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88-568: The Barbizon school of painters were part of an art movement toward Realism in art, which arose in the context of the dominant Romantic Movement of the time. The Barbizon school was active roughly from 1830 through 1870. It takes its name from the village of Barbizon , France, on the edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau , where many of the artists gathered. Most of their works were landscape painting , but several of them also painted landscapes with farmworkers, and genre scenes of village life. Some of

176-414: A "revolution in painting". Leroy later regretted inspiring the name, as he believed that they were a group "whose majority had nothing impressionist". The total attendance is estimated at 3500. Monet priced Impression: Sunrise at 1000 francs but failed to sell it. The exhibition was open to anyone prepared to pay 60 francs and gave artists the opportunity to show their work without the interference of

264-530: A Series of Waterscape, consisted of 42 canvases, his "largest and most unified series to date" . He would ultimately make over 250 paintings of the Waterlilies . At his house, Monet met with artists, writers, intellectuals and politicians from France, England, Japan and the United States. In the summer of 1887, he met John Singer Sargent whose experimentation with figure painting out of doors intrigued him;

352-513: A black lens. By 1925, his visual impairment was improved and he began to retouch some of his pre-operative works, with bluer water lilies than before. During World War I , in which his younger son, Michel, served, Monet painted a Weeping Willow series as homage to the French fallen soldiers. He became deeply dedicated to the decorations of his garden during the war. Monet has been described as "the driving force behind Impressionism". Crucial to

440-472: A career in art. On 1 April 1851, he entered Le Havre secondary school of the arts. He was an apathetic student who, after showing skill in art from a young age, began drawing caricatures and portraits of acquaintances at age 15 for money. He began his first drawing lessons from Jacques-François Ochard , a former student of Jacques-Louis David . In around 1858, he met fellow artist Eugène Boudin , who would encourage Monet to develop his techniques, teach him

528-580: A career in business. He was very close to his mother, but she died in January 1857 when he was sixteen years old, and he was sent to live with his childless, widowed but wealthy aunt, Marie-Jeanne Lecadre. He went on to study at the Académie Suisse , and under the academic history painter Charles Gleyre , where he was a classmate of Auguste Renoir . His early works include landscapes, seascapes, and portraits, but attracted little attention. A key early influence

616-495: A decade ago. He forwent garish colours or "coarse application" for emphasised colour schemes of blue and green. Whilst suffering from cataracts, his paintings were more broad and abstract—from the late 1880s onwards, he had simplified his compositions and sought subjects that could offer broad colour and tone. He increasingly used red and yellow tones, a trend that first started following his trip to Venice. Monet often travelled alone at this time—from France to Normandy to London; to

704-468: A desire was recurrent in his letters to Alice. In 1883, Monet and his family rented a house and gardens in Giverny , which provided him with domestic stability he had not yet enjoyed. The house was situated near the main road between the towns of Vernon and Gasny at Giverny. There was a barn that doubled as a painting studio, orchards and a small garden. The house was close enough to the local schools for

792-529: A greenhouse and a second studio, a spacious building well lit with skylights. Monet wrote daily instructions to his gardener, precise designs and layouts for plantings, and invoices for his floral purchases and his collection of botany books. As Monet's wealth grew, his garden evolved. He remained its architect, even after he hired seven gardeners. Monet purchased additional land with a water meadow. White water lilies local to France were planted along with imported cultivars from South America and Egypt, resulting in

880-406: A hostile review. Taking particular notice of Impression, Sunrise (1872), a hazy depiction of Le Havre port and stylistic detour, he coined the term " Impressionism ". Conservative critics and the public derided the group, with the term initially being ironic and denoting the painting as unfinished. More progressive critics praised the depiction of modern life—Louis Edmond Duranty called their style

968-457: A jury. Another exhibition was held in 1876, again in opposition to the Salon. Monet displayed 18 paintings, including The Beach at Sainte-Adresse which showcased multiple Impressionist characteristics. For the third exhibition, on 5 April 1877, he selected seven paintings from the dozen he had made of Gare Saint-Lazare in the past three months, the first time he had "synced as many paintings of

