1840 Claude Oscar Monet is born
in Paris, on 14 November, the second son of a shopkeeper.
1845 the Family move to Le Havre where Monet's talent for drawing is
apparent in caricatures of teachers and others.
1858 Meets the landscape artist Eugene Boudin (1824-1898) who
encourages him to paint out of doors.
1859 Monet goes to Paris to study art . He visits the Salon, and
works at the Académie Suisse, where he meets Camille Pissarro
(1830-1903).
1862 Meets Johan Barthold Jongkind (1819-1891). Enters the studio of
Charles Gleyre (1806-1874), a Swiss painter who lives
in Paris. There he meets Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), Alfred Sisley
(1839-1899) and Frederic Bazille (1841-1870).
1863 Monet discovers Manet's paintings at Martinet's where his work
is exhibited paint in the Forest of Fontainebleau with
his friends. At the end of the year, all four leave Gleyre's studio.
1864 Meets his first art lover, Gaudibert.
1865 The Salon accepts two Monet marine paintings. Camille Doncieux,
his future wife and Bazille pose for his Le Déjeuner
sur l'herbe (The Picnic).
1866 Lady in a Green Dress is exhibited at the Salon and well
received.
1867 His first son Jean Monet is born while Claude Monet is in
Sainte-Adresse. Back in Paris, Bazille shares his studio with
Monet and buys Women in the Garden, which the Salon has turned down,
by instalments.
1868 Monet tries to commit suicide. He receives a pension from Mr
Gaudibert. Works at Etretat and Fecamp.
1870 Marries Camille Doncieux. Again rejected by the Salon. On the
outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, Monet moves to
London, where he discovers Turner and the English landscape
painters. There he meets art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel.
1871 Monet's father dies. In the autumn, Monet returns to France via
Holland, and rents a house and garden at Argenteuil.
1872 Durand-Ruel buys a large selection of paintings. Monet creates
his studio boat and paints the banks of the Seine. At Le
Havre he paints Impression, Sun Rising.
1873 Meets Gustave Caillebotte
1874 Monet exhibits Impression, Sun Rising at the first
Impressionist exhibition in the studio of Nadar.
1875 In financial difficulty again, Monet moves to a smailer house.
1876 At the second Impressionist show in Durand-Ruel's gallery,
Monet exhibits 18 paintings. Meets department-store director
Ernest Hoschede.
1878 Birth of the Monets' second son, Michel, in Paris. In the
summer, the family move to a small house at Vétheuil, where
Alice Hoschede and her six children joins them.
1879 Camille dies at the age of 32.
1881 Monet, Alice Hoschede and their children move to Poissy.
1883 Monet rents the house at Giverny, and in December goes to the
south of France with Renoir.
1887 Durand-Ruel opens a New York gallery and exhibits Monet's works
there.
1888 Begins the Haystacks series.
1889 Monet and Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) exhibition together.
1890 Works on the Haystacks and begins the Poplars series. Buys the
Giverny house where he has been living since 1883.
1891 The Haystacks exhibition at Durand-Ruel's is a great success.
1892 Paints the Rouen Cathedral series. He marries Alice Raingo,
widow of Ernest Hoschedé.
1895 Monet visits his stepson in Norway. Durand-Ruel exhibits the
Rouen Cathedral series.
1897 Builds a second studio at Giverny. The second Venice Biennale
includes 20 Monets.
1899 Monet begins his waterlilies series in the water gardens at
Giverny.
1900 Monet paints several views of the Japanese bridge. He takes
several trips to London and paints views of the Thames.
1904 Monet travels to Madrid with Alice and admires the paintings of
Velasquez.
1906 Monet continues work on his waterlilies series. Death of
Cezanne on 22 October.
1908 First symptoms of the cataract. Visits Venice with Alice.
1909 The 48 landscapes of "Waterlilies", painted between 1904 and
1906 and exhibited at Durand-Ruel, have great success.
1911 Alice Monet dies on 19 May.
1914 Following his eldest son Jean's death, His daughter-in-law,
Blanche, looks after him until his death. France declares
war.
1915 Monet builds a large studio of 23 m x 12m at Giverny to work on
the decorative waterlilies project.
1919 Death of Auguste Renoir.
1921 Major retrospective at DurandRuel's.
1923 Monet is nearly blind. He has an operation from the cataract in
one eye. His sight improves. Frequently depressed and
downhearted, he continues work on the great decorative waterlilies.
1926 Claude Monet dies at Giverny. He is buried in a simple ceremony
at Giverny.
Monet, Claude
His youth was
spent in Le Havre, where he first excelled as a caricaturist but was
then converted to landscape painting by his early mentor Boudin,
from whom he derived his firm predilection for painting out of
doors. In 1859 he studied in Paris at the Atelier Suisse and formed
a friendship with Pissarro. After two years' military service in
Algiers, he returned to Le Havre and met Jongkind, to whom he said
he owed `the definitive education of my eye'. He then, in 1862,
entered the studio of Gleyre in Paris and there met Renoir, Sisley,
and Bazille, with whom he was to form the nucleus of the
Impressionist group. Monet's devotion to painting out of doors is
illustrated by the famous story concerning one of his most ambitious
early works, Women in the Garden (Musée d'Orsay, Paris;
1866-67). The picture is about 2.5 meters high and to enable him to
paint all of it outside he had a trench dug in the garden so that
the canvas could be raised or lowered by pulleys to the height he
required. Courbet visited him when he was working on it and said
Monet would not paint even the leaves in the background unless the
lighting conditions were exactly right.
