Known as the pioneer of Impressionism, Oscar Claude Monet is the most consistent and prolific artist of the movement. (1840-1926) Cezanne made a brief and precise judgment of him: “Monet is only an eye, but my God what an eye!”. Monet's name can be combined with the beginning and development of Impressionism.
Monet was born in Paris in 1840. He was the eldest son of a grocer. While still studying at Le Havre, Monet made money by making and selling caricatures of local people. In 1858 he met Eugane Boudin (1824-98), who led him to painting outdoors.
He enlisted in the army in 1860. At that time, 7 years of military service was determined by lottery and the lottery went to Monet. He was sent to Algeria with the African Hunter Battalion. He returned to Le Havre to rest in early 1862 due to anemia. Meanwhile, his aunt made the necessary payment to be exempted from military service, on the condition that he received a good art education.
On his return to Paris in 1862, Bazille entered Gleyre's studio, where he met Renoir and Sisley, and soon the young, radical artist became one of the prominent figures of the circle.
He refused traditional art education and joined Acad”mie Suisse, where he met Pissarro and Cezanne.
He was impressed by Manet's Dâjeuner sur Herbe, which he saw at the 1863 Salon des Refusâs, and the two artists soon became close friends despite a troubled beginning.
Monet, whose two paintings were accepted to the 1865 Salon, was rejected by the juries of the 1869 and 1870 exhibitions, and he decided not to apply to the Salon Exhibitions again. With the exception of 1880, he followed this decision throughout his life.
After the closure of the Gleyre Workshop in 1864, he worked with Renoir, Sisley and Bazille in the Fontainebleau Forest, where he studied. During this period, he tried to make large-scale landscape paintings with figures.
He never finished the 4.5 x 6 meter "Lunch on the Grass" painting he prepared for the 1866 Hall.
Eamille, whom he met in 1865, became pregnant. His father, who opposed this union, cut off the financial support. Out of money, Monet returned to Paris Normandy in 1867. He started to live with Eamile and his son Jean, earning income from the paintings he made here.
In June 1870, Eamille, her son, and Monet went to London with her family when the Franco-Prussian War broke out. Monet, who spent a lot of time with Pissarro, who went to London like himself, was introduced to the first art dealer in his career, Paul Durand-Ruel. The artist, who painted cityscapes during his nine months in London, returned to France in 1871 after a short stay in the Netherlands.
In London, Monet admired the work of English landscape painters, especially Turner. Returning to France, he lived near Paris and painted his surroundings. Among them are Pissarro, Renoir, Manet. He was joined by avant-garde artists, including Sisley and Eaillebotte. Although art dealer Durand-Ruel supported his work at the time, the artist was still not widely known.
Monet's painting LE Havre was derided for its sketchy effect, an antithesis to the respected academic paintings of that period. After that, this group of artists, all trying to capture the transient effects of light, came to be known as the Impressionists. Monet participated in five of the group's eight exhibitions with his paintings covered with atmospheric light. He suffered years of poverty and was undervalued.
Then, in the late 1880s, it began to receive positive reviews. Even when he was well-known and wealthy, he continued to paint everyday as he had when he first started.
Monet's originality never waned. Whatever his subject, his main interest was light. Later in his life, he began to paint the same subject on several canvases in different light conditions and at different times of the day.
After Dürand-Ruel, who provided income for them by buying the works of Impressionist painters, went into financial trouble in 1873, the artists, who were looking for different sales methods, developed the idea of opening a joint exhibition.
In the first "Impressionist Exhibition", which opened in April 1874, there were Monet's paintings such as Boulevard Capucines, Bridge in Argenteuil, as well as Impression, Sunrise, which would later give the group its name.
In 1876, Monet received several orders from Ernst Hoschede. When Ernst Hoschede went bankrupt in 1877, he put his collection up for auction. The following year, the impressionist painting market collapsed when the collector Jean-Baptiste Faure put his impressionist works up for auction.
With their finances deteriorating, the Monet and Hoschede families settled together in a house on the Seine, 65 kilometers from Paris.
In September 1879, Monet's wife, Eamille, died. Staying away from Paris, Monet broke with other impressionist painters for a while. A painting of the artist, who applied to the 1880 Salon to improve his financial situation, was accepted by the jury. Monet stayed in the same house with Alice Hoschede and their eight children, who had been abandoned by her husband.
The artist, who settled in Giverny with Alice Hoschede in 1883, continued his life here until his death. When Emst Hoschede died in 1891; They got married the following year.
In 1890 he built a magnificent garden with a giant lotus pond at his home in Giverny. The financial situation of the artist during this period was quite good. (Durand-Ruel began selling Monet's works to collectors in America from 1886.)
Beginning in 1890, Monet entered a different production process. He started series in which he painted the same subject over and over. From the summer of that year until the spring of 1891, he produced a series of twenty-five paintings, “Heaps of Grass”.
Monet made more than thirty-paintings of the portal of Rouen Cathedral the following year. He revealed how sunlight changes the appearance of the entrance gate of Rouen Cathedral at different times and in different meteorological conditions.
At the beginning of the 1900s, the artist, who enlarged his land further and turned it into a huge garden, has generally been the landscapes from this garden. The water lilies on the lake were his most frequent subject.
So much so that there were forty-eight lotus paintings in the solo exhibition he opened in Durand-Ruel's gallery in 1909. The artist painted more than 250 lotus paintings until the end of his life.
Monet, who fell into depression after the death of his wife Alice in 1910, lost his son four years later.
Expanding his workshop to make larger, decorative paintings, the artist painted very large water lilies between 1916 and 1921. These paintings drew attention with their dimensions up to twenty meters.
He had three eye surgeries in 1923 because of the cataract disease he had been suffering from for a long time. He passed away in 1926.
Alice's daughter, Blanche, was Monet's caretaker and companion in his late days. Monet donated his 'Water Lilies' series, which consists of many pieces, to the state.
His house and gardens in Giverny have been receiving visitors since 1981 as the Elaude Monet Museum.
He rarely left his home for the last 15 years of his life. Throughout his life, he was more committed to Impressionism and its ideals than anyone else.
More than name similarity: Édouard Manet and Claude Monet
Although their surnames and painting techniques are similar, they are two different painters who have a share in the birth of impressionism.
Although Manet (1832-1883) and Monet (1840-1926) are often confused, it is not just their names. Monet and Manet had been in the same city at the same time, took part in the same important fairs, and even argued at first and then became close friends. The acquaintance of these two important painters started with a great conflict.
There is a fairly easy way to distinguish between Monet and Manet: Manet if there are people, Monet if there are dots. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule.