Claude Monet – founder of Impressionism

We owe countless postcard motifs to this painter, and for good reason, because many of his paintings are simply incredibly beautiful.

Claude Monet ventured away from the then-accepted art, which presented clear forms and linear perspectives, and instead explored a free handling, vivid colors, and astonishingly unconventional arrangements.

In each of his Impressionist artworks, Claude Monet shifted the focus away from depicting people and towards portraying specific aspects of light and atmosphere . In his later years, Monet increasingly emphasized the ornamental elements of color and form.

Claude Monet in brief

Is Claude Monet (1840–1926) the last great master of the 19th century or the first great painter of the 20th century? Like that of his contemporary Rodin, the transition from tradition to modernity. Monet, a painter of color and nature, is best known as a leader of the Impressionist school.

As an artist on the fringes of academic teaching, he experienced a triumph of his name in the history of modern art at the beginning of the 20th century and was considered by the American abstract expressionists to be one of the pioneers of abstraction .

From today's perspective, Claude Monet is undoubtedly one of the most famous artists in art history. He is considered a leader of the Impressionist movement. His long life allowed him to create a rich body of work that evolved according to his artistic experiences.

Through his compositions created outdoors, depicting nature, cities and other scenes of daily life, Claude Monet became interested in the treatment of natural light and colors.

He once said:

Color is my daily obsession, my joy and my torment.”

In 1890, the French painter moved to the countryside. In Giverny, he created a garden with a captivating water feature. Today, the garden where the famous water lily paintings were created is a major tourist attraction.

Biography of Claude Monet: Early Years

It took a long time for Monet's life to achieve a stability in which the creation of such beautiful pictures would have seemed appropriate; in his youth, his life was so dominated by deprivation and worries that he could only have painted beautiful things as a form of compensation: Claude Monet was born in Paris in 1840 , where the family suffered hardship and therefore soon had to move to relatives in Le Havre.

Even while attending grammar school, the young Monet took drawing lessons , and he quickly became known throughout the city as a caricaturist . When, at the age of 17, a painter who supported him encouraged him to create his first landscape painting, Monet's desire to become a painter grew.

Around 1858, Claude Monet met the Honfleur painter Eugène Boudin (1824-1898). This meeting was crucial for Monet's career, and he never ceased to affirm that his calling as a painter was due to Boudin. From then on, Monet's youthful landscapes illustrate the influence of the marine painter .

1856-1864: Academic training under Charles Gleyre

Arriving in Paris in 1859, Claude Monet joined the Swiss Academy after being refused Thomas Couture Camille Pissarro (1830-1903).

Initially, with financial support from his father, he was allowed to go to Paris and gain his first learning experiences, but his parents' money was rationed when, in 1860, he decided against the traditional École des Beaux-Arts and in favor of the free painting school Académie Suisse.

The young man, who was drafted into military service by lottery in 1861, remained in Algeria for almost a year. After Monet was allowed to return the following year, having contracted typhus, he met the Dutch painter Johan Barthold Jongkind (1819-1891), who would have a great influence on his work.

In the same year, 1862, Claude Monet studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in the studio of Charles Gleyre (1806-1874). The latter trained many artists, some of whom became the great painters of Impressionism (Alfred Sisley, Frédéric Bazille, Auguste Renoir).

Lessons on antiquity held little weight for the young painters; Monet and his friends preferred to paint in the Forest of Fontainebleau, the territory of the Barbizon School painters. Nevertheless, he exhibited at the Salon and was noticed Émile Zola

Claude Monet disagreed with the academic art taught by his master and quickly left the studio. In 1864, Monet went to Honfleur to paint, together with Boudin and Jongkind, who had a significant influence on his early work.

Throughout this time, Monet was dependent on his family's money; this seemed to change initially when he was able to exhibit a flower still life at the municipal art exhibition in Rouen in 1864 and received several portrait commissions from a wealthy shipowner.