During the Franco-Prussian War
(1870-71) he took refuge in England with Pissarro: he studied the
work of Constable and Turner, painted the Thames and London parks,
and met the dealer Durand-Ruel, who was to become one of the great
champions of the Impressionists. From 1871 to 1878 Monet lived at
Argenteuil, a village on the Seine near Paris, and here were painted
some of the most joyous and famous works of the Impressionist
movement, not only by Monet, but by his visitors
Manet,
Renoir and Sisley. In 1878 he moved to Vétheuil and in 1883 he
settled at Giverny, also on the Seine, but about 40 miles from
Paris. After having experienced extreme poverty, Monet began to
prosper. By 1890 he was successful enough to buy the house at
Giverny he had previously rented and in 1892 he married his
mistress, with whom he had begun an affair in 1876, three years
before the death of his first wife. From 1890 he concentrated on
series of pictures in which he painted the same subject at different
times of the day in different lights---Haystacks or
Grainstacks (1890-91) and Rouen Cathedral
(1891-95) are the best known. He continued to travel widely,
visiting London and Venice several times (and also Norway as a guest
of Queen Christiana), but increasingly his attention was focused on
the celebrated water-garden he created at Giverny, which served as
the theme for the series of paintings on Water-lilies
that began in 1899 and grew to dominate his work completely (in 1914
he had a special studio built in the grounds of his house so he
could work on the huge canvases).
In his final years he was troubled by
failing eyesight, but he painted until the end. He was enormously
prolific and many major galleries have examples of his work.
Monet: Expression of the Light by Emotions
"I am a slave to my work, forever in pursuit of the
impossible... I
have little time left to live and I must give all of it to painting, in
the hope that I will finally achieve something fine, which if it is
possible will also satisfy me ", Monet writes in his letter to his
friend G. Bernheim-Jeune in 1918. It is unknown that if he was satisfied
with, what he had done, before his death; but it is certain that he has
started a new epoch in Western Art History with his paintings which were
created by looking from a different perspective than traditional
painting.
The artist, who gave the name to Impressionism with his artwork, devoted
himself to express his perceived senses by means of painting.
Monet
did never have a desire to study at an academy. He had his own
technique, although he studied and worked
with painters. His works had never been made by a systematically-practiced
technique. He had his own technique that was continuously developing by
transferring his observations to paintings. Several techniques are in
question here, which varies
from slight differences due to the structure and the lighting of the
object: The use of bright and pure colors, sometimes spread out,
sometimes divide, sometimes thick, sometimes transparent. The moving
elements like tremble and pointy brush strokes were arranged by skilful
placing. He did not just paint impressions of his observations; also
reflected his feelings inside.
The
same themed paintings of different expressions may be seen as a
reflection of the artist's internal world. For example; he usually
preferred to paint landscapes under the summer light, but after his
wife's death he preferred to paint the same
themes by using cold, dark and blurred colors. This example may be seen
as his expression of sadness for the
occasion.
Monet, who was a landscape painter, spent his childhood
years in the nature of La Havre. He learnt the language of the nature,
as he noticed the very slightest changes in the weather. When the people
around saw the caricatures made by him, they realized his talent in
painting.
However
he decided to become an artist when he met Boudin the painter. With the
given encourage by Boudin, he begun to paint landscapes. He left his
hometown, went to Paris and got into the art scene. There he met the
artists Camille Pissarro, Frédéric Bazille, Alfred Sisley, Aguste Renoir
and
Edouard
Manet who will become the
pioneers of the Impressionism. His paintings of early years were accepted
to the famous gallery of the period, named Salon. But the very same
place rejected his Impressionist works in the following years. Even Lady
in a Green Dress, one of his paintings exhibited in Salon, was made in
four days; the way of portraying effects of light was conspicuous
detail.
Monet's
art did not belong to any figural rules. He created his own technique
according to his relation with nature and his
observations. The Garden on summer theme, which he used in his early
works, broke down the traditional light and form rules
of painting and took on in a new way. His London journey did not make any
differences on his technique; but the city's misty
and hazy atmosphere became a source of inspiration for his works. After
the garden theme, there come sea landscapes. In
these works reflections on the water pictured by an impressionist view.
Beach, riverside, sailboat and marina themes come
after the sea landscape. In the pictures of this period, by improving his
technique, he showed the reflection of the sunlight by drawing bright
colors and cut brush strokes. In these landscape pictures, he kept on
painting human figures; he illustrated his wife Camile and his son Jean
as models. Iron bridges and poppies found place as composition issues
after
this term. His impressionist look was getting clear in the six years
following 1872, the year which the painter moved to Argenteuil. This
term's paintings may look like as photographic snapshots by the way of
expression of the instant events.
