Works Cited Page!

Work Cited:

http://www.thinkexist.com

Ghare, Madhavi; http://www.buzzle.com/article/claude-monet-biography-and-life-history.html

http://www.answers.com/main/source_info_frames.jsp?

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1272/is_n2606_v124/ai_17606178/

http://www.claudemonetworks.com/about-painter.aspx

http://giverny.org/monet/biograph/

http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/95nov/monet.html

Claude Monet Quotes!

Quotes by Monet:

“My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece.”

“I can only draw what I see.”

“Everything I have earned has gone into these gardens.”

“Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.”

"It took me time to understand my waterlilies. I had planted them for the pleasure of it; I grew them without ever thinking of painting them.”

“I know that to paint the sea really well, you need to look at it every hour of every day in the same place so that you can understand its way in that particular spot and that is why I am working on the same motifs over and over again, four or six times even.”

“It's on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly.”

"I've 20 or so canvases well under way, stunning seascapes, figures and gardens, something of everything in fact."

"We're having marvelous weather and I wish I could send you a little of the sunshine. I am slaving away on six paintings a day. I'm giving myself a hard time over it as I haven't yet managed to capture the color of this landscape, there are moments when I'm appalled at the colors I'm having to use, I'm afraid what I'm doing is just dreadful and yet I really am understating it; the light is simply terrifying."

"Now I really feel the landscape, I can be bold and include every tone of blue and pink: it's enchanting, it's delicious."

"I'll look in a sorry state when I get home; my clothes have faded in the sun."

"I've caught this magical landscape and it's the enchantment of it that I'm so keen to render. Of course lots of people will protest that it's quite unreal, but that's just too bad."

"I was hard at work beneath the cliff, well sheltered from the wind ... convinced that the tide was drawing out I took no notice of the waves which came and fell a few feet away from me. In short, absorbed as I was, I didn't see a huge wave coming; it threw me against the cliff and I was tossed about in its wake along with all my materials! ... the palette which I had kept a good grip on had been knocked over my face and my beard was covered in blue, yellow etc ... the worst of it was that I lost my painting which was very soon broken up along with my easel, bag etc. Impossible to fish anything out."

"I have made tremendous efforts to work in a darker register and express the sinister and tragic quality of the place, given my natural tendency to work in light and pale tones."

"The Thames was all gold. God it was beautiful, so fine that I began working a frenzy, following the sun and its reflections on the water."

"These landscapes of water and reflection have become an obsession."

"I received the spectacles from Germany and much to my surprise the results are very good. I can see green again, red and, at last an attenuated blue."

"The only merit I have is to have painted directly from nature with the aim of conveying my impressions in front of the most fugitive effects."

Claude Monet Biography by Me!

Claude Monet Biography

On November 14, 1840, Oscar-Claude Monet was born in Paris. Claude Adolphe Monet was his father and Louise-Justine Aubree Monet was his mother. From Paris, five-year-old Claude and his family moved to Le Havre, Normandy, a large port in the Northwest of France, in 1845. There, his father owned a grocery store, Mr. Monet wanted young Claude to join the business with him but Claude had other dreams for his life. He wanted to become an artist.

Around his town he became famous for his charcoal pictures. In 1851, he decided that he would enter the Le Havre Secondary School of Arts. At the school his first drawing lessons were given by Jacques-Francois Ochard and in 1858 Monet met Eugene Boudin, whose own paintings were not famous at the time, Together, Eugene and Monet sketched the suburbs of Le Havre. Monet took pastel and oil painting lessons from her. Eugene was an extremely talented landscape artist and working with her opened Claude’s eyes to the beauty of nature and encouraged him to paint more out of doors.

Often, Claude would travel to Paris to visit The Louvre and he again went back to Paris driven by the desire to become a professional artist and entered the Swiss Academy in May 1859, which didn’t last to long. In 1861, he joined the army and was sent to Algiers. He soon became ill and was demobilized. His aunt Madam Lecarde disliked the idea and brought him back on the condition that we would continue and complete his art course. So he did, however, the university he was attending was not his favorite; he disliked the teachings of traditional art. He then became the student of Charles Gleyre, a painter with a conservative - academic view of art, in Paris. Of this time, 1862 - 1864, are the earliest known works of Monet: in 1861, “Corner of the Studio” and in 1862, “Hunting Trophy”. At the studio, he began to meet other painters such as, Renoir, Sisley, and Bazille, whom he had much in common with they discussed their experiences with art, the effects of lighting on a picture, and techniques. They all began to acquaint themselves with the work of Gustave Courbet and Edouard Manet. In 1863, Monet discovered Manet’s painting and paints “en plein air”.

In 1864, Monet met his first art lover by the name of Gaudibert. In 1865, two of Monet’s paintings, “The Cape de la Heve at Low Tide” and “Mouth of Seine at Honfleur”, both made in 1865, where accepted by the Paris Salon and judged and approved by critics. Also in 1865, Claude’s lady friend, Camille Doncieux and Bazille posed for the Luncheon on the Grass, or “Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe”. In 1866, Monet painted “The Woman in the Green Dress”, which he completed in four days, “Camille”, which drew attention to his work and “Garden at Sainte-Adresse”, where Claude portrayed his family and his parents small home in Le Havre.

