Monet: biography of the father of Impressionism

Oscar-Claude Monet was one of the most famous painters in France in recent centuries. Founder of the Impressionist movement, Monet was born in Paris on November 14, 1840. Although he did not always reside in the French capital; At the age of five, he moved with his family to the Norman city of Le Havre, where his father was able to carry out his work as a merchant, previously running a family shipping business.

His mother, Louise, was dedicated to music, she was a singer. His move to Le Havre would deeply mark Monet, as it would bring him into contact with the coast and, in this way, he acquired an intimate knowledge of the maritime landscape.

Working on painting from nature was the particular hallmark of the Impressionist movement.. This is also a habit that Monet embraced, his paintings reflecting the ever-changing impact of light and weather conditions.

Claude Monet, beginnings in painting

At only 15 years old, Monet sold caricatures and made pencil sketches of sailing ships, which were almost technical due to their detail.. His aunt, Marie-Jeanne Lecadre, was an amateur painter who would greatly influence the painter’s future. It was she who encouraged Claude to study drawing with a local artist.

However, His life as a painter did not begin until he met the artist Eugène Boudin. Boudin was the one who introduced the student to the then uncommon practice of painting outdoors.

The experience set the course for Monet who, for more than 60 years, would concentrate on visible phenomena. Besides, Monet would focus on the innovation of effective methods in order to transform perception into pigment.

Monet’s return to Paris took place between 1859 and 1860. To the chagrin of his family, he refused to enroll in the École des Beaux-Arts. Instead, He frequented the meeting places of some artists who had a certain fame and worked at the Académie Suisse, where he met Camille Pissarro..

This informal training was interrupted by a call to military service. Monet served from 1861 to 1862 in Algeria, where he was moved by the light and color of Africa.

Upon his return to Paris, he met most of the most important artists of the day, including Renoir, Cézanne, Whistler and Manet. During this period, or at least before 1872, Monet discovered Japanese prints, falling in love with Asian patterns with fervor. This fascination would have a strong influence on the development of his pictorial work.

The work of the young Monet and the Hall of the Rejected

The exceptional achievements of Monet’s prolific youthful period can be measured in works completed between 1865 and 1870. In this period, he had not yet begun to fragment his brushstrokes into the characteristic broken touches that would become the hallmark of the Impressionist style.

In 1870, Monet married Camille Doncieux, who had already given birth to their first son Jean Monet in 1867. To escape the Franco-Prussian War, the family moved to London in 1870. They would later return to France, settling in Argenteuil, a shipping center on the Seine that attracted many other Impressionist painters.

The term Impressionism was coined in reference to the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant (Rising sun print), which was exhibited in 1874 in the first independent exhibition mounted by the small circle of impressionist painters.

They promoted this exhibition as an alternative to the dogmatic Paris Salon. 1874 would be a decisive year for the nascent Impressionist movement and would define Monet as one of its creators. Despite criticism, the Impressionists would produce six exhibitions until 1882.

The work of an impressionist and his second marriage

In 1876, Monet met Ernest and Alice Hoschedé, who would soon become close friends of the family. In 1878, his second child, Michel Monet, would be born.

The Monet family settles in Vétheuil with the Hoschedé family. A year later, Camille’s death occurred; Years later, she is widowed by Alice Hoschedé. In this way, after becoming widowed, both friends would come together more than ever; Monet and Alice married in 1892.

In 1883, Monet moved to a house in Giverny, where he would remain for 43 years. At this location, he began a vast landscaping project, which included the lily ponds which would become the subject of his best-known works.

In 1899, he began painting water lilies; first, in vertical views with a Japanese bridge as a central element and, later, in the series of large-scale paintings. This theme would become a constant for the next 20 years of his life.

Already in 1907, he began to have vision problems. In 1923, the painter was almost entirely blind. After cataract surgery, he improved. In 1926, at the age of 86, she had never left painting.died as a result of lung cancer in his beloved Giverny.

Legacy to Fine Arts: the Japanese garden and fragmented brushstrokes

Monet’s famous house had an exceptional garden with an aquatic pond. His heirs decided that the house should be in the hands of the French Academy of Fine Arts. And so it was done in 1966; Over time, through the Claude Monet Foundation, the house and gardens were opened to the public in 1980, after being remodeled.

In addition to Monet’s memorabilia and other objects from his life, the house contains his collection of Japanese woodblock prints.. The house is one of the two main attractions in Giverny, which welcomes tourists from all over the world.

Monet was the precursor, leader and unwavering defender of the Impressionist style. His ambition to document the French countryside led him to adopt a method that consisted of painting the same scene many times, in this way, he tried to capture the change of light and the passing of the seasons. These series were frequently exhibited in groups, e.g. The Almiaress (1890-1891) and Rouen Cathedral (1894).

Its popularity skyrocketed in the second half of the 20th century, when his works traveled the world in museum exhibitions that drew unprecedented crowds; In addition, popular items were marketed with images of his art.

Monet became a reference in the art world, a master of the brush and a declared lover of nature.

You might be interested…