatism, and this eventually encouraged artists to exhibit outside of its confines.

Eugène Delacroix Eugène Delacroix Eugène Delacroix was a mid-nineteenth-century French painter and pioneer of European Modernist painting. Known primarily as a Romantic, Delacroix's paintings were passionate in their depictions of love, war and human sensuality, earning the artist both praise and controversy in his time. His preoccupation with color-induced optical effects and use of expressive brushstrokes were crucial influences on Impressionism and Pointillism. Jean Frédéric Bazille Jean Frédéric Bazille Jean Frédéric Bazille was an Impressionist landscape painter. Coming from a wealthy background, he helped his fellow artists, including Monet, Sisley and Manet with money and materials. His career and life were cut short, dying in battle during the Franco-Prussian War at just 29 years old. Romanticism Romanticism Romanticism was a nineteenth-century movement that celebrated the powers of emotion and intuition over rational analysis or classical ideals. Romantic artists emphasized awe, beauty, and the sublime in their works, which frequently charted the darker or chaotic sides of human life. John Constable John Constable John Constable was an English Romantic painter.

He is chiefly known for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his English home. He was not elected to the Royal Academy until he was 52 years old. His work remained largely unnoticed in England until later into his career, a fact which was due in part to his seemingly old-fashion artistic style. J.M.W. Turner J.M.W. Turner J.M.W. Turner (Joseph Mallord William Turner) was a mid-nineteenth-century British painter and watercolorist. Considered a key forerunner to the French Impressionists and the American Hudson River School of painters, Turner is known in history as "the painter of light." His trademark land- and sea-scapes are categorized as Romantic and Naturalist, given the artist's expressive and poetic application of natural light. Turner was among the last great pre-modern painters. Felix Nadar Felix Nadar Félix Nadar was the popular moniker of Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, nineteenth-century French artist, photographer, balloonist and journalist. Nadar was a champion of the Impressionists, best known for his portrait photographs of the significant personalities of Parisian avant-garde.

Abstract Expressionism Abstract Expressionism A tendency among New York painters of the late 1940s and '50s, all of whom were committed to an expressive art of profound emotion and universal themes. The movement embraced the gestural abstraction of Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock, and the color field painting of Mark Rothko and others. It blended elements of Surrealism and abstract art in an effort to create a new style fitted to the postwar mood of anxiety and trauma. Mark Rothko Mark Rothko Mark Rothko was an Abstract Expressionist painter whose early interest in mythic landscapes gave way to mature works featuring large, hovering blocks of color on colored grounds. Jackson Pollock Jackson Pollock Jackson Pollock was the most well-known Abstract Expressionist and the key example of Action Painting. His work ranges from Jungian scenes of primitive rites to the purely abstract "drip paintings" of his later career. Clement Greenberg Clement Greenberg Clement Greenberg was one the leading American art critics during the twentieth century.

Best known as the ideological counterpart to Harold Rosenberg, Greenberg was a formalist who coined the terms "American-type painting" and 'Post-painterly abstraction.' He was a staunch champion of pure abstraction, including the work of Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still and Hans Hofmann. Pop Art Pop Art British artists of the 1950s were the first to make popular culture the dominant subject of their art, and this idea became an international phenomenon in the 1960s. But the Pop art movement is most associated with New York, and artists such as Andy Warhol, who broke with the private concerns of the Abstract Expressionists, and turned to themes which touched on public life and mass society. Andy Warhol Andy Warhol Andy Warhol was an American Pop artist best known for his prints and paintings of consumer goods, celebrities, and photographed disasters. One of the most famous and influential artists of the 1960s, he pioneered compositions and techniques that emphasized repetition and the mechanization of art.

Minimalism Minimalism Minimalism emerged as a movement in New York in the 1960s, its leading figures creating objects which blurred the boundaries between painting and sculpture, and were characterized by unitary, geometric forms and industrial materials. Emphasizing cool anonymity over the passionate expression of the previous generation of painters, the Minimalists attempted to avoid metaphorical associations, symbolism, and suggestions of spiritual transcendence. Gustave Courbet Gustave Courbet Gustave Courbet was a French painter and chief figure in the Realist movement of the mid-nineteenth century. His paintings often contained an emotional bleakness, and were praised for their precision and use of light. Along with Delacroix, Courbet was a key influence on the Impressionists. Jean-Francois Millet Jean-Francois Millet Jean-Francois Millet was a Realist painter in nineteenth-century France, and a founder of the Barbizon School. He is especially known for his depictions rural life and peasant labor. Charles Baudelaire Charles Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire was a French poet and art critic during the mid-nineteenth century.