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1056-475: A landscape backdrop sets him rather apart from the others. Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot was the earliest on the scene, first painting in the forest in 1829, but British art historian Harold Osborne suggested that "his work has a poetic and literary quality which sets him somewhat apart". Other artists associated with the school, often pupils of the main group, include: Henri Harpignies , Albert Charpin , François-Louis Français , and Émile van Marcke . Many of

1144-407: A new endeavour figures in plein air, as I understand them. This is an old dream, one that has always obsessed me and that I would like to master once and for all. But it is all so difficult! I am working very hard, almost to the point of making myself ill". In 1876, Camille Monet became seriously ill. Their second son, Michel , was born in 1878, after which Camille's health deteriorated further. In

1232-774: A painting in one sitting, often without preparation. He wished to demonstrate how light altered colour and perception of reality. His interest in light and reflection began in the late 1860s and lasted throughout his career. During his first time in London, he developed an admiration for the relationship between the artist and motifs—for what he deemed the "envelope". He utilised pencil drawings to quickly note subjects and motifs for future reference. Monet's portrayal of landscapes emphasised industrial elements such as railways and factories; his early seascapes featured brooding nature depicted with muted colours and local residents. Critic, and friend of Monet, Théodore Duret noted, in 1874, that he

1320-401: A prescription of mydriatics provided short-lived relief. He eventually underwent cataract surgery in 1923. Persistent cyanopsia and aphakic spectacles proved to be a struggle. Now "able to see the real colours", he began to destroy canvases from his pre-operative period. Upon receiving tinted Zeiss lenses, Monet was laudatory, although his left eye soon had to be entirely covered by

1408-442: A range of colours including yellow, blue and white lilies that turned pink with age. In 1902, he increased the size of his water garden by nearly 4000 square metres; the pond was enlarged in 1901 and 1910 with easels installed all around to allow different perspectives to be captured. Dissatisfied with the limitations of Impressionism, Monet began to work on series of paintings displaying single subjects—haystacks, poplars and

1496-448: A result of admiring his depiction. In 1875, he returned to figure painting with Woman with a Parasol - Madame Monet and Her Son , after effectively abandoning it with The Luncheon . His interest in the figure continued for the next four years—reaching its crest in 1877 and concluding altogether in 1890. In an "unusually revealing" letter to Théodore Duret , Monet discussed his revitalised interest: "I am working like never before on

1584-489: A result of the relationship. Earlier in the year Monet had been forced to move to his aunt's house in Sainte-Adresse . There he immersed himself in his work, although a temporary problem with his eyesight, probably related to stress, prevented him from working in sunlight. Monet loved his family dearly, painting many portraits of them such as Child With a Cup, a Portrait of Jean Monet . This painting in particular shows

1672-451: A series of landscape paintings, "in full force" although he was not pleased with the outcome. By October the weather caused Monet to cease plein air painting and the next month he sold four of the eleven Water Lilies paintings, despite his then-reluctance to relinquish his work. The series inspired praise from his peers; his later works were well received by dealers and collectors, and he received 200,000 francs from one collector. In 1922

1760-521: A shipping merchant, Gaudibert, who was also a patron of Boudin. When Durand-Ruel's previous support of Monet and his peers began to decline, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Paul Cézanne , Edgar Degas , and Berthe Morisot exhibited their work independently; they did so under the name the Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors and Engravers for which Monet was a leading figure in its formation. He

1848-441: A strict order on his palette and wore a straw hat to negate glare . He approached painting by formulating the ideas and features in his mind, taking the "motif in large masses" and transcribing them through memory and imagination. This was due to him being "insensitive" to the "finer shades of tonalities and colors seen close up". Monet's output decreased as he became withdrawn, although he did produce several panel paintings for

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1936-447: A term with a broader connotation. As the names of many art movements use the -ism suffix (for example cubism and futurism ), they are sometimes referred to as isms . Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet ( UK : / ˈ m ɒ n eɪ / , US : / m oʊ ˈ n eɪ , m ə ˈ -/ ; French: [klod mɔnɛ] ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionism painting who

