Claude Monet:His Works

Bathing at Le Grenouillère

After being introduced to painting in the outdoors by Boudin, Monet mastered the techniques of registering the colours and shadows of the outdoors. He painted his famous masterpiece Le Grenouillère with his good friend Pierre-Auguste Renoir on the terrace of the Parisian restaurant by the same name. He loved to paint everything from the busy streets of Paris as is seen in his other famous works including Le Havre (a distant view of the busy harbour of the Seine), Gare St-Lazare (a glance at the hustle-bustle of the famous railway station at Paris). He also loved paintings with rural themes, depicting only nature as in Beach at Ste Addresse.

Monet would often paint series of paintings of the same subject under different natural conditions, time of day, seasons. He would settle down near the subject sometimes for years and sit and paint from every angle possible. His first series is that of a haystack for which he bought a plot at Giverny where he stayed for two years, starting from 1890, painting these haystacks. In 1892, he started a series of the Cathedral at Rouen. He painted 18 different paintings of the same facade using all possible coulours and showing all natural effects possible. In 1899, the water-lily paintings supplied the motif for Monet's last work, a series of large decorative panels.

Back................Biography