9781422271780

MASTERS OF ART

Claude Monet was born in 1840 in Paris, France. His father, Adolphe, owned a shipping business. His mother, Louise, was a trained singer, but despite her talents, looked after the house and family. Monet had one older brother called Leon. After five years in Paris, the family moved to the town of Le Havre, on the seacoast. From an early age, Monet had a talent for drawing, something that his mother supported until her death in 1857. In the years that followed, and time spent in Paris, Monet continued to draw and paint and also served in the military. Eventually, he left the military in 1862, and went on to pursue his art full time, and then became the founder, and one of the most influential artists, of the Impressionist movement. Monet died in 1926 at the age of 86 at his home in Giverny,

THE ART OF MONET

T he Impressionist Revolution, one of the most dramatically successful and influential developments in the character of Western art since the beginning of the Renaissance, is encapsulated in the life and work of Claude Monet, recognized universally as the quintessential figure of the movement. The course of Impressionism is delineated through Monet’s working life, which covered the whole of the latter part of the nineteenth century and up to the second decade of the twentieth century. Monet and Impressionism are so inter related, and so much does he personify its characteristics and qualities, that it seems at times that he must have been the only Impressionist. His long life encompassed many domestic and personal difficulties during which he struggled to enlarge his art. The result was a consistent, if changing, development that ended with a series of massive panels epitomizing his philosophy and becoming the greatest single monument to the success of the Impressionist movement.

Of course, a whole art movement cannot be encompassed in the work of one artist. The wider the accepted generic coverage of any movement or period, the greater the number of artists who may be included and appropriately identified. For instance, in a broadly inclusive term such as “Renaissance,” many artists of different nationalities and pictorial intentions over a long time span may be included, with each contributing something significantly different to the general classification. When the grouping is numerically small, spans only a short period of time, consists mainly of one nationality, and has few formative figures (as in the case of Impressionism), the contribution of each individual artist will materially affect the perceived character of the movement. For that reason, it is essential to be clear about which artists may properly be included before one can establish the parameters of the movement. With Monet at the heart, we may confidently claim Renoir, Sisley, and Pissarro as original participants and 7