2024-466: A terrible blizzard of loss which will forever efface her features. In fact there can be very few death-bed paintings which have been so intensely felt or subjectively expressive." Monet's study of the Seine continued. He submitted two paintings to the Salon in 1880, one of which was accepted. He began to abandon Impressionist techniques as his paintings utilised darker tones and displayed environments, such as

2112-403: A topic of discussion among academics; Lane et al. (1997) argues the occurrence of a deterioration from the late 1860s onwards led to a diminishing of sharp lines. Gardens were a focus throughout his art, becoming prominent in his later work, especially during the last decade of his life. Daniel Wildenstein noted a "seamless" continuity in his paintings that was "enriched by innovation". From

2200-535: A young man, he visited the Salon and familiarised himself with the works of older painters, and made friends with other young artists. The five years that he spent at Argenteuil , spending much time on the River Seine in a little floating studio, were formative in his study of the effects of light and reflections. He began to think in terms of colours and shapes rather than scenes and objects. He used bright colours in dabs and dashes and squiggles of paint. Having rejected

2288-460: Is posited to have changed approximately halfway through the 20th century and art made afterward is generally called contemporary art . Postmodernism in visual art begins and functions as a parallel to late modernism and refers to that period after the "modern" period called contemporary art. The postmodern period began during late modernism (which is a contemporary continuation of modernism), and according to some theorists postmodernism ended in

2376-443: Is purely visible. Monet was fascinated with the effects of light, and painting en plein air —he believed that his only "merit lies in having painted directly in front of nature, seeking to render my impressions of the most fleeting effects" Wanting to "paint the air", he often combined modern life subjects in outdoor light. Monet made light the central focus of his paintings. To capture its variations, he would sometimes complete

2464-430: Is seen as a key precursor to modernism , especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During his long career, he was the most consistent and prolific practitioner of impressionism's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions of nature, especially as applied to plein air (outdoor) landscape painting. The term "impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant , which

2552-565: The French Government , from 1914 to 1918 to great financial success and he would later create works for the state. His work on the "cycle of paintings" mostly occurred around 1916 to 1921. Cataract surgery was once again recommended, this time by Clemenceau. Monet—who was apprehensive, following Honoré Daumier and Mary Cassatt 's botched surgeries—stated that he would rather have poor sight and perhaps abandon painting than forego "a little of these things that I love". In 1919, Monet began

2640-458: The Rivera and Rouen —in search of new and more challenging subjects. The stylistic change was likely a by-product of the disorder and not an intentional choice. Monet would often work on large canvases due to the deterioration of his eyesight and by 1920 he admitted that he had grown too accustomed to broad painting to return to small canvases. The influence of his cataracts on his output has been

2728-523: The Rouen Cathedral —to resolve his frustration. These series of paintings provided widespread critical and financial success; in 1898, 61 paintings were exhibited at the Petit Gallery. He also began a series of Mornings on the Seine, which portrayed the dawn hours of the river. In 1887 and 1889 he displayed a series of paintings of Belle Île to rave reviews by critics. Monet chose the location in

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2816-549: The Seine 's surrounding area. He acquired a sailboat to paint on the river. In 1874, he signed a six-and-a-half year lease and moved into a newly built "rose-colored house with green shutters" in Argenteuil, where he painted fifteen paintings of his garden from a panoramic perspective. Paintings such as Gladioli marked what was likely the first time Monet had cultivated a garden for the purpose of his art. The house and garden became

2904-534: The " en plein air " (outdoor) techniques for painting and take Monet on painting excursions. Monet thought of Boudin as his master, whom "he owed everything to" for his later success. In 1857, his mother died. He lived with his father and aunt, Marie-Jeanne Lecadre; Lecadre would be a source of support for Monet in his early art career. From 1858 to 1860, Monet continued his studies in Paris, where he enrolled in Académie Suisse and met Camille Pissarro in 1859. He

2992-637: The "single most important" motif of his final years in Argenteuil. For the next four years, he painted mostly in Argenteuil and took an interest in the colour theories of chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul . For three years of the decade, he rented a large villa in Saint-Denis for a thousand francs per year. Camille Monet on a Garden Bench displays the garden of the villa, and what some have argued to be Camille's grief upon learning of her father's death. Monet and Camille were often in financial straits during this period—they were unable to pay their hotel bill during

