Claude Monet
Claude Monet was an Impressionist painter during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was an unswerving advocate of the Impressionist style, an attempt by artists to record visual reality using transient effects of light and color. The Impression movement name came from one of his paintings (Impression: Sunrise). Louis Leroy, a journalist, exclaimed "Impression! Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished!" In less than one year, the name Impressionism was an accepted term used to describe his art and the work of several other artists during that era.
Monet was an uncontrollable child and a disappointment to his father. While in school, he would decorate his text books with elabotate designs and draw pictures of his teachers as well. Becoming very good at drawing portraits, he dropped out of school in his teen years and by fifteen was known as a caricaturist in all of Le Havre.
Water Lilies
Haystacks, (Sunset)
Impression SunriseBecause of his talent, he was able to charge people for the drawings. He continued with the caricatures until he met Boudin, a great artist at the time. Boudin saw great talent in the drawings and pushed young Monet into trying something different. After serveral months of prodding, Monet finally agreed and it didn't take long for him to fall in love with the art he was producing. Without the approval of his father, he decided to move to Paris and learn how to become a painter.
He spent the next four years in Paris mostly following Boudins advice expanding his knowledge about painting. A seven year stint in the Army took him out of Paris but he quickly returned to learn more under the tutelage of Toulmouche and Gleyre. Later he would meet Jongkind who became his greatest master.
In 1867, he began to branch...