I am using up and wasting a lot of paint - Claude Monet

In his late teens, in the mid 1800s, he would sit by the window at the Louvre at Paris and paint what he saw outside, while other painters would be sitting and copying the old Masters within! Even before that, the locals knew him as the boy who would sell his charcoal caricatures.

He painted water lilies for about 20 years of his life! Painting the same scenes many times in order to capture the changing light and passing seasons.

Disillusioned with traditional art taught in Art schools, Monet joined a private art tutor for drawing lessons and learnt to use oils from a fellow artist who also taught him ‘plein air’ [outdoor] techniques for painting.

Claude Monet met his contemperories Renoir, Sisley and Bazille and they started to work together. They shared a new approach to art - painting the effects of light en plein air with broken colour and rapid brush strokes.

Monet and other like minded artists faced with rejection from the conservative art circles, which inspired them to exhibit their work independently. This effort was not so much to promote a new style but to free themselves from the constraints of the traditional art societies.

This form later came to be known as Impressionism - a term derived from the title of Monet’s early painting ‘Impression Sunrise’. This lead to Monet being considered the founder of ‘Impressionism’.

Monet and his wife lived in poverty for many years. Later as his wealth grew, he bought his house and gardens at Giverny. He was particularly fond of gardens and flowers and landscaped his with precise designs and layouts. In 1899 he began painting the water lilies, first in vertical views with a Japanese bridge as a central feature, and later in the series of large-scale paintings that was to occupy him continuously for the next 20 years of his life.

This scenery, with its alternating light and mirror-like reflections, became an integral part of his work.

Monet’s house and gardens are open for visits. In addition to souvenirs of Monet and other objects of his life, the house contains his collection of Japanese woodcut prints. The house and garden, along with the Museum of Impressionism, are major attractions in Giverny, which hosts tourists from all over the world

Claude Monet has left behind about 2500 drawings pastels and oil paintings. About 250 oil paintings are just the water Lilies!

A few of the galleries where one can see Monet’s work are:

The Musée Marmottan-Monet, Paris

MOMA New York

Museum of Fine Arts Boston

And of course we can explore and study Monet at home with the help of Google arts and culture!

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Published in Colour Canvas issue of July 2018