3080-530: The 1870s. The Barbizon painters also had a profound impact on landscape painting in the United States. This included the development of the American Barbizon school by William Morris Hunt . Several artists who were also in, or contemporary to, the Hudson River School studied Barbizon paintings for their loose brushwork and emotional impact. A notable example is George Inness , who sought to emulate

3168-498: The 1880s onwards—and particularly in the 1890s—Monet's series of paintings of specific subjects sought to document the different conditions of light and weather. As light and weather changed throughout the day, he switched between canvases—sometimes working on as many as eight at one time—usually spending an hour on each. In 1895, he exhibited 20 paintings of Rouen Cathedral , showcasing the façade in different conditions of light, weather and atmosphere. The paintings do not focus on

3256-503: The 21st century. During the period of time corresponding to "modern art" each consecutive movement was often considered a new avant-garde . Also during the period of time referred to as "modern art" each movement was seen corresponding to a somewhat grandiose rethinking of all that came before it, concerning the visual arts. Generally there was a commonality of visual style linking the works and artists included in an art movement. Verbal expression and explanation of movements has come from

3344-543: The Academie Julien. Art movement Art of East Asia Art of South Asia Art of Southeast Asia Art of Europe Art of Africa Art of the Americas Art of Oceania An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific art philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a specific period of time, (usually a few months, years or decades) or, at least, with

3432-667: The Bank of the Seine respectively, the former being his "first sustained campaign of painting that involved tourism". Several of his paintings had been purchased by Gaudibert, who commissioned a painting of his wife, alongside other projects; the Gaudiberts were for two years "the most supportive of Monet's hometown patrons ". Monet would later be financially supported by the artist and art collector Gustave Caillebotte , Bazille and perhaps Gustave Courbet , although creditors still pursued him. He married Camille on 28 June 1870, just before

3520-521: The Barbizon painters as well, including 21 copies of paintings by Millet . He copied Millet more than any other artist. He also did three paintings in Daubigny's Garden . Both Théodore Rousseau (1867) and Jean-François Millet (1875) died at Barbizon. Painters in other countries were also influenced by this art. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, many artists came to Paris from Austria-Hungary to study

3608-416: The Barbizon school: Théodore Rousseau , Paul Huet , Constant Troyon , Jean-François Millet , and the young Charles-François Daubigny . Millet extended the idea from landscape to figures – peasant figures, scenes of peasant life, and work in the fields. In The Gleaners (1857), for example, Millet portrays three peasant women working at the harvest. Gleaners are poor people who are permitted to gather

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3696-571: The German ophthalmologist Richard Liebreich . He was prescribed new glasses and rejected cataract surgery for the right eye. The next year, Monet, encouraged by Clemenceau, made plans to construct a new, large studio that he could use to create a "decorative cycle of paintings devoted to the water garden". In the following years, his perception of colour suffered; his broad strokes were broader and his paintings were increasingly darker. To achieve his desired outcome, he began to label his tubes of paint, kept

3784-515: The Impressionists dwindled. Monet made a study in oils of his late wife. Many years later, he confessed to his friend Georges Clemenceau that his need to analyse colours was both a joy and a torment to him. He explained: "I one day found myself looking at my beloved wife's dead face and just systematically noting the colours according to an automatic reflex". John Berger describes the work as "a blizzard of white, grey, purplish paint ...

3872-592: The Netherlands in 1886 to paint the tulips. He soon met and became friends with Gustave Geffroy , who published an article on Monet. Despite his qualms, Monet's paintings were sold in America and contributed towards his financial security. In contrast to the last two decades of his career, Monet favoured working alone—and felt that he was always better when he did, having regularly "long[ed] for solitude, away from crowded tourist resorts and sophisticated urban settings". Such

3960-457: The Salon until his single, final attempt in 1880. His work was considered radical, "discouraged at all official levels". In 1867 his then-mistress, Camille Doncieux —whom he had met two years earlier as a model for his paintings—gave birth to their first child, Jean . Monet had a strong relationship with Jean, claiming that Camille was his lawful wife so Jean would be considered legitimate . Monet's father stopped financially supporting him as