1865-1866: First exhibitions in Paris

Claude Monet subsequently founded a joint studio in Paris with Frédéric Bazille in 1865 and was able to place several paintings Paris Salons

The Paris Salon selected two of Monet's seascapes for the exhibition in 1865: The Mouth of the Seine at Honfleur (1865) and Le pavé de Chailly (1865).

1866-1870: The Camille Doncieux Model and Financial Difficulties

In 1866, Monet met Camille Doncieux , who became his favorite model. She posed notably for The Woman in a Green Dress (1866), which was sent to the Salon. The work received enthusiastic reviews.

But after that, Claude Monet's works, like those of his friends, were regularly rejected by the Salon jury. At that time, the painter faced significant financial difficulties. Despite his financial troubles, Monet married Camille Doncieux in 1870.

It soon became apparent that maintaining a studio was not inexpensive, and with his relationship with Camille Doncieux and the birth of his son, Monet found himself in increasingly dire financial straits.

Monet faced financial hardship during these years; various influences (including the realistic landscape painting of the Barbizon School and his increasingly close relationship with Édouard Manet ) led him to distance himself further and further from the Salon de Paris in his choice of subject matter and painting style, and consequently from commercial success. During this time, he was forced to flee from creditors and relied on the financial support of his family, friends, and patrons.

1870-1871: Exile in London

moved to London before being drafted to participate in the Franco-Prussian War Paul Durand-Ruel , who acquired several of Monet's paintings.

The Franco-Prussian War broke out in 1870. While in exile in London, he also met his friend Pissarro. During this time, he was able to admire the works of William Turner and John Constable , in which the treatment of light is essential. Above all, however, Monet met the American painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) and the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel (1831-1922), a fervent advocate of Impressionist painting.

In London, Monet painted views of London gardens and the Thames and further developed his technique ( Boats in the Pool of London, 1871, oil on canvas, National Museum of Wales, Cardiff).

At the same time, Monet's father died; with the inheritance, he rented a house with a garden in Argenteuil and set up a boat as a studio; for the first time, Monet was able to enjoy a life of bourgeois prosperity.

In the 1870s, Monet painted not only impressions but also complete outdoor landscapes. This view of the railway bridge at Argenteuil is typical of the themes that occupied him at that time: the interplay of reflections between sky and water, the combination of clouds and steam, the appearance of the train in a rural landscape.

During this period, Monet also dedicated an important series to the subject of the Gare Saint Lazare in 1877 (see paintings below).

1872-1886: The birth of Impressionism

In 1873, he planned joint exhibitions Gustave Caillebotte

The Impressionists got their name from a painting by Monet: The work, titled “Impression, Sunrise,” prompted the critic Louis Leroy, in an article in the Charivari, to mockingly dub the group's first exhibition, held in Paris in 1874, “The Exhibition of the Impressionists .” A new movement was born.

The year 1874 is pivotal for Impressionism. In fact, the first exhibition of Impressionist painters took place that year in the studios of the photographer Nadar . Many important painters participated in this event: Eugène Boudin, Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Edgar Degas (1834-1917), Berthe Morisot (1841-1895), Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), and Alfred Sisley (1839-1899).

From 1877 onwards, the painters claimed the name Impressionists for themselves.

Even though the society soon dissolved, the term "Impressionists" persisted, as did Monet's support from Durand-Ruel. In 1876, the second Impressionist exhibition took place in Durand-Ruel's premises, and Monet received further support from the department store owner Ernest Hoschedé . This proved to be a disadvantage for Monet: after Hoschedé's bankruptcy and the early death of his first wife, Camille, Alice Hoschedé and her six children turned to Monet in 1881.

Several Impressionist exhibitions took place after 1876, but the one in 1882 was the last in which Claude Monet participated. The other Impressionists accused him of no longer supporting the group for selfish reasons; perhaps this was the reason why the exhibition series ended in 1886 with the eighth exhibition.

