Claude Monet

Biography

Claude Monet was born in Paris in 1840 and grew up in Le Havre, a port city on the Normandy coast. He first became known locally for caricatures, but encounters with the painter Eugène Boudin redirected his attention toward landscape and the practice of working outdoors. That early discipline—looking closely at weather, water, and changing illumination—became the foundation of his art.

After studying in Paris, Monet formed lasting relationships with artists including Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, and Frédéric Bazille. They shared an interest in painting contemporary life with loose handling and colors observed in natural light. In 1874, Monet participated in the independent exhibition later recognized as the first Impressionist exhibition. A critic used the title of his painting Impression, Sunrise to name the group, initially as a rebuke.

Monet continued to test how a place could be transformed by season, atmosphere, and time of day. Rather than treating a landscape as a fixed scene, he often returned to the same subject in a sequence. Haystacks, poplars, the façade of Rouen Cathedral, and views of the Thames allowed him to compare subtle shifts in color and perception. This serial approach made the act of seeing—not simply the depicted landmark—a central subject of the work.

In 1883, Monet settled at Giverny. He gradually shaped the gardens around his home, including a water garden with a pond and Japanese-style bridge. These surroundings supplied the motifs of his late career. As his water-lily paintings expanded in scale, conventional horizons receded and reflections filled the canvas. The scale of these late works also anticipated later experiments with immersive and abstract painting. Monet continued working despite impaired vision and completed an immersive cycle of water-lily decorations for the French state. He died at Giverny in 1926, leaving an enduring model for artists interested in observation, repetition, color, and the instability of visual experience.