His poetry depicted the harsh realities of urban poverty in nineteenth-century Paris, and often focused on the flanuer (one who wanders the city to experience it). The Baudelarian idea of the flaneur is a lasting legacy of the modern era. Emile Zola Emile Zola Emile Zola was a nineteenth-century French novelist, playwright, essayist and political activist. He was also the self-proclaimed leader of literary French Naturalism. As one of the leading cultural figures in France, Zola was close with the likes of Manet and Cézanne, and was the favorite writer of Vincent van Gogh. Realism Realism Realism is an approach to art that stresses the naturalistic representation of things, the look of objects and figures in ordinary life. It emerged as a distinct movement in the mid-nineteenth century, in opposition to the idealistic, sometimes mythical subjects that were then popular, but it can be traced back to sixteenth-century Dutch art and forward into twentieth-century styles such as Social Realism.

Neo-Classicism Neo-Classicism Neo-Classicism encompasses several distinct movements in the arts and architecture during the mid-1700s to the late 1800s that drew specifically on ancient Western cultures for inspiration. Looking back to the arts of Greece and Rome for ideal models and forms, both human and structural, Neo-Classicism was a category for literature and music as well as the visual arts. Jacques-Louis David and Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres were the most iconic French Neo-Classic painters. Japonisme Japonisme Japonisme describes the influence of Japanese art, especially woodblock prints, on French artists in the second half of the nineteenth century. Many Post-Impressionists were influenced by the flat blocks of color, the emphasis on design, and the simple, everyday subject matter. Vincent van Gogh Vincent van Gogh Vincent van Gogh was a Dutch painter, commonly associated with the Post-Impressionist period. As one of the most prolific and experimental artists of his time, van Gogh was a spontaneous painter and a master of color and perspective. Troubled by personal demons all his life, many historians speculate that van Gogh suffered from a Bipolar disorder.

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne was an influential French Post-Impressionist painter whose depictions of the natural world, based on internal geometric planes, paved the way for Cubism and later modern art movements. Edgar Degas Edgar Degas Edgar Degas was a French Impressionist painter, printmaker and sculptor with an extraordinarily long career from the mid-nineteenth century until after WWI. As one of the original group of Impressionists, although he preferred to be called a Realist, he traveled widely and employed the use of photography in his creative process. He is most renowned for his painting and drawings of ballet dancers in rehearsal and performances in the theatre. Georges Seurat Georges Seurat Georges-Pierre Seurat was a French painter who gave rise to the Post- and Neo-Impressionist artistic styles of the late nineteenth century. Seurat's greatest contribution to modern art was his development of Pointillism, a style of painting in which small dots of paint were applied to create a cohesive image. Combining the science of optics with painterly emotion, Pointillism evoked a visual harmony never before seen in modern art.

Paul Durand-Ruel Paul Durand-Ruel Paul Durand-Ruel was a French art dealer who became the first champion of the Impressionists. His gallery in Bond St showed Monet, Renoir and others to the art world of London, and then further afield in the United States. He was known to support his artists through solo exhibitions and stipends. Stéphane Mallarmé Stéphane Mallarmé Stéphane Mallarmé was a French Symbolist poet and critic in the late 1800s. Densely written, his poetry played with both the meaning and sound of words, making it difficult to translate. His work was greatly influential on the Dada and Surrealist movements. James Whistler James Whistler James Whistler was a nineteenth-century American expatriate artist. Educated in France and later based in London, Whistler was a famous proponent of art-for-art's-sake, and an esteemed practictioner of tonal harmony in his canvases, often characterized by his masterful use of blacks and greys, as seen in his most famous work, Whistler's Mother (1871).

Whistler was also known as an American Impressionist, and in 1874 he famously turned down an invitation from Degas to exhibit his work with the French Impressionists. Georges Clemenceau Georges Clemenceau Georges Clemenceau was a French statesman and journalist who served as Prime Minister both before and after WWI. Known as 'le Tigre', he was instrumental in negotiating the Treaty of Versailles. As a journalist, he was a major supporter of Emile Zola, publishing 'J'Accuse', during the Dreyfus Affair in 1898. Post-Impressionism Post-Impressionism Post-Impressionism refers to a number of styles that emerged in reaction to Impressionism in the 1880s. The movement encompassed Symbolism and Neo-Impressionism before ceding to Fauvism around 1905. Its artists turned away from effects of light and atmosphere to explore new avenues such as color theory and personal feeling, often using colors and forms in intense and expressive ways. Symbolism Symbolism Symbolism is an artistic and literary movement that first emerged in France in the 1880s.