In fact, after his participation in the 1882 exhibition, Monet had moved away from the Impressionists in that he returned to the Salon de Paris, whose jury even accepted one of his paintings.

1881-1890: on journeys

In 1881, the painter stayed temporarily in Poissy before finally settling in Giverny in 1883.

In the same year, the artist traveled to the South of France with Auguste Renoir. In the following years, Monet also traveled to Étretat, Netherlands, Belle-Île-en-Mer, and Antibes ( Tulip Fields in Holland , 1886, oil on canvas, Musée d'Orsay , Paris).

His finances increased steadily from then on; in 1883 Durand-Ruel organized a solo exhibition for him; generally, the market for Impressionist works was good, and Monet was able to undertake extensive journeys, during which many works were created.

house in Giverny that he had been renting since 1883 , where his famous garden was created and constantly expanded through further purchases.

1884-1891: The Haystack Series

This important series of paintings on the theme of millstones and haystacks immerses us in the world of the Normandy landscape . Monet captured the motif of sheaves of wheat under different light conditions at different times of the year.

Monet's main theme is capturing time and the effects of the atmosphere on nature untouched by human presence.

1892–1894: The Cathedrals of Rouen

Between 1892 and 1894, Claude Monet created a series of thirty paintings about the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Rouen, including views of the west portal.

The compositions were painted at different times of day and from different viewpoints. Monet completed his paintings in his studio before exhibiting twenty of them at the Durand-Ruel Gallery in 1895.

1890-1926: The Water Lily Cycle

Life with his two sons, Alice Hoschedé and her children proceeded calmly and successfully, allowing Monet time to focus on the essence of his painting. Many of his famous landscapes were created during this period . After Ernest Hoschedé's death, Monet and Alice formalized their relationship through marriage in 1892. In 1897, Claude Monet built a second studio, and 20 of his works were exhibited at the burgeoning Venice Biennale .

Around 1900, Monet began working on his famous water lily paintings ; the precise depiction of the water and the incidence of light would captivate him until his death.

The Water Lilies cycle , a masterpiece of Impressionism, occupied Claude Monet for three decades, from the late 1890s until his death in 1926. Inspired by the water garden, this gigantic cycle consists of almost 300 paintings , including more than 40 large-format panels. The compositions evolved in accordance with the garden's transformations.

From the beginning of the cycle, Claude Monet defined two types of compositions . The first relates to the banks of the basin and their dense vegetation ( Water Lily Basin , 1899–1900, oil on canvas; Japanese Bridge , 1920–1922, oil on canvas), while the second focuses on the groundwater level punctuated by flowers and reflections ( Waterscapes, 1903–1908, oil on canvas). The frames of the latter are tight, making each painted piece a fragment of a whole.

The Water Lilies cycle, of which the painter donated a number of canvases to the State (Musée de l'Orangerie) at the request of his friend George Clemenceau, completed his extensive artistic oeuvre.

The complex of his water lily garden was inaugurated in 1927, a year after the painter's death.

Since then, the public has had the opportunity to visit the garden of Giverny, which is located an hour from Paris in the department of L'Eure in Normandie.

This old house exudes a fin-de-siècle atmosphere that gently caresses the senses. An underpass leads to the world-famous water gardens, a true highlight for all art lovers and garden enthusiasts.

Old age, a magnum opus for France, and death

Monet generally preferred to be alone with nature and paint, rather than engaging in philosophical or critical discussions in the creative and cultural environment of Paris.

After traveling to places like Venice, London, Norway and all over France in the 1880s and 1890s, he settled in Giverny in 1908 for the rest of his life.

The loss of his second wife Alice in 1911 and his son a year later, as well as the after-effects of the First World War and a cyst above one of his eyes, led Monet to almost completely stop painting.

During this time, the French leader Georges Clemenceau , who was also a friend of Monet's, encouraged the artist to create a work that would lift the country out of the melancholy of the Great War. Initially, Monet hesitated, considering himself too old and unsuitable, but Clemenceau gradually roused him from his grief and urged him to create a magnificent work of art.

