Birth Year : 1840
Death Year : 1928
Country : France
Claude Monet, the leader of the Impressionist movement, was born in
Paris but spent his youth in Le Havre, where he began his career as a caricaturist.
In 1858 and 1859 he painted outdoors under the guidance of Boudin and Jongkind
both of whom were interested in the effects of light upon objects and in
capturing various atmospheric conditions. In 1860 Monet went to Paris to
study at the Académie Gleyre, where he met Renoir,
Sisley, and Bazille.
The four young men, as well as Pissarro
and Cezanne, met frequently with Manet
at the Café Guerbois, and it was from these associations and conversations
that Monet began to develop his own theories of painting. Between 1865
and 1971, he developed the luminous style that is most closely associated
with the Impressionist movement. Technically, this style results from the
application of paint to white canvas in clear colors taken directly from
the tube, and the method is based upon the observation that objects take
on color from their surroundings, from varying lights, and from other objects
placed near them. Shadow in an Impressionist painting is no loner a dense
black that has no color, but rather a varicolored combination of tones,
permeated by light. By 1872, after a stay in England where he studied the
works of Constable and Turner
which further crystallized his ideas, Monet was ready to set up his own
studio on a boat at Argenteuil and to paint river scenes in which all nature
is reflected in water. Monet's friends gathered about him, and during the
next five years the Impressionist movement flourished in a happy atmosphere
of mutual friendship and ideas. Throughout his long and ultimately successful
career, Monet never ceased his studies of light and atmosphere. As the
years passed, his work became more and more atmospheric in effect, and
in such series as the huge panels of Water Lilies and the smaller paintings
of the facade of Rouen Cathedral, it takes on a look that borders upon
abstraction. In these late series the artist has carefully indicated the
changes in color as light varies from sunrise to sunset and as atmospheric
conditions vary from bright sunshine to rain, mist, or snow, sharpening
or softening outlines to create an almost hallucinatory effect.
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Claude
Monet
White
and Purple Water Lilies
Claude
Monet
Bassin
d'Argenteuil
Claude
Monet
Nymphaeas,
Effet du Soir (1897)
Claude
Monet
Jardin
a Giverny
Claude
Monet
Crepuscule
/ San Giorgio Maggiore Soleil Couchant
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