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 All About Art
Claude Monet: Father of Impressionism
published: November 2007
By Tamar Burris, Contributing Writer
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Claude Oscar Monet was a French painter who helped create Impressionism, a style of art that plays with natural light and color.
Claude Monet was born on November 14, 1840, in Paris, France, but moved with his family to Le Havre when he was five. An artist from the time he was a small boy, Claude began selling his charcoal drawings as a teenager. And, the famous artist Eugne Boudin began to tutor him. Eugne liked Claude's early artwork but thought that Claude should try painting outside, which was not something artists did at the time. Claude enjoyed looking at the way sunlight changed colors, and he continued to paint outdoors throughout his life.
In 1859, Claude moved to Paris to study art. Although he joined the army in 1860 and had to leave, he was back painting in Paris just two years later, working in Charles Gleyre's studio. During this time, Claude met Pierre Auguste Renoir and other young artists who experimented with using light and strong colors. The group had a show in 1874, but the critics did not like it and called them impressionists after the title of one of Claude's paintings, Impressionism: Sunrise. The name stuck, and Impressionism became a new style! However, it would be several years before Impressionism became popular, so for a long time, Claude and his friends did not make much money and received little notice.
When Claude was almost 40 years old, his wife died. A little while later, he married again and moved to Giverny with his new family. In Giverny, Claude created the beautiful gardens and water lily ponds that inspired his famous paintings, The Water Lilies. In the 1880s, Impressionism became popular, and Claude finally began to make money as an artist. In 1916, the French government even bought eight of his water lily paintings. Claude was finally famous!
As he grew older, Claude started to lose his eyesight. Despite not being able to see well, Claude painted nearly until his death, finishing 22 water lily paintings in February 1926. Claude died on December 5, 1926.
Written by Tamar Burris, a former elementary school teacher who now works as a freelance writer and curriculum developer for PBS, the Discovery Channel and other education-related companies. Sources: Artelino.com: Claude Monet, www.artelino.com/articles/claude_monet.asp; Claude Monet on Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Monet; Welcome to Giverny: Biography of Claude Monet, giverny.org/monet/biograph.
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