Oscar-Claude Monet was a French painter and founder of Impressionism who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During his long career, he was the most consistent and prolific practitioner of Impressionism's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions of nature, especially as applied to plein air (outdoor) landscape painting. The term "Impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting Impression, Sunrise, which was exhibited in 1874 at the First Impressionist Exhibition, initiated by Monet and a number of like-minded artists as an alternative to the Salon.
Paintings by Claude Monet
Water Lilies (Monet series) (1914)
Water Lilies (French: Nymphéas [nɛ̃.fe.a]) is a series of approximately 250 oil paintings by French Impressionist Claude Monet (1840–1926). The paintings depict his flower garden at his home in Giverny, and were the main focus of his artistic production during the last 31 years of his life. Many of the works were painted while Monet suffered from cataracts.
Monet's long-standing preference for producing and exhibiting a series of paintings related by subject and perspective began in 1889, with at least ten paintings done at the Valley of the Creuse, which were shown at the Galerie Georges Petit. Among his other famous series are his Haystacks.
Rouen Cathedral (Monet series) (1893)
The Rouen Cathedral series was painted in the 1890s by French impressionist Claude Monet. The paintings in the series each capture the façade of Rouen Cathedral at different times of the day and year and reflect changes in its appearance under different lighting conditions.
The Rouen Cathedral paintings, more than thirty in all, were made in 1892 and 1893 in Rouen, Normandy, then reworked in Monet’s studio in 1894. Monet rented spaces in Rouen across the street from the cathedral as his temporary studio. In 1895 he selected what he considered to be the twenty best paintings from the series for display at his Paris dealer’s gallery and sold eight of them before the exhibition was over. Camille Pissarro and Paul Cézanne visited the exhibition and praised the series highly.
Garden at Sainte-Adresse (1867)
The Garden at Sainte-Adresse is a painting by the French impressionist painter Claude Monet. (Oil on canvas, 98.1 by 129.9 centimetres (38.6 in × 51.1 in)). The painting was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art after an auction sale at Christie's in December 1967, under the French title La terrasse à Sainte-Adresse. The painting was exhibited at the 4th Impressionist exhibition, Paris, April 10–May 11, 1879, as no. 157 under the title Jardin à Sainte-Adresse.
Monet spent the summer of 1867 at the resort town of Sainte-Adresse on the English Channel, near Le Havre (France). It was there, in a garden with a view of Honfleur on the horizon, that he painted this picture, which combines smooth, traditionally rendered areas with sparkling passages of rapid, separate brushwork, and spots of pure colour.
Impression, Sunrise (1872)
Impression, Sunrise (French: Impression, soleil levant) is an 1872 painting by Claude Monet first shown at what would become known as the "Exhibition of the Impressionists" in Paris in April, 1874. The painting is credited with inspiring the name of the Impressionist movement.
Impression, Sunrise depicts the port of Le Havre, Monet's hometown. It is usually displayed at the Musée Marmottan Monet.
Woman with a Parasol – Madame Monet and Her Son (1886)
Woman with a Parasol – Madame Monet and Her Son is an oil-on-canvas painting by Claude Monet from 1875. The Impressionist work depicts his wife Camille Monet and their son Jean Monet in the period from 1871 to 1877 while they were living in Argenteuil, capturing a moment on a stroll on a windy summer's day. Due to the subject matter, it is sometimes known as The Stroll (French: La Promenade) although the term "Promenade" is actually present in the titles of several other Monet paintings in the same series.
Monet's light, spontaneous brushwork creates splashes of colour. Mrs Monet's veil is blown by the wind, as is her billowing white dress; the waving grass of the meadow is echoed by the green underside of her parasol. She is seen as if from below, with a strong upward perspective, against fluffy white clouds in an azure sky. A boy, Monet's seven-year-old son Jean, is placed further away, concealed behind a rise in the ground and visible only from the waist up, creating a sense of depth, the moment using animated brush strokes full of vibrant color.
Women in the Garden (1866)
Women in the Garden (French: Femmes au jardin) is an oil painting begun in 1866 by French artist Claude Monet when he was 26. It is a large work painted en plein air; the size of the canvas necessitated Monet painting its upper half with the canvas lowered into a trench he had dug, so that he could maintain a single point of view for the entire work. The setting is the garden of a property he was renting. His companion and future wife Camille Doncieux posed for the figures. Monet finished the work indoors, and used magazine illustrations to render fashionable clothing.
