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Richard
Earl Thompson (1914-1991)
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Monet, Claude
(1840-1926). French Impressionist painter. He is regarded as the
archetypal Impressionist in that his devotion to the ideals of
the movement was unwavering throughout his long career, and it
is fitting that one of his pictures---Impression: Sunrise (Musée
Marmottan, Paris; 1872)---gave the group his name.
His youth was spent in Le Havre, where he first excelled as a caricaturist
but was then converted to  
landscape painting by his early mentor Boudin, from whom he derived
his firm predilection for painting out of doors. In 1859 he studied
in Paris at the Atelier Suisse and formed a friendship with Pissarro.
After two years' military service in Algiers, he returned to Le
Havre and met Jongkind, to whom he said he owed `the definitive
education of my eye'. He then, in 1862, entered the studio of Gleyre
in Paris and there met Renoir, Sisley, and Bazille, with whom he
was to form the nucleus of the Impressionist group. Monet's devotion
to painting out of doors is illustrated by the famous story concerning
one of his most ambitious early works, Women in the Garden (Musée
d'Orsay, Paris; 1866-67). The picture is about 2.5 meters high and
to enable him to paint all of it outside he had a trench dug in
the garden so that the canvas could be raised or lowered by pulleys
to the height he required. Courbet visited him when he was working
on it and said Monet would not paint even the leaves in the background
unless the lighting conditions were exactly right.
During the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) he took refuge in England
with Pissarro: he studied the work of Constable and Turner, painted
the Thames and London parks, and met the dealer Durand-Ruel, who
was to become one of the great champions of the Impressionists.
From 1871 to 1878 Monet lived at Argenteuil, a village on the Seine
near Paris, and here were painted some of the most joyous and famous
works of the Impressionist movement, not only by Monet, but by his
visitors Manet, Renoir and Sisley. In 1878 he moved to Vétheuil
and in 1883 he settled at Giverny, also on the Seine, but about
40 miles from Paris. After having experienced extreme poverty, Monet
began to prosper. 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 series of
pictures in which he painted the same subject at different times
of the day in different lights---Haystacks or Grainstacks (1890-91)
and Rouen Cathedral (1891-95) are the best known. He continued to
travel widely, visiting London and Venice several times (and also
Norway as a guest of Queen Christiana), but increasingly his attention
was focused on the celebrated water-garden he created at 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 (in
1914 he had a special studio built in the grounds of his house so
he could work on the huge canvases).
In his final years he was troubled by failing eyesight, but he painted
until the end. He was enormously prolific and many major galleries
have examples of his work.
Biography courtesy of Web Museum, Paris
Impressionism
A Brief History
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