Monet

A founder and model member of the Impressionist movement, Claude Monet was born in 1840 and spent his childhood in Le Havre, concentrating on caricatures like Young Man with a Monocle throughout his early career. His mentor, Boudin, persuaded him to take up landscape painting and between 1871 and 1876 whilst residing in Argenteuil he produced many notable works, such as The Seine at Argenteuil and Wild Poppies near Argenteuil.

By 1890 his success was firmly established and it was during the subsequent period that he produced two of his most famous series of works, Haystacks and Rouen Cathedral; studies which concentrated on painting the same subject at various times of day to experiment with light. Probably his most renowned series of paintings was Waterlilies, produced in his latter years to depict his water-garden at Giverny.

Monet’s work and use of colour was instrumental in guiding the Impressionist movement, and even though his peers took ideas and applied them in their own specific style, his influence can still be viewed in the works of Degas, Cézanne, Pissarro and Renoir. Furthermore, his life’s work offers more variety than that of other artists of the time since he was openly spontaneous to different inspirations. Monet’s work spans both colourful and illuminated subjects as well as paintings of muted and neutral tones. He altered his technique to match the subject matter, adjusting it according to whether it evoked a cheerful or solemn interpretation. In addition to this, his art had a general transformation over the years. He moved from early paintings depicting activity and movement in the form of streets, harbours, and populated beaches to a later work that tended to omit the human figure, confining itself to a more isolated and natural world. The transition can be seen when comparing paintings such as Boats in the Pool of London, View of Le Havre and The Beach at Trouville with The Artist’s Garden at Giverny and Weeping Willow.

Other examples can be seen in his illustrations of Venice and London. View of San Giorgio Maggiore and Waterloo Bridge are cities viewed at a distance through sunlight and fog, motionless and devoid of the human figure so moving away from the kinetic energy of previous works. In addition to this he moved from painting large fields on small canvases, to small fields or a few flowers in life-size proportions. Paintings like Nympheas at Giverny and Iris reveal how Monet wished to endow each intimate space with the importance of an entire world. Like many artists approaching older age, Monet appears to demonstrate what in German is known as Alterstil, a style that has been applied to the later works of Titian, Rembrandt and Tintoretto, in which the artist has become reflective, living within themselves rather than facing the outside world.