Claude Monet, the outstanding and best known Impressionist painter, was born on November 14, 1840, in Paris. He was the second son of Claude Adolphe Monet and Louise Justine Aubre Monet. His parents moved in order to pursue their business interest to Le Havre in 1845. There Claude started an art secondary school in 1951. He said about himself: "I was born undisciplineable, I equated my college life with that of a prison and could not resolve to spend my time there..", But he spent his time to produce his first charcoal caricatures, which he sold for a few francs; at fifteen, he was known as a caricaturist all over Le Havre. He received his first drawing lessons from

Jacques-Franois Ochard. His fellow artist Eugne Boudin became his mentor and taught him the use of oil paints, and "en plein air" (outdoor) techniques for painting. When his mother died in 1857, Claude left school, traveled regularly to Paris to visit the Louvre, and meet other young painters, among them Pissarro before his rebellion time, who still painted in Corots style and Claude followed suit. In 1961 he committed to a seven year service in the First Regiment of African Light Cavalry in Algeria. He had two pleasurable years in Algeria but contracted typhoid fever and left the army. Soon after he returned to Paris, became a student of Charles Gleyre, met Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Frdric Bazille, and Alfred Sisley. Together the artists explored and shared the new approaches to art of the mid 19th century. It was the age of industrialization, or as historian Nikolas Pevsner named it the "age of railway," an epoch centered on business. At the same time Historism was challenged by the aggressive Italian movement of futurism; political ideas of socialism and communism evolved, the way to realism in art was opened, and practiced by artists like Edouard Manet (Luncheon on the Grass, 1863, Muse d'Orsay), Gustave Gourbet (The Atelier, 1855, Muse de Louvre, Paris), and Adolf Menzel (Rolling mill, 1875, National Gallery Berlin)

Claude Monet and his group of friends put to practice the effects of light (en plein air), emphasised on light in its changing qualities, broken color, rapid brush strokes, open composition, and included movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience - all typical characteristics which later became the main features of Impressionism.

Between 1866 and 1869 Monet exhibited the paintings The "Woman in the Green Dress" (La femme la robe verte), "The Woman in the Garden", "On the Bank of the Seine". Monet became prominent, and Newspapers carried his name. In 1870 he married his model Camille Doncieux; he had two sons with her. The outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War 1870-71, forced Monet to take refuge in England. During this period he lived in London, studied the works of John Constable and Joseph Mallord William Turner, both their landscapes, and their use of color; he met, the well known art dealer and supporter of Impressionist work. In 1972 he returned to Paris, and joined the loose association of Paris-based artists who staged their independent exhibitions, were sponsored by Paul Durand-Ruel, and brought to prominence in the 1872s and 1880s. The title of Claude Monet's painting, Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant, 1972) was coined as the name of the movement Impressionism by the critic Louis Leroy in a satiric review published in Le Charivari.

During this time he created amongst others the masterpiece Gare Saint-Lazare. Jean Renior narrates in his book about his father Auguste Renoir that Monet came to his father one day and shouted: "I have found it ...the train station of Saint Lazare. It is miraculous picturesque place. When the trains leave; the steam clouds are so dense that one hardly can see. It is like in a fairy tale." Monet had dressed up and gone to the station master, and had ask him to shift the departure schedule half an hour ahead, so that the light is more favorable for his painting. The station master did not want to admit that he did know the well dressed person and ordered to delay of the trains, filled the locomotives with coal to produce the steam Monet needed for his work. (Gare Saint-Lazare, 1877, Muse d'Orsay, Paris)

Monet was dreadfully poor by this time and moved to places where life was less costly; to Argenteuil, (1873 to 1878), to Vtheuil (1879 to 1881), to Poissy (1882), and lived at Giverny from 1883 until his death. In the late 1980s, his paintings aroused public interest and attention of critic, and brought him some comfort into his life and later on even wealth.

In 1990, Monet moved his belongings to Giverny where he painted the series of haystacks for two years; in sunny or gray weather, in fog or covered with snow: Haystack, Snow Effects, Morning (1890), Haystack. End of the Summer. Morning. (1891). He deepened the impressionistic visions and ideas while his fellow painter approached post impressionistic ideas leading to the development of cubism. He produced his renowned series of the Cathedral of Rouen: The Rouen Cathedral. Portail. The Albaine Tower. 1893-1894, The Rouen Cathedral at Noon (1894), The Rouen Cathedral (1893-1894), The Rouen Cathedral at Twilight (1894), The Rouen Cathedral in the Evening (1894), he began work on the subject water lilies, the major theme in his work: The White Water Lilies (1899), The Japanese Bridge (1899), Water Lilies (1914), Water-Lilies (c.1917), Water-Lilies.

Claude Monet died at the age of 86, in 1926, and was buried in the Giverny church cemetery. His home, garden and water lily pond were passed on to his son Michel. Following restoration by the Foundation Claude Monet, house and gardens were opened for visitors in 1980. Shortly after the death of the artist, the fourteen large canvases of his water lilies series were placed in two oval rooms of the Muse de l'Orangerie in the Tuileries Gardens.

Bibliography

Claude Monet by himself

Presented by Thibault-Sisson

Published on November 26th 1900 in "Le Temps" newspaper

Translated by Louise McGlone

Kunst der Welt

Vom Historismus zum Funktionalismus

By H.G. Evers

Holle Verlag - Baden Baden - Germany, 1967

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