Artist of the day. July 31: Claude Monet, French painter (Impressionist)

Oscar-Claude Monet (1840 – 1926) was a founder of French Impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. The term "Impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise), which was exhibited in 1874 in the first of the independent exhibitions mounted by Monet and his associates as an alternative to the Salon de Paris.

Monet's ambition of documenting the French countryside led him to adopt a method of painting the same scene many times in order to capture the changing of light and the passing of the seasons. From 1883 Monet lived in Giverny, where he purchased a house and property and began a vast landscaping project which included lily ponds that would become the subjects of his best-known works. In 1899 he began painting the water lilies, first in vertical views with a Japanese bridge as a central feature, and later in the series of large-scale paintings that was to occupy him continuously for the next 20 years of his life.

Monet's early work is indebted to the Realists' interests in depicting contemporary subject matter, without idealization, and in painting outdoors in order to capture the fleeting qualities of nature. Inspired in part by Edouard Manet, Monet departed from the clear depiction of forms and linear perspective, which were prescribed by the established art of the time, and experimented with loose handling, bold color, and strikingly unconventional compositions. The emphasis in his pictures shifted from representing figures to depicting different qualities of light and atmosphere in each scene.

In his later years, Monet also became increasingly sensitive to the decorative qualities of color and form. He began to apply paint in smaller strokes, building it up in broad fields of color, and exploring the possibilities of a decorative paint surface of harmonies and contrasts of color. The effects that he achieved, particularly in the series paintings of the 1890s, represent a remarkable advance towards abstraction and towards a modern painting focused purely on surface effects.
An inspiration and a leader among the Impressionists.

Mr Claude Monet

1867, Regatta at Sainte-Adresse

1865, The Bodmer Oak, Fontainebleau forest

1867, Garden at Sainte-Adresse.

1869, La Grenouillère

1872, Impression,  sunrise

1873, Autumn effect at Argenteuil

1873, Camille Monet on a garden bench

1874, The bridge at Argenteuil

1874, The Monet family in their garden at Argenteuil

1875, Camille Monet and a child in the artist’s garden in Argenteuil

1875, Poppy fields near Argenteuil

1878, The Parc Monceau

1880, View of Vétheuil

1881, Marine, Pourville

1884, Haystacks at Giverny

1886, haystack at Giverny

1886, The Manneporte near Étretat

1887, Poplars at Giverny

1888, Antibes in the morning

1891, Haystacks (Effect of snow and sun)

1891, The four trees

1891, Three trees in grey weather

1893, Ice floes

1894, Rouen Cathedral The Portal (Sunlight)

1899, Bridge over a pond of water lilies

1899, Water lilies evening effect

1900, Irises in Monet's garden

1903, The Houses of Parliament

1903, Waterloo bridge London

1908, Grand Canal, Venice

1916, Water Lilies

1917, Water Lilies

1917, Water Lily Pond

1919, Water Lilies

Autumn at Argenteuil

Paintings of trees

Venice Twilight

1873, Autumn on the Seine at Argenteuil