In 1868, Claude Monet attempted to commit suicide, due to financial problems but then he receives an annuity from Mr. Gaudibert, that really helped. Jean Monet, Claude Monet and Camille’s first son was born in 1867 while he was working in Sainte-Adresse. Three years later, Camille Doncieux, Claude’s favorite model, and Claude were married and the three of them, Camille, Claude, and their son, moved to Trouville, a resort on the shore of Normandy. There, he painted Camille on the beach, “On the Beach at Trouville”. In 1871, Monet settled in the Seine near Paris, where he set up a boat with an easel and went up and down the Seine painting, this way he captured the affects of light, water and atmosphere.

The following year he went to Holland where he created around 25 paintings. Then, he and his family moved to Argenteuil, which became a major and consistent source of his motivation for nearly ten years. Around this time, is when Monet began to paint in series, it is common to think that his first and famous series was “Arrival at Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare”, or seven types of the Saint-Lazare train station in Paris. Again, another of his series was called “Le Bassin d’Argenteuil” he painted the alley along the banks of the Seine River four times in different weather conditions and in alternate lighting.

Two years later in 1874, he and a group of painters including Pissarro and Peirre-Auguste Renoir came together to form a society of artists. They presented an exhibition to the public of their work. For the exhibition, Monet painted another landscape which he named “Impressionism, Sunrise (Impression, Soleil Levant)” this one painting gave the group their name and it also played a major role in the art movement. Art critic Louis Leroy coined the term ‘Impressionism’ from the exhibition’s name, it also referred to the entire exhibition as ‘Impressionistic’. The term then marked a place in history from then on out.

Following this, Monet became good friends with a married couple by the name of Ernest and Alice Hoschede. Ernest was a Parisian business man and a patron of the arts. In 1878, Monet and his family moved in with them but he paid rent. Only a year after he lived with them in 1879 Ernest went bankrupt, to escape he fled to Belgium. However, Alice and Monet still lived in the house in Poissy. Alice had five children and Monet had two sons, together they helped raise the children. That same year, Camille died of an illness she had for a while. Due to his depression his paintings became just as sad. Together he and the rest of the family moved to Giverny, France. Alice began to become a second mother to his sons and in 1891 Ernest died. During this year, he painted his most famous series, known as “Meules (Haystacks)”. His exhibit consisisted of no less than 15 canvases of only haystacks, painted at different hours and different seasons. He was not interested with the haystacks themselves but he was more interested in the way they transformed with natural light.

From both of the deaths of each other’s spouses, Alice and Monet officially married in July of 1892.

He was still exploring his interest with light and creating “series” of paintings. He began to use water lilies, a pond, and a Japanese bridge in his own gardens. During the years of 1879 - 1899, he painted pictures of 13 different series showing the pond with white water lilies, it was named “Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies”.

By 1909, he created and completed 48 of the Nympheas paintings, such as “Water Lilies” and “Haystacks”. These canvases of these paintings where no bigger than one meter in width. Altogether, he created nearly 250 paintings in this cycle. Due to his strenuous amounts of works, Monet began to have problems with his eyesight; he was beginning to get cataracts. This same year, Alice died and three years later, his first son Jean passed away as well. In 1923, Monet had two surgeries for his cataracts. Three years later on December 5th, Monet died of lung cancer at the age of 86. He was buried with a simple ceremony at the Giverny church cemetery.

To this day Claude Monet’s artwork is valued and popular, each paintings sells for millions of dollars. But, besides the money his techniques and art will always be remembered and taught worldwide.

My Own Artworks!

This painting I made this year in my art class.

"Admiring the Waves, 2010"

&

This one I made last year in my art class again.

"Ballerina, 2009"

I have done more but I like these two.

:)

Claude Monet Journal!

My Journal:

1851: What I love to create is art, what I want to be is an artist. My father says that I should join the business and maybe I could own my own store one day, like him. What he doesn’t understand is that I have my own dream and my own ambitions. I want to own a good name. I want my name to be known to the world, not for business but for art.

1851: To me, “no one is an artist unless he carries his picture in his head before painting it” and that is what I do. I see something that catches my eye and I know that it is going to be my next masterpiece.

1867: Today my son was born. His mother is the most beautiful woman I have ever known. Camille bore our first child without me there, I was working in Sainte-Adresse and when I returned I sat with her and our new baby boy. We named him Jean. When Camille first found out that she was pregnant it was a hard time because my father refused to help us. Together, we struggled but we have made enough to raise our son well and we have loved him unconditionally.

1868: “My life is nothing but a failure,” I continue to try my hardest to make the best of myself and I get nowhere. I have this image in my head that I will not succeed as an artist any longer, not because I feel that I have no talent or drive to continue but because of the people that are judging it. “People try to discuss my art and pretend to understand as if it were necessary to understand, when it’s simply necessary to love.”