4048-623: The Seine River, in harsh weather. For the rest of the decade, he focused on the elemental aspect of nature. His personal life influenced his distancing from the Impressionists. He returned to Étretat and expressed in letters to Alice Hoschedé —who he would marry in 1892, following her husband's death the preceding year—a desire to die. In 1881, he moved with Alice and her children to Poissy and again sold his paintings to Durand-Ruel . Alice's third daughter, Suzanne , would become Monet's "preferred model", after Camille. In April 1883, looking out

4136-476: The Seine at Honfleur to large praise, he hoped Le déjeuner sur l'herbe would help him break through into the Salon of 1866. He could not finish it in a timely manner and instead submitted The Woman in the Green Dress and Pavé de Chailly to acceptance. Thereafter, he submitted works to the Salon annually until 1870, but they were accepted by the juries only twice, in 1866 and 1868. He sent no more works to

4224-475: The academic teachings of Gleyre's studio, he freed himself from theory, saying "I like to paint as a bird sings." Boudin, Daubigny, Jongkind, Courbet, and Corot were among Monet's influences and he would often work in accordance with developments in avant-garde art. In 1877 a series of paintings at St-Lazare Station had Monet looking at smoke and steam and the way that they affected colour and visibility, being sometimes opaque and sometimes translucent . He

4312-473: The art of the Impressionist painters was the understanding of the effects of light on the local colour of objects, and the effects of the juxtaposition of colours with each other. His free flowing style and use of colour have been described as "almost ethereal" and the "[epitome] of impressionist style"; Impression, Sunrise is an example of the "fundamental" Impressionist principle of depicting only that which

4400-521: The artists themselves, sometimes in the form of an art manifesto , and sometimes from art critics and others who may explain their understanding of the meaning of the new art then being produced. In the visual arts , many artists, theorists, art critics, art collectors, art dealers and others mindful of the unbroken continuation of modernism and the continuation of modern art even into the contemporary era, ascribe to and welcome new philosophies of art as they appear. Postmodernist theorists posit that

4488-533: The artists were also printmakers , mostly in etching but the group also provided the bulk of the artists using the semiphotographic cliché verre technique. The French etching revival began with the school, in the 1850s. In 1824 the Salon de Paris exhibited works of John Constable , an English painter. His rural scenes influenced some of the younger artists of the time, moving them to abandon formalism and to draw inspiration directly from nature. Natural scenes became

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4576-576: The autumn of that year, they moved to the village of Vétheuil where they shared a house with the family of Ernest Hoschedé , a wealthy department store owner and patron of the arts who had commissioned four paintings from Monet. In 1878, Camille was diagnosed with uterine cancer . She died the next year. Her death, alongside financial difficulties—once having to leave his house to avoid creditors—afflicted Monet's career; Hoschedé had recently purchased several paintings but soon went bankrupt, leaving for Paris in hopes of regaining his fortune, as interest in

4664-410: The children to attend, and the surrounding landscape provided numerous natural areas for Monet to paint. The family worked and built up the gardens, and Monet's fortunes began to change for the better as Durand-Ruel had increasing success in selling his paintings. The gardens were Monet's greatest source of inspiration for 40 years. In 1890, Monet purchased the house. During the 1890s, Monet built

4752-447: The dark, contrasting lighting of romantic and realist paintings, in favour of the pale tones of their peers' paintings such as those by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Boudin. After developing methods for painting transient effects, Monet would go on to seek more demanding subjects, new patrons and collectors; his paintings produced in the early 1870s left a lasting impact on the movement and his peers—many of whom moved to Argenteuil as

4840-552: The end of his life in 1926. In his later career, Monet "transcended" the Impressionist style and begun to push the boundaries of art. Monet refined his palette in the 1870s, consciously minimising the use of darker tones and favouring pastel colours. This coincided with his softer approach, using smaller and more varied brush strokes. His palette would again undergo change in the 1880s, with more emphasis than before on harmony between warm and cold hues . Following his optical operation in 1923, Monet returned to his style from before

