Claude Monet was born in Paris on the 14th November, 1840.
When he was five years old, he moved to the port town of Le Havre. For much
of his childhood, Monet was considered by both his teachers and his parents
to be undisciplined and, therefore, unlikely to make a success of his life.
Enforcing this impression, Monet showed no interest in inheriting his
father's wholesale grocery. The only subject which seemed to spark any
interest in the child was painting. He developed a decent reputation in
school for the caricatures he was fond of creating. By the age of fifteen,
he was receiving commission for his work.
It was at Le Havre that Monet met the painter Eugène
Boudin. While Boudin's own paintings have never been held in that high
regard, he is seen as having played a critical role in the education of
Monet. Born of a seafaring family in 1824, Boudin was obsessed with the idea
of painting outdoors or en plein air . The two painters met in 1856
and, at first, Monet resisted Boudin's offer of tuition but he eventually
relaxed his protestations and before long, the two had forged a relationship
that was to last a lifetime. Although Monet soon left Le Havre to spend a
large part of his life traveling throughout Europe, he returned frequently
to visit his old friend. The interest that had been sparked some years
earlier was refined and shaped and Monet was in no doubt as to the extent to
which his outlook on life had been altered:
My eyes were finally opened and I understood nature; I
learned at the same time to love it.
Boudin may have opened Monet's eyes, he may have even
convinced the young painter to break with tradition and finish his paintings
outdoors, but the young protégé had yet to truly experience the country's
capital. Before long, the limitations of L e Havre on a burgeoning young
artist became all to apparent and, in 1859, Monet left for Paris. However,
having displaced himself to the heart of Europe's art-world, Monet soon
found himself disillusioned by the confines of long-since established
principles. He rejected the formal art training that was available in Paris.
Bored and frustrated, Monet was to do more painting at the very relaxed
Académie Suisse then in the formal schools for which he had left
Le Havre.
In the Spring of 1862, Monet was called up for National
Service. He went to Algeria for a year with a prestigious regiment: les
Chaussures d'Afrique . This experience was to have a profound effect on
Monet. The landscapes and colours of Alg eria presented an entirely
different perspective of the world, one which was to inspire him for many
years to come. Theoretically, Monet should have remained in Algeria for
seven years, but his time there was curtailed by the contraction of typhoid.
The artist's aunt, Madame Lecadre, intervened and bought Monet out of the
army. Her only condition: that Monet return to Paris and make a serious
attempt at completing a formal artistic tuition course.
Despite these provisions, Monet did not enroll in
l'École des Artistes . It was a renowned institution, but one filled
with the traditionalists that Monet was so determined to contradict.
Instead, he joined the studio of the Swiss-born Charles Gleyre. Gleyre was a
successful Salon painter but he was neither a professor at the École
nor was he a member of the Académie . Remembering his own poverty as
a student artist, Gleyre charged very little, only 10 francs for models and
the studio. This leniency attracted a large number of artists. The student
body, such as it existed, was extremely diverse: young, old; rich, poor;
good, bad, etc. Among them all, however, Monet was to meet three very close
and influential friends: Frédéric Bazille, Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley.
This subcategory of Gleyre's students was representative of the studio's
diverse constitution. While all three of these painters were talented, they
came from very different social backgrounds. Noticeably, Renoir was
considerably less well-off then his fellow artists. The unifying force that
was to bind the group for so long, however, was the commitment and intense
dedication to their new approach to art. One which was eventually to be
labeled impressionism.
Gleyre was a very talented instructor and all his students
benefited from his persistent teaching methods. Monet remained at his studio
for approximately two years. Throughout this time, Monet, Renoir, Sisley and
Bazille made frequent trips to the nearby forest of Fontainbleau - located
South-East of Paris. This forest had been a popular venue for artists for a
number of years. How ever, this new group broke the tradition of their
predecessor's paintings by replacing subdued colours and dark shadows with
open spaces and sunlight. When Monet was not fulfilling his need to be
outdoors by going to Fontainbleau, he was visiting his old friend, Boudin,
in Le Havre. There can be no doubt as to his enthusiasm during this time:
Every day I discover more and more beautiful things.