1870: Camille and I married today, she looked like an angel in her white wedding dress, and she has always been the most beautiful woman I have ever known.

1870: The first couple of years of our marriage have been rough, money is scare. Money is hard to come across, since most of the money we live off of is the one that I make from selling my artwork. My paintings are no longer accepted at the shows. I have no idea how we will make this life for us, in my head I try to think of new ways to make a living but I don’t want to settle for rejection. I need to find new ways with my art. “Perhaps it’s true that I’m very hard on myself, but that’s better than exhibiting mediocre work.”

1870: It is autumn and we have now moved into another house, a third time. The three of us, Camille, our son, and I have moved to Trouville, a resort on the shore of Normandy. This past summer was the start of the Franco-Prussian War; our family fled to London so that I could avoid recruitment.

1870: Today, I painted Camille on the beach; I named it “On the Beach at Trouville”. I painted it in the open air on the beach. The most unique part of this painting is that it has sand on its surface. While I was painting, the sand blew on to the wet canvas and now it has a really neat textured feel to it. It is my most beloved part, besides my wife in the painting.

1871: I have settled in the Seine River, near Paris, every morning I set up on a boat with an easel and my canvas. I go up and down the Seine just painting, this way I am able to capture the affects of light, water and the atmosphere throughout different parts of the day. This is where I shall start a new image of my work. I will use one single scene and recreate in alternate environments. One of my first, yet hardly known as the first, series was called “Le Bassin d’Argenteuil”, I painted the alley along the banks of the Seine River four times in different weather conditions and in various lighting. I paint in series because monotony does not have a place within nature. Never does nature look the same; there is always that one thing that will change what you are looking at. Through the same window, but a different day the picture from yesterday is no longer existent, I want to be the one to capture this on paper. I see good coming of this, I hope I am right.

1872: I am visiting in Holland to create more art, it’s really beautiful here. I hope to come back soon.

1872: Once again, we have moved, to Argenteuil this time. This small town has become a major and consistent part of my motivation. I have began to paint in series, it is common to think that the first of my series was “Arrival at Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare”, which was seven different types of the Saint-Lazare train station in Paris. Yet, I have made other series that have existed before this; nobody really pays much attention to them though.

1876: I met a really captivating married couple a few weeks ago and over the weeks we have become good friends. They go by the names Ernest and Alice Hoschede. Ernest is a Parisian business man and a patron of the arts, which is how we met.

1878: The date is March 17, 1878, today, my wife Camille and I had our second son, and we named him Michel. I was there through the birth, this time.

1878: Just days following the birth of our son, Madame Hoschedé and our family decided to spend the summer together. Together, my family and I moved in and we paid rent to live in their home in Vétheuil alongside the Seine.

1878: Ernest had fled to Belgium and left Alice all alone, with their six children.

1879: I have nobody; my wife has died of tuberculosis, this illness has been following her for as long as I can remember. I should have known the day of her death would come but it isn’t something that is easy to accept. I am so lost without her. (Due to his depression his paintings began to have a sad feel to them.)

1879: I wake up, while the birds are barely doing the same and the sun is barely coming over the hill. I clutch on to my canvas as I stroll down to the pond, but it’s not that easy. I must work fast before the sun changes its position so quickly. “For me a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment; but its surrounding atmosphere brings it to life - the light and the air which vary continually.”

1880: I do not paint what I know it to be, I paint what it is I see. I try to work directly with the pure color. “When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before you, a tree, a house, a field, or whatever. Merely think here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact color and shape, until it gives you your own naïve impression of the scene before you.”

1881: Alice and I have decided to help each other take care of all eight of the children. We have moved to Poissy. I really hate it here.

1883: Alone, I have moved to Giverny, France. Shortly after my arrival, I began developing my own garden. My garden in Giverny includes a water garden with water lilies and a Japanese style bridge. The water lilies and the Japanese bridge have been the subjects of many of my paintings. These are both very inspiring to many of my current series; one of my most favorite paintings was "The Artist's Garden in Giverny".

1883: I am still exploring my interest with light and creating “series” of paintings. I am beginning to use water lilies, a pond, and a Japanese bridge that I paint within my own gardens. "It took me time to understand my water lilies. I had planted them for the pleasure of it; I grew them without ever thinking of painting them.” Now, I see that it was one of the best things that I could have done to my garden. “My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece.”

1892: We are widows, with children; my sons have learned to call her mother. What harm would it do if we marry; being around her has made my feelings bloom for this woman. It may be against the ideas of others but, to us, it is hope and a stable foundation for our children.

1899: In London, I painted the river Thames in a series of paintings of the Houses of Parliament with the reflections of light in the river and fog. "Without the fog, London would not be a beautiful city." Paris is my favorite of all cities, I admire this place and it is one of the best that I have ever used out of all of my scenic views.

Unknown: What I love is nature and it’s my favorite to recreate the natural scenes and constant changes that occur throughout the day. “I am following nature without being able to grasp her.”

:)