Claude Oscar Monet(1840 - 1926)
Claude Monet, the eldest son of a Parisian grocer, was born on the 14th November, 1840. Aged 5, he and his family moved to the port town of Saint-Adresse, near Le Havre. His life as a painter began when he was befriended by Eugène Boudin, who introduced him to the uncommon practise of painting in the open air (or 'en plein air', as it is called). This brought about his ability and talent to paint in the outdoors.
To his family's dismay, he refused to enroll in the École des Beaux-Arts. Instead, he signed up at the Académie Suisse, where he met and befriended Camille Pissarro and Edouard Manet. This informal training was interrupted by a call to military service, which he began in Algeria, where he was excited by the African light and colour. In 1862 he returned to Sainte-Adresse and later that year he continued to study in Paris, this time with the academician Charles Gleyre and met Frédéric Bazille, Alfred Sisley, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, all also students of Gleyre.
The period from 1867 to 1870 was coloured by extreme financial hardship. The birth of his illegitimate son Jean in 1867, to his mistrees Camille Doncieux (whom he eventually married and who died in September 1879), occured under such dire financial circumstances that, during a particularly brutal siege of poverty and hunger in 1868, Monet attempted suicide. At this time, the friendship of comrades like Bazille and Renoir (who actually stole bread for the Monet family) were his sole consolation. The gulf between his most labored paintings and official acceptance seemed unbridgeable.
In September of 1870, following France's declaration of war against Prussia, Monet took refuge with his friend Pissarro in London. It is during this time that he paints his views of Hyde park, the Pool of London and the Thames at Westminster. While in England, Pissarro and Monet visited the museums. By 1871, Monet had settled in Argenteuil so he could paint along the banks of the Seine River. Once there, he fixed up a boat with an easel and painted his way up and down the Seine, searching for the means to capture his impressions of the interplay of light, water and atmostphere.
In 1883 Monet moved to Giverny. Caillebotte had communicated his love of gardening to Monet, and here Monet translated that enthusiasm into a remarkable garden. Painting the lilies in the pond of his garden hundreds of times between 1900 and 1926, they are the culmination of a lifetime in which the out-of-doors had become his studio. In 1916 he becgan the 'cyclorama' Nympheas, which he intended to donate to the French Nation. Despite failing eyesight, Monet continued to visit and work on the panels until his death at Giverny in 1926.
Continue................His Works