Monet called the work “Grandes Décorations ,” better known as the “Water Lilies of the Musée de l'Orangerie” (1927). In an oval salon, Monet presents a continuous sequence of waterscapes, representing a realm within a universe. For this reason, a new studio was set up with a glass wall overlooking the garden. Despite his cataracts, Monet was able to maneuver a movable easel around the room to capture the constantly changing light and perspective on his flowers.

The Musée de l'Orangerie ultimately decided to construct two elliptical chambers to house Monet's water lily paintings. The all-over design of the artworks and the chambers made visitors feel as if they were immersed in the water and surrounded by plants. The final installation was praised by many commentators.

Monet died of lung cancer on December 5, 1926, at the age of 86 and was buried in the churchyard of Giverny. At Monet's request, the funeral was a modest affair, with only about fifty people in attendance.

In 1966, Michel Monet donated his house, gardens, and water lily ponds to the French Academy of Fine Arts . After renovations, the house and grounds were opened to the public Fondation Claude Monet

The house contains memorabilia of Monet and other objects from his life, as well as a gallery of Japanese woodblock prints. Together with the Museum of Impressionism, the house and gardens are outstanding attractions in Giverny, drawing visitors from all over the world.

Claude Monet – Stylistic features, motifs and themes of his works

Claude Monet was particularly passionate about capturing fleeting moments in nature outdoors. The artist frequently left his studio to paint primarily outdoors, a practice typical of the later Impressionists.

Today, Monet is revered as the father of Impressionism, and his paintings reflect motifs from nature and bourgeois everyday life.

Monet explored many themes and motifs throughout his prolific career as a painter: group portraits , reminiscences of contemporary Japonism , famous buildings he encountered on his travels, and also banal cityscapes are just as much a part of his work as portraits and landscapes .

But the depiction of nature in all its color and light , painting outdoors in natural light, was to become the real challenge and purpose of his art.

The effort he devoted to capturing outdoor life and the beauty of the plants in his garden, which never completely satisfied him, is also said to have repeatedly made him happy.

He became known for his words:

My garden is my most beautiful work of art. What I really need are flowers. Always. My heart will always be in Giverny, and perhaps it was only because of the flowers that I became an artist

Claude Monet found his greatest inspiration for painting on his own property in Giverny . Here, he had a beautiful garden laid out , filled with numerous fruit trees, plants, flowers, and ponds.

Six gardeners worked in his garden to ensure it was in full bloom throughout the year. Inspired by Asian culture, Monet incorporated many Japanese elements, such as bamboo, cherry trees, and apricot trees. This exotic garden was reflected in Monet's paintings and made him particularly famous in Paris. His depictions of the Japanese wooden bridge he had built over his water lily pond, as well as the water lilies themselves, which he painted repeatedly, are especially well-known.

This new perfection of nature depictions is brought to fruition in Monet's reflection landscapes , as he called his water and water lily paintings.

Here he finally succeeded in reflecting the landscape in small sections on the surface of the water; the form is almost completely dissolved, the play of color in countless nuances results in a unity of the seemingly randomly thrown dots and strokes, surfaces and delicate veils, which to this day demonstrates his great mastery.

Technique and approach

It is remarkable that Claude Monet captured his subjects in a painterly manner under different times of day, light conditions, and weather. His aim was to capture the light through the use of bright colors and short brushstrokes. This technique is particularly evident in his famous Water Lilies series.

A characteristic feature of Monet's water and water lily paintings is the reflection of the surrounding nature on the water's surface. This causes clear forms to dissolve and merge into one another. This blurred depiction of nature is a recurring element in Monet's paintings.

Monet painted nature as he saw and experienced it – a fact not without irony. From birth, the Impressionist artist suffered from cataracts and was therefore extremely nearsighted. Only towards the end of his life did two eye operations enable him to see better.