In the visual arts it is often considered part of Post-Impressionism. It is characterized by an emphasis on the mystical, romantic and expressive, and often by the use of symbolic figures. Pointillism Pointillism Pointillism is a mode of art-making, first developed in 1880s France, in which all of the paint is applied to the surface as tiny points or daubs of color. Based on the laws of color theory, pointillism relies on the viewer's eye to mix the disparate dots into the lines, shapes, shadings, and color ranges of the full scene. Fauvism Fauvism Fauvism was an early twentieth-century art movement founded by Henri Matisse and André Derain. Labeled as "wild beasts", Fauve artists favored vibrant colors and winding gestural strokes across the canvas. Claude Monet's house in Giverny Claude Monet's house in Giverny, photo Ariane Cauderlier A very long house Claude Monet lived in his home at Giverny for forty-three years,from 1883 to 1926.

During this very long time, he layed out the house to his own tastes, adapting it to the needs of his family and professional life. At the beginning, the house called House of the Cider-Press (an apple-press located on the little square nearby gave its name to the quarter) was much smaller. Monet enlarged it on both sides. The house is now 40 meter long per 5 meter deep only. The barn next to the house became his first studio, thanks to the addition of a wooden floor and of stairs leading to the main house. Monet, who mostly painted in the open air, needed a place where to store and finish his canvases. Above the studio, Monet had his own apartment, a large bedroom and a bathroom. The left side of the house was his side, where he could work and sleep. The family home of a well off painter The two wings added by Monet can be noticed thanks to the size of the windows: the new ones are broader than the windows of the central part of the building. At the other end of the house, Monet designed a large kitchen, suitable to prepare the meals of a ten people family that entertained a lot.

Over the kitchen, Monet's four step-daughters had their bedrooms, while his two sons and his two step-sons slept in the attic. The pink color of the walls and the green of the shutters was chosen by Monet. In those times, shutters were tradionally painted grey. Monet added a gallery in front of the house, a pergola covered with climbing roses, and grew a virginia creeper on the facade: he wanted the house to blend with the garden. The house has three entrances. The left one leads to Monet's apartment, the middle one is the main entrance, the right one is for domestic use and leads to the kitchen. Monet's home, photo Ariane Cauderlier The blue sitting room, photo Ariane Cauderlier The blue sitting room The tour of the house starts with the little sitting-room where Alice Hoschedé-Monet sat with the children. Monet, who loved colors, chose all the colors in the house. The stunning blues of the sitting-room, on the walls and on the furniture, harmonise with the japanese woodblocks that Monet collected passionately for fifty years. The painter owned 231 of them.

He liked seeing them around, they inspired him very much. On the floor, cement tiles were very trendy at Monet's times. Detail of the floor of the blue sitting room, watercolor by Patricia Rynski d'Argence The pantry in Monet's house at Giverny, photo Ariane Cauderlier The pantry The next room is Monet's entrance, fitted out into a small pantry. It was not heated, thus enabled to store food, especially eggs and tea. Lots of eggs were eaten. They were layed by the hens of the chicken yard. The two boxes hanging on the walls could store 116 eggs! The furniture in bamboo style are typical for the Japonism fashion of the times. The buffet has got keys, even on the drawers. Food was expensive and locked down. The egg box Watercolor by Patricia Rynski d'Argence Claude Monet's bedroom, photo Ariane Cauderlier Claude Monet's bedroom A very steep staircase leads from the pantry to the upper floor. One first enters Claude Monet's bedroom. Monet slept in this very simple bed, and died there the 5th December 1926.

The painter had gorgeous views on the garden out of the three windows. The delicately adornated desk and the commode date back to the 18th Century. Paintings by artists of the colony of Giverny hang on the walls. Monet exhibited in his room impressionist works by his friends: Cézanne, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Morisot, Boudin, Manet, Signac... Main staircase of Giverny Monet's House, watercolor by Patricia Rynski d'Argence Alice Monet's bedroom, photo Ariane Cauderlier Alice's bedroom Claude and his wife Alice didn't share the same bedroom, as was usual in the middle upper class, but there was a connection through the bathrooms. The very simple bedroom of Alice is decorated with japanese woodblocks featuring female characters. It is one of the few rooms that have a window on the street side, that is to say to the north. One can see how narrow the house is. From her bedroom, Alice could keep an eye on the children on the other side of the landing. At the top of the main staircase, a closet was used to store the linen.