4928-423: The end of the 19th century many artists felt a need to create a new style which would encompass the fundamental changes taking place in technology, science and philosophy ( abstract art ). According to theories associated with modernism and also the concept of postmodernism , art movements are especially important during the period of time corresponding to modern art . The period of time called "modern art"

5016-525: The first signs of Monets' later famous impressionistic work. With help from the art collector Louis-Joachim Gaudibert, he reunited with Camille and moved to Étretat the following year. Around this time, he was trying to establish himself as a figure painter who depicted the "explicitly contemporary, bourgeois", an intention that continued into the 1870s. He did evolve his painting technique and integrate stylistic experimentation in his plein-air style—as evidenced by The Beach at Sainte-Adresse and On

5104-562: The forest at Chailly in 1822. He returned to Barbizon in the autumn of 1830 and in the summer of 1831, where he made drawings and oil studies, from which he made a painting intended for the Salon of 1830; "View of the Forest of Fontainebleau'" (now in the National Gallery in Washington) and, for the salon of 1831, another "View of the Forest of Fontainebleau"'. While there he met the members of

5192-512: The garden, devoted primarily to his Japanese bridge, in 1900. He returned to London—now residing at the prestigious Savoy Hotel —in 1899 to produce a series that included 41 paintings of Waterloo bridge , 34 of Charing Cross bridge and 19 of the House of Parliament . Monet's final journey would be to Venice, with Alice in 1908. Depictions of the water lilies, with alternating light and mirror-like reflections, became an integral part of his work. By

5280-545: The grand Medieval building, but on the play of light and shade across its surface, transforming the solid masonry. For this series, he experimented with creating his own frames. His first series exhibited was of haystacks , painted from different points of view and at different times of the day. Fifteen of the paintings were exhibited at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in 1891. In 1892 he produced twenty-six views of Rouen Cathedral . Between 1883 and 1908, Monet travelled to

5368-519: The harbor and the mouth of the Seine. Monet often painted alongside Renoir and Alfred Sisley , both of whom shared his desire to articulate new standards of beauty in conventional subjects. During this time he painted Women in Garden , his first successful large-scale painting, and Le déjeuner sur l'herbe , the "most important painting of Monet's early period". Having debuted at the Salon in 1865 with La Pointe de la Hève at Low Tide and Mouth of

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5456-454: The heyday of the movement defined within a number of years. Art movements were especially important in modern art , when each consecutive movement was considered a new avant-garde movement. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an attempt to reproduce an illusion of visible reality ( figurative art ). By

5544-401: The hope of finding a "new aesthetic language that bypassed learned formulas, one that would be both true to nature and unique to him as an individual, not like anyone else." In 1899, he began painting the water lilies that would occupy him continuously for the next 20 years of his life, being his last and "most ambitious" sequence of paintings. He had exhibited this first group of pictures of

5632-489: The idea of art movements are no longer as applicable, or no longer as discernible, as the notion of art movements had been before the postmodern era. There are many theorists however who doubt as to whether or not such an era was actually a fact; or just a passing fad. The term refers to tendencies in visual art , novel ideas and architecture , and sometimes literature . In music it is more common to speak about genres and styles instead. See also cultural movement ,

5720-438: The landscape, including Claude Monet , Pierre-Auguste Renoir , Alfred Sisley and Frédéric Bazille . In the 1870s those artists, among others, developed the art movement called Impressionism and practiced plein air painting. In contrast, the main members of the school made drawings and sketches on the spot, but painted back in their studios. The Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh studied and copied several of

5808-486: The local Paris church, Notre-Dame-de-Lorette , as Oscar-Claude, but his parents called him simply Oscar. Although baptised Catholic, Monet later became an atheist. In 1845, his family moved to Le Havre in Normandy . His father, a wholesale merchant , wanted him to go into the family's ship-chandling and grocery business, but Monet wanted to become an artist. His mother was a singer, and supported Monet's desire for

5896-435: The mid-1910s Monet had achieved "a completely new, fluid, and somewhat audacious style of painting in which the water-lily pond became the point of departure for an almost abstract art". Claude Roger-Marx noted in a review of Monet's successful 1909 exhibition of the first Water Lilies series that he had "reached the ultimate degree of abstraction and imagination joined to the real". This exhibition, entitled Waterlilies,

