Pic:http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=claude+monet&view=detail&id=40E8480A2735A434A195014A264FFBBFD24ED7D1&FORM=IDFRIR

Artist : Claude Monet
Artwork: Bridge over a Pool of Waterlilles.

Who is Claude Monet?

• Monet was born in Paris in 1840 to his parents Claude Adolphe Monet and Louise-Justine Aubree.he had one brother Leon Pascal Monet.
• At the time of Monets birth in 1840 France was enjoying a period of relative economic and political stability.in line with the growing interesta of the middle classes, artistic trends were increasingly being set by beourgeouis taste, a factor which precipitated the landscape painting of Barbizon school.
• France fell into economic crisis in the mid forties.This led to monet and his family moving to Le Harve.
• He grew up in a comerically oriented hous. Only his mother showed an interest in the arts. Her early death in 1857 was a blow to the 17 year old Monet.
• At school Monet recived his first drawing lesson from Francis-Charles Orchard.hese lessons had no profound influence.
• Monet had a talemt for characuturist. he did portraits of people around Le Harve and charged for them.

Eugene Boudin

• Monet initally reacted with aversion to the Boudin Seascapes. They were nevertheless introduced to eachother. Boudin praised Monets drawings.
• He convinced Monet that objects painted directly infront of you possessed greater vitality than those created in the studio. it had intensity that could not be recreated.
• The two men walked through Montgeon Forest. Boudin set up his easel and went to work " I watched attentively, and then, as if a veil had been torn aside, i grasped what painting could be"

                              "If i became a painter it is to Eugene Boudin i owe that fact"






The Sea at Douarnenez - Eugene Boudin
http://www.topofart.com/images/artists/Eugene_Boudin/paintings/boudin010.jpg

• Under Boudin in the summer of 1858 Monet produced two seascapes to him.He was 17 and a half.
• Six months later Monet told his father he wanted to become a painter and moved to Paris. His family allowed him to stay there if he entered the atelier of Thomas Couture. Couture prepared students for the Ecole des Beaux Arts. However, Monet and Couture did not see eye to eye. Monet was an independant mind and did not take critisim well. Couture lost his temper easily and refused to accept new students who had limited means to boot.
• In Febuary 1860 Monet moved again. Since he was not to attend Couture he had to find another atelier. he decided on the private academy. Academie Suisse.it was here he made his first contact with so-called realist painters.

• In spring 1861 Monet was drafted to the military service. He was sent to Algeria with the African legion. He could only stay two of the 7 years however due to illness. Monet later judged this period abroad to have benifitted his painting.
• He was then introduced to the dutch painter Johan Barthold Jongkind. Jongkinds paintings focused on above all on the sea and the coast. He sought to render subtle atmosphere effects through sensitive use of colour and airy landsacapes built of brief brushstrokes. This made him a forerunner of impressionist painting.

                " Jongkind was my true teacher, and i owe to him the final education of my eye"

• The salon of March 1865 was the first the Monet submitted two pictures. They were both accepted.

The Seine near its Estuary, Honfleur.

 http://www.risdmuseum.org/explore/objects/95.shtml?theme=places

 

La pointe de La Heve at Low Tide 

 http://www.monetalia.com/paintings/monet-the-pointe-de-la-heve-at-low-tide.aspx

• A war later began. The Franco-Prussian War. In 1870 Monet, Pissaro and Boudin fled to London. Here Monet met with John Constable and Willim Turner. Constables paintings were concerned with the effects of light. Turners concerned with changes in the landscape. Monets works were always compared to turners although he protested against it..
• Monet moved back to Paris.His works were now based on the effects of light and he worked alot in series which allowed him to capture these effcts through day times and season change.

  Haystack-Morning Sun

 

Rouen Cathedral 

Monet made his final move to Giverney. Here he spent many years redesigning not only the house but also the garden. He wanted to create his own japenese inspired garden which would occupy him now untill the end of his life.