Also
Gar of Saint-Lazare series have a photographic look which was painted at
the end of this period. Sudden changes of
light and its effects, take forms on the canvas in painter's viewpoint.
Monet begun to paint about Vétheuil, the site he
moved in 1878. He painted about riverside of Seine and country views. Also
he illustrated winter landscapes in Vétheuil despite his usual
preference of sunny weathers and intense light delusions. Especially, he
pictured ice breakings over Seine River as series. In 1881, he went to
Eterat and painted Rocks of Eterat series there. In 1888 he started to
paint haystack series. While he was working on them, he also started the
poplar series. The reason of choosing hays and poplars is to show the
change of their appearance by transforming of light-shadow while they
have the same form and same fixed posture.
In
between 1892-1895 he made the Rouen Cathedral series. Again, he focused
on light and the effects of reflection more than a
realistic and ideal image. In 1896, after he started Morning at Seine
series; he visited London in 1899 and at his return he painted the
Landscape of Thames in his studio. His journey to Venice made him an
admirer to this water city and gave him a reason to create new pictures
full of light delusions. Monet's last series is Waterlilies which he
started in 1899 and continued till the end of his life. To paint the
waterlillies in the pools of his garden in Giverny, he constructed two
more studios in addition to the one in present. In the last years of his
life, he suffered from sight disorder although he had an
operation. For this reason, his last years paintings became deformational
and looked as if they were abstract works. In these paintings, which are
the visual expression of the light effects over the waterlillies, the
colors are lap strake; there are no concrete objects anymore.
Light
is the core theme of Monet's paintings. He had the mission to show the
transforming image of nature with the changing light through the day in
his paintings. We can see these inquisitive practices in his last works.
The painter interested in object's images under the light more than the
object itself. He searched a way to express these images related to
light with colors and he improved his technique with renovating
continuously. That's why he painted the same object in series.
Light
delusions comes from sudden changes of water's reflection is the main
theme in artist's works. While Monet worked continuously to improve his
technique and searching the new, he never attempted to encourage them
theoretically. He only focused on painting. So many people agree that
his paintings have a poetic language. He just pictured the reality,
according to his own point of view. He filtered his perceptions of
reality and then created his own. Everyone has his/her own reality, but
Monet's pictures show us a way of describing of a man's poetic vision
and his world. How lucky we are that he shared it
with the whole world.
Behiye Bobaroğlu
Further Reading:
Heinrich, Christoph. Claude Monet. Köln: Tachen, 2000.
Seitz, William C. Monet. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1989.
Potts, Vanesa. Monet. London: Parragon Book, 2001.
Patin, Sylvie. Monet-The Ultimate Impressionist. New York: Thames and
Hudson Ltd., 1993.
Monet Painting - Video
Video Maker: Sundroid - Southern
California
http:// sunandfun.blogspot.com
About this video:
Monet was literally the
"boss" of impressionism movement in the history of art, because
it was a painting he did in 1872, titled "Impression, Sunrise",
which had a baffled art critic pick out the word "impression" to
describe, at the time, the relatively new art trend. The
soundtrack in this piece is the first 3 minutes and 45 seconds
of Chopin's "Piano Concerto No. 1 In E minor, Op.11: Romance -
Larghetto"
Monet Paint
The Picnic,
(Detail) 1865-66
Women in The Garden, 1866-67
Camille, or, Lady in a Green Dress, 1866
Portrait of Mrs. Gaudibert. l868
The Luncheon. 1868
Church of Saint-Germain-I'Auxerroi. 1867
The Garden of the Infanta. 1867
The River. 1868
The Roches Noires Hotel at Trouville. 1870
The Beach at Sainte-Adresse, 1867
La Grenouillere. 1869
Bathing at La Grenouillére. 1869
The Magpie. 1869
Terrace at The Seaside, Sainte-Adresse. 1866
On The Beach, Trouville. 1870
Westminster Bridge. 1871
The Railway Bridge at Argenteuil (Detail). 1873
Unloading Coal. 1872
Boulevard Des Capucines. 1873
Wild Poppies. 1873
The Luncheon. 1873
Stormy Sea at Etretat. 1873
Studio Still
Life,
Impression. 1872
Barges. 1874
The Bridge at Argenteuil. 1874
The Boats, Regattas at Argenteuil. 1874
Impression of Snow at Sunset. 1874
Regattas at Argenteuil. 1874
Sailing Boat at Argenteuil. 1874
Monceau Park. 1878
Madame Monet and Child. 1875
The Walk. Lady with a Parasol. 1875
Madame Monet in Japanase Eastome. 1876
Rue MontorGueil Decked Out with Flags. 1878
Saint-Lazare Station. 1877
Gare Saint-Lazare. 1877
The Seine at Vétheuil. 1879
The Church at Vétheuil, Winter. 1879
Snow at Argenteuil. 1875
The Frost, 1879
Snow Effect at Vétheuil. 1878
The Break-up of The Ice. 1880
Ice Floes at Vétheuil. 1880
Landscape with Snow, at Dusk. 1880