Monet's washbasin watercolor by Patricia Rynski d'Argence Monet's dining-room, photo Ariane Cauderlier The dining room The main staircase leads to the dining room, the most dramatic room of the house. Monet, who didn't care for fashion, which was very dark and heavy in Victorian times, had it painted in two tones of yellow. This vibrant color enhances the blues of the dishes on display in the buffets. The walls are packed with japanese engravings that Monet chose with an expert eye. For fifty years, he collected the prints by the best japanese artists, especially Hokusai, Hiroshige and Utamaro. Detail of the buffet, watercolor by Patricia Rynski d'Argence Monet's dining-room, photo Ariane Cauderlier The kitchen The dining room is connected to the kitchen to make service easier. Monet wanted a blue kitchen so that the guests would see the right color in harmony with the yellow dining room when the door to the kitchen was open. The walls of the kitchen are covered with tiles of Rouen. The coolness of the blue contrasts with the warm glow of the extended collection of coppers.

An enormous coal and wood stove kept the kitchen very warm year round. The exit is by the kitchen stairs on to the garden. Detail of the buffet, watercolor by Patricia Rynski d'Argence Most of the objects and art works exhibited belonged to Claude Monet, and are therefore museum pieces. Please don't touch any piece of furniture nor any object. Visitor Information: Claude Oscar Monet - The complete works Self Portrait With A Beret Oscar-Claude Monet (1840-1926) is a famous French painter and one of the founders of the Impressionism movement along with his friends Renoir, Sisley and Bazille. Monet rejected the traditional approach to landscape painting and instead of copying old masters he had been learning from his friends and the nature itself. Monet observed variations of color and light caused by the daily or seasonal changes. Claude Monet was born on November 14, 1840 on the fifth floor of 45 rue Laffitte,in the ninth arrondissement of Paris. He was the second son Claude Adolphe Monet and Louise-Justine Aubree.

On the first of April 1851, Monet entered the Le Havre secondary school of the arts. He became known locally for this charcoal caricatures, which he would sell for ten to twenty francs. Monet also undertook his first drawing lessons from Jacques-Francois Ochard, a former student of Jacques-Louis David. On the beaches of Normandy in about 1856/1857 he meet fellow artist Eugéne Boudin who became his mentor and taught him to use oil paints. Boudin taught Monet "en plein air" (outdoor) techniques for painting. BBC - History - Historic Figures: Claude Monet (1840-1926) Historic Figures z Claude Monet © Monet was a French artist and a leading member of the Impressionist group of painters. Claude-Oscar Monet was born in Paris, but spent his childhood in Le Havre where his father was a merchant. There he met a local artist, Eugène Boudin, who encourage him to become a landscape painter.

In 1859, Monet went to Paris to study at the Académie Suisse, where he became close friends with a fellow student, Camille Pissarro. Between 1860 and 1862 Monet served in Algeria as a conscript. He returned to Paris where he met most of the major artists of the era including Renoir, Cézanne, Whistler and Manet. In 1870, Monet married Camille Doncieux, who had already borne his son. To escape the Franco-Prussian war, the family moved to London. After their return to France they settled at Argenteuil, a boating centre on the Seine which drew many other Impressionist painters. Working from nature was a particular hallmark of the Impressionist movement, and one that Monet embraced, reflecting in his paintings the ever-changing impact of light and weather conditions. In 1872, he visited Le Havre where he painted 'An Impression, Sunrise'. When exhibited in 1874 part of its title was used derisively by a critic to label the whole movement 'Impressionism'.

This exhibition is now known as the First Impressionist Exhibition. Monet's wife died in 1879, and he set up home with Alice Hoschedé, the wife of one of his most important patrons, and their respective children. During the 1880s, Monet travelled through France painting a variety of landscapes. He gradually became better known and for the last 30 years of his life he was regarded as the greatest of the Impressionists. From about 1890 he began to paint series of pictures of one subject, including 'Haystacks', 'Rouen Cathedral' and 'Waterlilies'. The latter were painted in the elaborate garden Monet created at his house at Giverny, a property north-west of Paris where he lived from 1883. He painted them over and over again, most significantly in a series commissioned for the Orangerie des Tuileries, a museum in Paris. Monet died at Giverny on 5 December 1926.

Claude Monet Biography and Claude Monet Prints on Canvas at Accents-n-Art.com Claude Monet Biography and Monet Canvas Prints Gallery Claude Monet's Biography Oscar-Claude Monet was born in Paris, France on November 14, 1840. He was the second child born to Claude Adolphe and Louise-Justine Monet. When Claude was about five, the family moved from Paris to the small town of La Havre. His father's brother-in-law, Jacques Lacadre, owned successful wholesale business in La Havre. His wife, Marie-Jeanne Lecadre, convinced him to offer Claude's father a job. Claude Monet spent his childhood in La Havre. He first became known for his caricatures and exhibited this work locally. During this time, he befriended fellow artist Eugene Boudin who became his mentor. Boudin influenced Monet to begin plein air or outdoor painting. He also encouraged Claude to try oil paint and pastels, instead of charcoal as a medium for his artwork. Monet prints shown are Jeanne Marguerite Lecadre in the Garden (above right) and Terrace at Sainte-Adresse (above left).

