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.