Previously, he had strictly refused to wear glasses. Monet is said to have stated that he didn't want to see the world so sharply. However, whether this was truly the reason for his style of painting is disputed.

In his 1872 work “Impression, Sunrise” it becomes particularly clear that Monet did not want to depict the exact reality of nature. Rather, he attempted to capture the mood he perceived, the impression and the sensation that nature evoked in him.

Soot and steam

In 1877, Monet went to the St-Lazare train station to examine a collection of works that explored the effects of soot and steam on color and transparency .

His aim was to understand the effects of fog and rain on landscapes and to depict them in his artwork. This research led to a number of famous paintings, such as his water lily series, which showed the same subject in different lighting conditions, at different times of day, and with changing weather and seasons.

This practice began in the 1880s and continued until his death in 1926. Over the course of his career, Monet transcended the Impressionist style and dared to push the boundaries of painting.

Pastel Colors

In the 1870s, Monet changed his color palette, increasingly using pastel colors, as can be seen in the artwork "Woman with a Parasol" (1875). This choice of colors corresponded to his softer style, which was expressed through smaller and more varied brushstrokes.

Other masterpieces by Monet – A small selection

The outstanding artwork “The Magpie” undoubtedly ranks among the finest snowscapes created by Claude Monet. Many artists of the time shared a similar predilection, leading art historians to believe that harsh winters were a recurring phenomenon in France at that time.

Despite the criticism Monet received at the time for his painting style, he was clearly fascinated by the winter landscape and loved to immortalize it in his own style. Painting snowscapes, however, was no easy task, as the cold made the work even more difficult. A journalist recounted an experience of observing Claude Monet during a snowstorm that lasted several days, as follows:

“It was freezing cold, and the cold was so intense that stones shattered. We saw a foot warmer, an easel, and a man wrapped in three coats, wearing gloves, and struggling with a half-frozen face. It was Monet, studying the effect of snow.”

Claude Monet's legacy and influence on art history

As the main representative of Impressionism, Claude Monet developed a style that represents a synthesis of the various influences he had received: first those of Eugène Boudin and Johan Barthold Jongkind, then the academicism of Charles Gleyre, but also the Japanism that was fashionable at the time.

Monet produced both portraits and landscapes that illustrated nature or, conversely, the urbanization of cities – a subject that was considered unattractive at the time.

Throughout his life, Claude Monet's primary concern was the manipulation of light and its effects. Repeating the same motif at different times of day or year was merely a pretext for his artistic explorations. This quest ultimately drove Monet to develop abstract compositions.

Monet's extraordinarily long life and extensive artistic output form the basis for his enduring appeal. Impressionism, which he significantly shaped, remains one of the most sought-after creative movements to this day, as evidenced by the high sales of his diaries, maps, and banners.

Monet's paintings are highly prized, and some are considered priceless. Indeed, his artworks can be found in every major museum in the world.

Although Monet's paintings are revered today, he remained known only to a small group of art lovers for a long time after his death. It was the Abstract Expressionists who brought his art to enormous prominence in New York. Monet's enormous paintings and semi-abstract, flat compositions influenced artists such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko Pop artists like Andy Warhol also incorporated his haystack motif into recurring portraits.

Several Minimalists adopted the same concept in their serial presentation of objects. Today, Impressionism and Monet are considered the foundation of contemporary and modern art and are therefore fundamental to almost any historical study.

Museums with collections of Claude Monet

Claude Monet's works are exhibited worldwide. In France, the Marmottan-Monet Museum the most important public collection of the artist's work. The Musée de l'Orangerie and the Musée d'Orsay in Paris also possess many of his paintings.

The Claude Monet Foundation , based in Giverny, aims to protect and improve the painter's house and garden.

Monet's works are also exhibited in international museums: the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the National Gallery in London, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, and the Rijkmuseum in Amsterdam.