Monet at this time was early in his career, experimenting with method and subject matter. His earlier paintings were successful at Paris Salons, but Women in the Garden was rejected in 1867 on the grounds of subject and narrative weakness. This piece is simply a work that was meant to fit within his theme: the interplay of light and atmosphere. His paintings established him as a leader emerging the impressionist movement. The Salon was also troubled by Monet's heavy brushstrokes, a style which would, of course, become one of the hallmarks of Impressionism. A judge commented, "Too many young people think of nothing but continuing in this abominable direction. It is high time to protect them and save art!" The painting was purchased by fellow artist Frédéric Bazille to help support Monet at a time when he had no money.
Woman in the Garden (1867)
Woman in the Garden (French: Femme au jardin) (or Jeanne-Marguerite Lecadre in the Garden) is a painting begun in 1866 by Claude Monet when he was a young man of 26. The work was executed en plein air in oil on canvas with a relatively large size of 82 by 101 cm. and currently belongs in the collection of the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia.
The woman in the painting is Jeanne-Marguerite Lecadre, the young wife of his well-to-do cousin Paul-Eugene Lecadre. The Lecadres lived at Le Havre and had a country house, Le Coteau, in nearby Sainte-Adresse, in the garden of which the painting was made during a short visit. X-ray analysis has revealed that it was actually painted over a previous picture.
Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (Monet, Paris) (1866)
Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (English: Luncheon on the Grass) is an 1865–1866 oil-on-canvas painting by Claude Monet, produced in response to the 1863 work of the same title by Édouard Manet. It remains unfinished, but two large fragments (central and left panels) are now in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, while a smaller 1866 version is now in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. Monet originally wanted to submit the painting to the Salon of 1866, but he underestimated how long it would take him to transfer his sketches to a life-size canvas, so it remained unfinished by the time of the exhibition.
Monet later offered the large canvas of Déjeuner to his landlord in place of rent. When Monet bought it back from his landlord, it was badly damaged from the damp environment in which it was stored. Monet had to cut it up in order to preserve the non-damaged parts.
Haystacks (Monet series)
Haystacks is the common English title for a series of impressionist paintings by Claude Monet. The principal subject of each painting in the series is stacks of harvested wheat (or possibly barley or oats: the original French title, Les Meules à Giverny, simply means The Stacks at Giverny, obviously concerning stacks of straw). The title refers primarily to a twenty-five canvas series (Wildenstein Index Numbers 1266–1290) which Monet began near the end of the summer of 1890 and continued through the following spring, though Monet also produced five earlier paintings using this same stack subject. A precursor to the series is the 1884 Haystack Near Giverny (Pushkin Museum).
The series is famous for the way in which Monet repeated the same subject to show the differing light and atmosphere at different times of day, across the seasons and in many types of weather.
La Grenouillère (Monet) (1869)
La Grenouillère is an 1869 painting by the French impressionist painter, Claude Monet (Oil on canvas, 74.6 cm x 99.7 cm). It depicts "Flowerpot Island", also known as the Camembert, and the gangplank to La Grenouillère, a floating restaurant and boat-hire on the Seine at Croissy-sur-Seine. He was accompanied by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, who also painted the scene at the same time.
Monet wrote on September 25, 1869, in a letter to fellow artist Frédéric Bazille, "I do have a dream, a painting (tableau), the baths of La Grenouillère, for which I have made some bad sketches (pochades), but it is only a dream. Pierre-Auguste Renoir, who has just spent two months here, also wants to do this painting." Monet and Renoir, both desperately poor, were quite close at the time.
Houses of Parliament (Monet series)
Claude Monet painted several series of nearly 100 impressionist oil paintings of different views of the Thames River in the autumn of 1899 and the early months of 1900 and 1901 during stays in London. One of these series consists of views of the Palace of Westminster, home of the British Parliament, and he began the first of these paintings at about 15.45 on 13 February 1900. All of the series' paintings share the same viewpoint from Monet's window or a terrace at St Thomas' Hospital overlooking the Thames and the approximate canvas size of 81 cm × 92 cm (32 in × 36 3/8 in). They are, however, painted during different times of the day and weather conditions.
By the time of the Houses of Parliament series, Monet had abandoned his earlier practice of completing a painting on the spot in front of the motif. He carried on refining the images back home in Giverny, France, and sent to London for photographs to help in this. This caused some adverse reaction, but Monet's reply was that his means of creating a work was his own business and it was up to the viewer to judge the final result.
Regatta at Sainte-Adresse (Monet) (1867)
The Regatta at Sainte-Adresse is an oil-on-canvas painting by the impressionist painter Claude Monet. It was painted in 1867 and is owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
This painting and The Beach at Sainte-Adresse (Art Institute of Chicago) were probably conceived as a pair. They are identical in size, and their viewing point differs by only a few yards.