Monet

By Sandra Forty

Monet’s gift was to show the world a different way of seeing and interpreting everything around us. He brought his canvases to life with dabs and swoops of color put together to give an impression of the scene. He is the ultimate Impressionist: not only did one of his paintings inspire the label “Impressionist” and so name one of the greatest art movements of all time, but he was its leader, whose work changed the way that artists represented nature, light, and life. Claude Monet lived a long and ultimately successful life. By the time he died he was regarded as one of France’s most prominent and venerable painters. His spirit is perhaps more tangible to us than that of other artists because we can visit his last home and gardens at Giverny, a few miles west of Paris, where he lived for 43 years until his death. Monet loved plants and wherever he lived he created gardens—at Argenteuil, Vétheuil, and most famously, at Giverny. But Monet also painted city scenes. In 1870, the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war drove Monet and his wife to London. They stayed less than a year, but Monet would paint over 100 London scenes in his lifetime. Monet’s crowning achievement later in life was the Décorations des Nymphéas, 19 panels painted at Giverny before being hung in the oval-shaped rooms of the Orangerie in the Tuileries gardens, Paris, where they remain today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: TAJ Books International
• Release date: Mar 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781844062898

Sandra Forty

Sandra Forty is a graduate of London University where she studied medieval and early modern history, including a spell at the Courtauld Institute learning about Renaissance art from Professor Gombrich. Since then she has worked as a journalist in London, then as a book editor and writer. She is the author of a number of books, most on art and architecture. Sandra lives in south Devon with her husband, children and many cats.

Book preview

Published by TAJ Books International LLC 2013

219 Great Lake Drive

Cary, North Carolina, USA

27519

www.tajbooks.com

www.tajminibooks.com

Copyright © TAJ Books International LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored

in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,

mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written

permission of the Publisher and copyright holders.

All notations of errors or omissions (author inquiries, permissions)

concerning the content of this book should be addressed to

[e-mail].

ISBN 978-1-84406-252-2

PRINT ISBN: XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Printed in China.

1 2 3 4 5 17 16 15 14 13

CLAUDE MONET

1840–1926

Monet’s gift was to show the world a different way of seeing and interpreting everything around us. He brought his canvases to life with dabs and swoops of color put together to give an impression of the scene. He is the ultimate Impressionist: not only did one of his paintings inspire the label Impressionist and so name one of the greatest art movements of all time, but he was its leader, whose work changed the way that artists represented nature, light, and life.

Among the images Monet conjured are some of the most familiar and loved paintings of all time. When Impressionism appeared on the scene, art in France was regimented and run like an official institution. Artists had to be sanctioned by the Salon, from 1725 to 1890 the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, before dealers and art