It's enough to drive one mad: I have such a desire to do everything, my
head is bursting with it.
This enthusiasm and appreciation of the world outdoors was
rewarding but Monet wanted to make a name for himself and this meant
appeasing the tradionalists of the Académie . Contrary to the advice
of his friend and mentor, Boudin, Monet adhered to the expectations placed
on serious entries to the Salon and painted a number of pictures in doors.
These were very successful. But his larger piece drew some criticism. Quite
the opposite from the expected smooth surfaces which were in vog ue at the
time, Monet's entry was "broadly handled with a loaded brush, giving a rough
surface texture and clearly visible brushstrokes, and sacrificing detail to
overall effect."
Monet persisted in his efforts to appeal to the
Académie and during the period from '65 to '66 he painted a number
of subjects with varying degrees of success. His last entry, The Woman in
the Green Dress (reportedly painted in four days), bought both recognition
and introduction to his mistress, Camille Doncieux. Monet, desperate to
achieve complete success, immersed himself in his next project and entry to
the Salon for the following year: Women in the Garden. This painting too k a
very long time to finish because Monet would only paint when the light was
falling correctly on every aspect of the painting's subject-matter. In order
to complete the top of his canvas, Monet dug himself a ditch so that he
could continue to paint the scene from the same perspective (other painters
simply stood upon a ladder). Despite these many arduous efforts, the Salon
rejected the painting when it was finally entered for the following season.
Shortly after the Salon's decision, Camille became
pregnant. They had little money and were largely dependent on Monet's
friends. Madame Lecadre took Monet in to her house, but Camille was forced
to remain in Paris. This marked the beginning of a lifestyle which was
becoming increasingly itinerant, culminating in Monet's move to London in
the early 1870's to avoid involvement in the Franco-Prussian War. Here he
was exposed to the English masters, Constable and Turner. Later, Monet
returned again to Le Havre where he painted the often cited Impression:
Sunrise, the painting largely credited with the naming of the
entire movement.
After the completion of the
Sunrise, Monet moved back to Paris and finally rented a house at
Argenteuil on the Seine where he and Camille lived for six years. This
period represents the height of the impressionist movement. Frequently
joined by Renoir and other friends from his student days, Monet painted
every aspect of life and the world out door s. In 1874, Manet, Degas,
Cézanne, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley and Monet put together an exhibition which
has been vastly talked about in the history books but was, unfortunately, a
contemporary disaster. The exhibition marked a return to financial
insecurity for Monet and it was only the intercession of Manet (once a
critic, now a friend) that allowed Monet to remain at Argenteuil. In an
attempt to recoup some of his losses, Monet made a sale of his paintings at
the Hotel Drouot. This, too, was a complete failure.
These setbacks demonstrate a remarkable quality about the
painter. Despite almost constant rejection and financial uncertainty,
Monet's paintings never became morose or even, really, all that somber.
Instead, Monet immersed himself in the task of perfecting a style which
still had not been accepted by the world at large.
His rendering of the quiver of light in the expanse of
space reached its chromatic fullness...he replaced his technique of
broad modulations with a kind of pictorial granulation.
Never fully content, Monet went to Dieppe, Pourville and
Varengeville-sur-Mer. His first wife Camille died in 1882, and in 1883 Monet
finally settled in Giverny where he remained until his death. This
geographical constant was coupled with the disintegration of the group of
impressionists. Other influences and groups presented themselves and,
gradually, each of the painters drifted away to pursue their own styles.
Among the newcomers was Vincent van Gogh.
In 1892 Monet married Alice Hoschede, with whom he had had
an affair during his marriage to Camille. In that year he painted his series
of Rouen Cathedral, noticing how every aspect of the scene was altered in
accordance with the changing light. This realization was to become an
obsession in his later years. At last, Monet gained renown. He knew several
important people and he became financially secure for the first time in his
life. With this new-found luxury, Monet devoted himself to gardening which,
in turn, provided a motif for the painter's last important work, the
Water Lily Pool . Monet was absorbed in this project almost exclusively
from 1900 until his death,
