Claude Monet Art

Claude Monet was one of the most important Impressionist painters of the 19th and early 20th century. It was Boudin who introduced him to painting landscapes while he was attending art school in La Harve. He urged him to paint what he saw before his eyes. This was further reinforced by Jongkind, whom he met while he was serving in the army in Algeria. Jongkind helped him to transmit what he saw into painting using the clear skies of Africa.

When he returned to Paris a year later after contracting typhoid, he took art courses at the university. Even though he wasn’t impressed with these courses, he did meet Renoir, Sisley and Bazille who shared his love of naturalistic painting. All four painters used the technique of painting landscapes using rapid brushstrokes and broken color. Thus Impressionism in art was born.

In 1864, he painted several seascapes, both of which were well acclaimed by art critics. He lived in England for a time and met with John Constable. He traveled to the Netherlands and started collecting Japanese woodblock prints. After the death of his father, in 1871, an art dealer, Durand-Ruel, started to buy Monet’s prints to give him some financial help.

He settled in the village of Argenteuil, where Renoir joined him. The two began creating Impresssionist paintings in earnest. His painting, Impression, Sunrise, was shown at the art exhibition in Paris in 1874. In 1886, he settled at Giverny where he had a barn to use as his art studio. Although he did his studies of the landscapes outdoors, he did most of his paintings indoors, returning to each one several times to study it in different lights. Some of his paintings featured the weather conditions, such as snow and ice, dramatic rock formations, haystacks near his home, and the quiet scene of the river. Even though he did paint buildings in some of his paintings it was the natural setting that provided him with the inspiration.

In some of his later paintings, he created a series of works and while his son Michel was serving in the army during World War 1, he painted a series of Weeping Willow trees as a homage to fallen French soldiers.

Some of the famous paintings of Monet are:

The Woman in the Green Dress
The Artist’s House at Argenteuil
The Cliffs at Etretat
Rouen Cathedral
Bridge Over a Pool of Water Lilies