Biography of Claude Monet
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| Madame Monet and Her Son |
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Claude Monet
Birth name Claude Oscar Monet
Born November 14, 1840
Paris, France
Died December 5, 1926
Giverny, France
Nationality French
Field Painter
Movement Impressionism
Famous works Impression, Sunrise
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Claude Monet also known as Oscar-Claude Monet or Claude Oscar Monet
(November 14, 1840 – December 5, 1926)[1] was a founder of French
Impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific
practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's
perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape
painting.[2] The term Impressionism is derived from the title of his
painting Impression, Sunrise.
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Early life
Monet was born to Adolphe and Louise Justine Monet, both of them
second-generation Parisians, of 90 Rue Laffitte, in the 9th
arrondissement of Paris, but his family moved in 1845 to Le Havre in
Normandy when he was five. He was christened as Oscar-Claude at the
church of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette. His father wanted him to go into the
family (grocery store) business, but Claude Monet wanted to become an
artist. His mother was a singer.
On the first of April 1851 Monet entered the Le Havre secondary school
of the arts. He first became known locally for his charcoal caricatures,
which he would sell for ten to twenty francs. Monet also undertook his
first drawing lessons from Jacques-Francois Ochard, a former student of
Jacques-Louis David. On the beaches of Normandy in about 1856/1857, he
met fellow artist Eugène Boudin, who became his mentor and taught him to
use oil paints. Boudin taught Monet en plein air (outdoor) techniques
for painting.[3]
On 28 January 1857 his mother died. Now 16 years old, he left school and
his widowed, childless aunt Marie-Jeanne Lecadre took him into her home.
Paris
When Monet traveled to Paris to visit The Louvre, he witnessed painters
copying from the old masters. Monet, having brought his paints and other
tools with him, would instead go and sit by a window and paint what he
saw. Monet was in Paris for several years and met several painters who
would become friends and fellow impressionists. One of those friends was
Édouard Manet.
In June of 1861 Monet joined the First Regiment of African Light Cavalry
in Algeria for two years of a seven-year commitment, but upon his
contracting typhoid his aunt Madame Lecadre intervened to get him out of
the army if he agreed to complete an art course at a university. It is
possible that the Dutch painter Johan Barthold Jongkind, whom Monet
knew, may have prompted his aunt on this matter. Disillusioned with the
traditional art taught at universities, in 1862 Monet was a student of
Charles Gleyre in Paris, where he met Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Frederic
Bazille, and Alfred Sisley. Together they shared new approaches to art,
painting the effects of light en plein air with broken color and rapid
brushstrokes, in what later came to be known as Impressionism.
Monet's 1866 Camille or The Woman in the Green Dress (La Femme à la Robe
Verte), which brought him recognition, was one of many works featuring
his future wife, Camille Doncieux. Shortly thereafter Doncieux became
pregnant and bore their first child, Jean. In 1868, due to financial
reasons, Monet attempted suicide by throwing himself into the Seine.
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| The Monets Garden at Veth... |
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Franco-Prussian War
During the Franco-Prussian War (1870 - 1871), Monet took refuge in
England.[4] While there he studied the works of John Constable and
Joseph Mallord William Turner, both of whose landscapes would serve to
inspire Monet's innovations in the study of color.
From 1871 to 1878 Monet lived at Argenteuil, a village on the Seine near
Paris, and here were painted some of his best known works.
Upon returning to France, in 1872 (or 1873) he painted Impression,
Sunrise (Impression: soleil levant) depicting a Le Havre landscape. It
hung in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874 and is now displayed
in the Musée Marmottan-Monet, Paris. From the painting's title, art
critic Louis Leroy coined the term "Impressionism", which he intended to
be derogatory, however the Impressionists appropriated the term for
themselves.[5]
Later life
In 1870, Monet and Doncieux married and in 1873 moved into a house in
Argenteuil near the Seine River. They had another son, Michel, on March
17, 1878. Madame Monet died of tuberculosis in 1879.
Alice Hoschedé decided to help Monet by bringing up his two children
together with her own. They lived in Poissy. In April 1883 they moved to
a house in Giverny, Eure, in Haute-Normandie, where he planted a large
garden which he painted for the rest of his life. Monet and Alice
Hoschedé married in 1892.[3]
In the 1880s and 1890s, Monet began "series" paintings, in which a
subject was depicted in varying light and weather conditions. His first
series exhibited as such was of Haystacks, painted from different points
of view and at different times of the day. Fifteen of the paintings were
exhibited at the Durand-Ruel in 1891. He later produced series of
paintings of Rouen Cathedral, poplars, the Houses of Parliament,
mornings on the Seine, and the waterlilies on his property at Giverny.
Monet was exceptionally fond of painting controlled nature: his own
garden in Giverny, with its water lilies, pond, and bridge. He also
painted up and down the banks of the Seine.
Between 1883 and 1908, Monet traveled to the Mediterranean, where he
painted landmarks, landscapes, and seascapes, such as Bordighera. He
painted an important series of paintings in Venice, Italy, and in London
he painted two important series - views of Parliament and views of
Charing Cross Bridge. His wife Alice died in 1911 and his son Jean died
in 1914.[3]
Death
Monet died of lung cancer on December 5, 1926 at the age of 86 and is
buried in the Giverny church cemetery.[6] His famous home and garden
with its waterlily pond and bridge at Giverny are a popular drawcard for
tourists. In the house there are many examples of Japanese woodcut
prints on the walls.
Posthumous sales
In 2004, London, the Parliament, Effects of Sun in the Fog (Londres, Le
Parlement, trouée de soleil dans le brouillard) (1904), sold for U.S.
$20.1 million.[7] In 2006, the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society
published a paper providing evidence that these were painted in situ at
St Thomas' Hospital over the river Thames.
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References
Cited
1. Biography of Claude MONET giverny.org. Retrieved 6 January 2007.
2. House, John, et al: Monet in the 20th Century, page 2. Yale
University Press, 1998.
3. a b c Biography for Claude Monet Guggenheim Collection. Retrieved 6
January 2007.
4. Monet, Claude Nicolas Pioch, www.ibiblio.org, 19 September 2002.
Retrieved 6 January 2007.
5. Impressionism - Overview ARTinthePICTURE.com. Retrieved 6 January
2007.
6. The village of Giverny giverny.org. Retrieved 6 January 2007.
7. Monet's masterpiece reaches record high bid newsfromrussia.com, 5
November 2004. Retrieved 6 January 2007.
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