Claude Monet – Great Impressionist

Claude Monet was a French painter known for painting in the style called impressionism. In Renaissance paintings were regarded as windows through which one viewed the natural world. But in the 19th century paintings became increasingly two-dimensional, they became events in themselves. The new style was initially understood in the spirit of illusionism.
His paintings remain popular today and they are on display in art museums around the world.
Oscar Claude Monet was born on November 14, 1840 in Paris. In 1845 his family moved to Le Havre. His father wanted him to become a grocer and continued the family business. At the age of 15 Monet was known all over Le Havre as a caricaturist. He sold his drawings for 15-20 francs.
A meeting with landscape painter, Eugene Boudin, in 1858 had a profound influence on the young artist. In the following year Monet visited Paris and decided to stay there. He worked at the free Academie Suisse.

From 1860 to 1862 Claude served in the army in Algeria.
In 1862 he entered the studio of Charles Gleyre in Paris and met Renoir, Alfred Sisley, and Jean Frederic Bazille.
In 1869 he met Edouard Manet in Paris.
After the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 Monet went to England, where he became acquainted with the works of John Constable and William Turner.
In 1870 Monet married Camille and they settled at Argenteuil. Camille was his favorite model and posed for many paintings. Madame Monet gave birth to two sons. On September 5, 1879 Camille Monet died of tuberculosis at the age of thirty-two. Monet painted her on her deathbed. In 1892 Monet married Alice Hoschede, who died in 1911.
In 1874 first impressionist group show took place. His painting Impression: Sunrise (1872) inspired a hostile newspaper critic to call all the artists ‘‘impressionists”.

In 1883 Monet moved to Giverny, but he continued to travel—to London, Madrid, and Venice, as well as to favorite sites in his native country. In Giverny he painted one of his most famous series of paintings, called Water Lilies. At the time when the artist began to paint the famous Water Lilies, he had already lost his sight.
Claude Monet died of lung cancer on December 5, 1926 in Giverny at the age of 86 and was buried in the local churchyard.

Interesting facts
– Pond with Water Lilies painted in 1919 is the most expensive painting of the master. In 2008, at Christie’s auction in London, the painting was sold for a fabulous price – $ 80 million.
– Monet is in the top 3 most expensive artists in the world.
– A crater on Mercury was named after Monet.
– English writer Eva Figes in her novel The Light describes a day of Monet’s life – from dawn to dusk.
– Soviet film Breakfast on the Grass is named after a painting by Claude Monet.
– In the movie Titanic we can see Monet’s picture – Water Lilies.
– In Cecily Brooke von Ziegesar’s book Gossip Girl and the eponymous series, Monet is the favorite painter of the main character Blair Waldorf.
– Claude Cormier and Associs Inc. created Pergola, which consisted of 90 thousand multi-colored plastic balls. The installation was devoted to Claude Monet.

Claude Monet – Great Impressionist