Monet, Claude

(1840-1926)

   painter

   A leading figure of the impressionist movement, Claude Monet was born in Paris and completed his education in Le Havre. In 1856, eugène boudin noticed his talent and encouraged him to paint out of doors. Monet met camille pissarro in Paris and, after military service in Algeria, where he discovered the Mediterranean light, Monet returned to the studios where he met auguste renoir, Frédéric bazille, and Alfred Sisley and went to paint with them at Chailly-en-Bière, near Fontainebleau. He also stayed for a time on the Norman coast with Boudin and the Dutch artist Johann Jongkind. strongly influenced by the style and vision of Edouard manet, Monet painted in 1865 a version of Luncheon on the Grass that was critiqued by Gustave courbet. After an initial success at the Paris Salon of 1866 (Camille, or Woman in the Green Dress), followed by a rejection in 1867 (Women in the Garden, 1866), he painted portraits, interior scenes, and especially landscapes, showing a progressive evolution away from Courbet and the Barbizon painters. Staying in London during the franco-prussian war (1870-71), Monet discovered John Constable and Joseph Turner and sought in his work to convey the foggy atmosphere of the city (WestminsterBridge). He then returned to France via Holland and settled at Argenteuil (1872-76). Painting on his studio-boat, he studied the air and light and its reflection on the water, and subtly sought to convey their impression. With other artists, he organized a showing of works rejected by the official Paris salon. His Impression:Sunrise (1872), shown in 1874, inspired a revue in Charivari in which the term "impressionist" was (pejoratively) introduced. At Argentueil, Monet painted some of his most characteristic works (Régates d'Argenteuil, 1874; The Seine at Argenteuil, 1874). In 1880, Monet declined to show at the fifth impressionist exhibition; after this, to study the variations of form following changes in daylight, he produced a series of paintings (Haystacks, 1890; Rouen Cathedral, 1892-1904; Banks of the Thames, 1899-1904) in which he subtly changed the color of the subject and completed the demolition of the academic notion of form. Monet, who wanted to show, in his words, "an instant in the consciousness of the world," can be considered, too, a precursor of lyrical abstractionism.