5984-406: The most prominent features of this school are its tonal qualities, color, loose brushwork, and softness of form. The leaders of the Barbizon school were: Théodore Rousseau , Charles-François Daubigny , Jules Dupré , Edouard Manet , Edgar Degas , Constant Troyon , Charles Jacque , and Narcisse Virgilio Díaz . Jean-François Millet lived in Barbizon from 1849, but his interest in figures with

6072-852: The new movements. For instance, the Hungarian painter János Thorma studied in Paris as a young man. In 1896 he was one of the founders of the Nagybánya artists' colony in what is now Baia Mare , Romania , which brought impressionism to Hungary. In 2013 the Hungarian National Gallery opens a major retrospective of his work, entitled, "János Thorma, the Painter of the Hungarian Barbizon", 8 February – 19 May 2013, Hungarian National Gallery Karl Bodmer , originally Swiss, settled in Barbizon in 1849. László Paál , another Hungarian, lived in Barbizon in

6160-587: The outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War . During the war, he and his family lived in London and the Netherlands to avoid conscription . Monet and Charles-François Daubigny lived in self-imposed exile . While living in London, Monet met his old friend Pissarro and the American painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler , and befriended his first and primary art dealer , Paul Durand-Ruel , an encounter that would be decisive for his career. There he saw and admired

6248-414: The pair went on to frequently influence each other. Monet's second wife, Alice, died in 1911, and his oldest son, Jean, who had married Alice's daughter, Blanche, Monet's particular favourite, died in 1914. Their deaths left Monet depressed, as Blanche cared for him. It was during this time that Monet began to develop the first signs of possible cataracts . In 1913, Monet travelled to London to consult

6336-465: The passing of the seasons. Among the best-known examples are his series of haystacks (1890–1891), paintings of Rouen Cathedral (1892–1894), and the paintings of water lilies in his garden in Giverny, which occupied him for the last 20 years of his life. Frequently exhibited and successful during his lifetime, Monet's fame and popularity soared in the second half of the 20th century when he became one of

6424-478: The remains after the owners of the field complete the main harvest. The owners (portrayed as wealthy) and their laborers are seen in the back of the painting. Millet shifted the focus and the subject matter from the rich and prominent to those at the bottom of the social ladders. During the late 1860s, the Barbizon painters attracted the attention of a younger generation of French artists studying in Paris. Several of those artists visited Fontainebleau Forest to paint

6512-545: The same site, carefully coordinating their scenes and temporalities". The paintings were well received by critics, who especially praised the way he captured the arrival and departures of the trains. By the fourth exhibition, his involvement was by means of negotiation on Caillebotte's part. His last time exhibiting with the Impressionists was in 1882—four years before the final Impressionist exhibition. Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Morisot, Cézanne and Sisley proceeded to experiment with new methods of depicting reality. They rejected

6600-475: The subjects of their paintings rather than mere backdrops to dramatic events. During the Revolutions of 1848 artists gathered at Barbizon to follow Constable's ideas, making nature the subject of their paintings. The French landscape became a major theme of the Barbizon painters. In the spring of 1829, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot came to Barbizon to paint in the Forest of Fontainebleau . He had first painted in

6688-607: The suburban and rural leisure activities of Paris and as a young artist experimented with still lifes . From the 1870s onwards, he gradually moved away from suburban and urban landscapes—when they were depicted it was to further his study of light. Contemporary critics—and later academics—felt that with his choice of showcasing Belle Île, he had indicated a desire to move away from the modern culture of Impressionist paintings and instead towards primitive nature. After meeting Boudin, Monet dedicated himself to searching for new and improved methods of painterly expression. To this end, as

6776-430: The summer of 1870 and likely lived on the outskirts of London as a result of insufficient funds. An inheritance from his father, together with sales of his paintings, did, however, enable them to hire two servants and a gardener by 1872. Following the successful exhibition of some maritime paintings and the winning of a silver medal at Le Havre, Monet's paintings were seized by creditors, from whom they were bought back by

