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.”
:)