The most important exhibitions about the artist

• Le décor impressionniste, Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris, 2022
• Côté Jardin. De Monet à Bonnard, Musée des Impressionnismes, Giverny, 2021
• Nympheas. L'abstraction américaine et le dernier Monet, Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris, 2018
• Claude Monet, Grand Palais, Paris, 2011
• Le Jardin de Monet à Giverny: l'Invention d'un paysage, Musée des Impressionnismes, Giverny, 2009
• Monet – Durand-Ruel Gallery – France, Paris, 1900
• Claude Monet: exposition rétrospective – musée de l'Orangerie – France, Paris, 1931
• Claude Monet 1840-1926 – Kunsthaus Zürich – Suisse, Zurich, 1952
• Claude Monet – Gemeentemuseum – Pays-Bas, La Haye, 1952
• Claude Monet – Durand-Ruel Gallery – France, Paris, 1970
• Homage to Claude Monet – Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais – France, Paris, 1980
• L'Impressionnisme et le paysage français - Los Angeles County Museum of Art - Etats-Unis, Los Angeles, 1984
• A Day in the Country: Impressionism and the French Landscape - The Art Institute of Chicago - Etats-Unis, Chicago, 1984 - 1985
• L'Impressionnisme et le paysage français – Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais – France, Paris, 1985
• Emile Verhaeren: un musée imaginaire – musée Charlier – Belgique, Bruxelles, 1997
• L'Impressionnisme et l'art moderne – palais de Toksu – Corée, République de, Séoul, 2000 – 2001
• Monet and Japan – National Gallery of Australia – Australia, Canberra, 2001
• Monet and Japan – Art Gallery of Western Australia – Australia, Perth, 2001
• Monet's Garden – Kunsthaus Zürich – Suisse, Zurich, 2004 – 2005
• Monet. L'art de Monet et sa postérité – National Art Center – Japan, Tokyo, 2007
• In Monet's Garden. Artists and the Lure of Giverny – Columbus Museum of Art – Etats-Unis, Columbus, 2007 – 2008
• Claude Monet 1840-1926 – Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais – France, Paris, 2010 – 2011
• The Rivalry of the Guard. Capolavori impressionisti e post-impressionisti dal Musée d'Orsay – Museo d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto – Italie, Rovereto, 2011
• Musee d'Orsay. Capolavori – Complesso del Vittoriano – Italie, Rome, 2014
• Painting the Modern garden: Monet to Matisse – Cleveland Museum of Art – Etats-Unis, Cleveland, 2015 – 2016
• Painting the Modern garden: Monet to Matisse – Royal Academy of Arts – Royaume-Uni, Londres, 2016
• Christian Dior, Couturier du Rêve – Musée des Arts Décoratifs – France, Paris, 2017 – 2018

Bibliography and further reading

• Heinrich, Christoph, Monet (2023 edition), (available on Amazon*)
• Wildenstein, Daniel, Monet. The Triumph of Impressionism (2022 edition), ( available on Amazon* )
• Hoschedé, Jean-Pierre, Claude Monet ce mal connu , “Les Jardins de Claude Monet”, Geneva, 1960
• Wildenstein, Daniel, Claude Monet : catalog raisonné Claude Monet. 1, 1840-1881, peintures , Paris, Bibliothèque des Arts; Wildenstein Institute, 1974
• Wildenstein, Daniel, Catalogue Raisonné, Paris, Taschen, 1996
• Compin, Isabelle ; Roquebert, Anne, Catalog sommaire illustré des peintures du Musée du Louvre et du Musée d'Orsay , Paris, Réunion des musées nationaux, 1986
• Patin, Sylvie, Jardins d'hier et d'aujourd'hui , Paris, Musée d'Orsay; Hachette; Reunion of national museums, 1991
• Lobstein, Dominique, Claude Monet in Giverny: The Painter and His Garden, Quintin, Gisserot, 2002, ( available on Amazon* )
• Le Men, Ségolène, Monet, Paris, Citadels and Mazenod, 2017