6864-551: The window of the train between Vernon and Gasny, he discovered Giverny in Normandy. That same year his first major retrospective show was held. In a letter sent to Monet in 1884, Paul Durand-Ruel mentions Monet's financial worries, and tells him that both the stockbroker Theodore-Charles Gadala and Georges Clemenceau have purchased paintings. Monet's struggles with creditors ended following prosperous trips; he went to Bordighera in 1884, and brought back 50 landscapes. He travelled to

6952-707: The works of John Constable and J. M. W. Turner and was impressed by Turner's treatment of light, especially in the works depicting the fog on the Thames . He repeatedly painted the Thames, Hyde Park and Green Park . In the spring of 1871, his works were refused authorisation for inclusion in the Royal Academy exhibition and police suspected him of revolutionary activities. That same year he learned of his father's death. The family moved to Argenteuil in 1871, where he, influenced by his time with Dutch painters, mostly painted

7040-546: The works of Rousseau. Paintings from the Barbizon school also influenced landscape painting in California. The artist Percy Gray carefully studied works by Rousseau and other painters which he saw in traveling exhibitions to inform his own paintings of California hills and coastline. The influence of the Barbizon painters may be seen in the sporting dog paintings of Percival Rosseau (1859–1937), who grew up in Louisiana and studied at

7128-399: The world's most famous painters and a source of inspiration for a burgeoning group of artists. Claude Monet was born on 14 November 1840 on the fifth floor of 45 rue Laffitte , in the 9th arrondissement of Paris . He was the second son of Claude Adolphe Monet (1800–1871) and Louise Justine Aubrée Monet (1805–1857), both of them second-generation Parisians. On 20 May 1841, he was baptised in

7216-401: Was Eugène Boudin , who introduced him to the concept of plein air painting. From 1883, Monet lived in Giverny , also in northern France, where he purchased a house and property and began a vast landscaping project, including a water-lily pond. Monet's ambition to document the French countryside led to a method of painting the same scene many times so as to capture the changing of light and

7304-527: Was "little attracted by rustic scenes...He [felt] particularly drawn towards nature when it is embellished and towards urban scenes and for preference he paint[ed] flowery gardens, parks and groves." When depicting figures and landscapes in tandem, Monet wished for the landscape to not be a mere backdrop and the figures not to dominate the composition. His dedication to such a portrayal of landscapes resulted in Monet reprimanding Renoir for defying it. He often depicted

7392-464: Was an important mentor to Monet. Upon his return to Paris, with the permission of his father, he divided his time between his childhood home and the countryside and enrolled in Charles Gleyre 's studio, where he met Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Frédéric Bazille . Bazille eventually became his closest friend. In search of motifs, they traveled to Honfleur where Monet painted several "studies" of

7480-582: Was called for military service and served under the Chasseurs d'Afrique (African Hunters), in Algeria , from 1861 to 1862. His time in Algeria had a powerful effect on Monet, who later said that the light and vivid colours of North Africa "contained the gem of my future researches". Illness forced his return to Le Havre, where he bought out his remaining service and met Johan Barthold Jongkind , who together with Boudin

7568-480: Was first exhibited in the so-called "exhibition of rejects" of 1874–an exhibition initiated by Monet and like-minded artists as an alternative to the Salon . Monet was raised in Le Havre , Normandy , and became interested in the outdoors and drawing from an early age. Although his mother, Louise-Justine Aubrée Monet, supported his ambitions to be a painter, his father, Claude-Adolphe, disapproved and wanted him to pursue

7656-544: Was inspired by the style and subject matter of his slightly older contemporaries, Pissarro and Édouard Manet. The group, whose title was chosen to avoid association with any style or movement, were unified in their independence from the Salon and rejection of the prevailing academicism . Monet gained a reputation as the foremost landscape painter of the group. At the first exhibition, in 1874, Monet displayed, among others, Impression, Sunrise , The Luncheon and Boulevard des Capucines . The art critic Louis Leroy wrote

7744-423: Was to further use this study in the painting of the effects of mist and rain on the landscape. The study of the effects of atmosphere was to evolve into a number of series of paintings in which Monet repeatedly painted the same subject (such as his water lilies series) in different lights, at different hours of the day, and through the changes of weather and season. This process began in the 1880s and continued until

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