"It is only now that I have read the kind article you wrote on my exhibition, published in the Journal de Paris. Allow me to express my rather belated thanks. I am doubly grateful since very few of the critics have the courage to defend me, or atleast to write what they think. But as you rightly say so, people must first of all learn to look at nature, and only then may they see and understand what we are trying to do." - Claude Monet Claude Monet completed his first painting in 1858 entitled View from Rouelles. In 1859 he moved to Paris to study painting. He attended the Academie Suisse, an informal place where artists met and models and material were available for use. This is where Monet met Camille Pissarro and began frequenting Brasserie des Martyrs, a favorite meeting place of artists and writers. In 1862, Monet enrolled for formal art instruction under Charles Gleyre. Frederic Bazille, Alfred Sisley, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir were also students of Gleyre. The group became friends and often painted together.

The Bodmer Oak, Forest of Fontainebleau was painted with his new friends during this period. Monet and Bazille were also admirers of Delacroix and often visited the Louvre to admire his paintings. Monet prints shown are View from Rouelles (above right), The Bodmer Oak, Forest of Fontainebleau (above left), and Camille Monet and Child in the Garden (below right). In 1867, Claude's first son Jean Monet was born to his companion Camille. Claude and Camille were married on June 26, 1870. During the early years, money was scarce and the couple was forced to move several times. Monet had limited success in the acceptance of his paintings. The annual Salon jury set the standard for French artists at the time, and many of Monet's paintings were rejected. "Perhaps it's true that I'm very hard on myself, but that's better than exhibiting mediocre work." - Claude Monet Impression, Sunrise was painted in 1872 and the group of emerging artists were named Impressionists after an article in a newspaper laughingly referenced the style of painting.

1874 was the year of the First Impressionists' Exhibition. The exhibition was held at a studio on the Boulevard des Capucines and also featured the work of other artists such as Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Berthe Morisot, and Paul Cezanne. Monet prints shown are Boulevard des Capucines (above right) and Impression, Sunrise (above left). "Everyone discusses [my artwork] and pretends to understand, when it is simply necessary to love." - Claude Monet Some of Claude Monet's best known work was done in Argenteuil, including one of his famous garden scenes Monet's Garden at Argenteuil which he painted in 1873. He worked almost exclusively in Argenteuil from 1875 to 1878. The Seine at Argenteuil was one of his famous paintings during this period. The painting was recently featured in the hit movie Vanilla Sky, starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. The Monet family returned to Paris in 1878 where their second son Michel, was born on March 17th. Camille Monet died the following year in September after a long illness.

Two of the most popular Monet prints are The Seine at Argenteuil (above right) and Monet's Garden at Argenteuil (above left). Also shown are Monet prints of Bordighera (below right) and San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk - Venice Twilight (below left). Claude Monet made several trips to the Mediterranean between 1883 and 1908. During these visits he painted many landscapes and seascapes such as Bordighera. Famous landmarks were also a favorite subject for Monet in the Mediterranean. His paintings in Venice included the Grand Canal, Doges' Palace, and San Giorgio Maggiore. The Monet painting that was stolen in the movie The Thomas Crown Affair was San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk. "You must know I'm entirely absorbed in my work. These landscapes of water and reflections have become an obsession. It's quite beyond my powers at my age, and yet I want to succeed at expressing what I feel." - Claude Monet Monet moved to Giverny, France in 1883.

Shortly after his arrival in Giverny, Claude began developing the famous garden that was the inspiration for many of his most famous paintings. The Artist's Garden in Giverny is one of the most popular paintings. His garden in Giverny grew to include a water garden and a japanese style bridge. Water lilies and the Japanese bridge were the subject of many Monet paintings. Monet prints shown are Water Lilies (above right) and The Artist's Garden at Giverny (above left). The garden in Giverny also inspired the Water Lily murals which are on display at the Orangerie des Tuileries. These huge panels of water lilies were Monet's gift to the state. Monet lived in Giverny until his death on December 5, 1926. The Water Lily murals were dedicated in the Orangerie on May 17, 1927.

Question: What was the painter Monet's first name?
Answer: Claude