Claude-Oscar Monet

 

1840- 1926 

Born in Paris and grew up in Le Harve Claude - Oscar Monet and in 1856 was contacted by Eugène Boudin who introduced Monet to painting nature. He lived in Paris and during 1859 and later in 1862 he entered Charles Gleyre’s studio where he met many other artists who influenced Monet on his work and artist later in his life were great influences such as; Edouard Manet who influenced his figure compositions of the 1860’s and Pierre-Auguste Renoir who influenced his brush strokes. Monet is regarded as one of the leading French impressionist landscape painters and has worked along side and been inspired by many artists and inspired many in the impressionistic style. 

Impressionist was to begin with an insult in response to a showcase of new paintings in 1874 in Paris. These paintings were rejected by many art establishments and was painted by Monet, Renoir, Pissarro and Degas, who were the founding fathers of the impressionism style. The key characteristics to impressionism that is regarded at this point of time is the technique and the subject matter. Typically the subject matter is a landscape  from natural gardens and lakes to modern urban life but painted in bright, vibrant colours. Impressionism paintings were often painted outdoors, rapidly and within the time when the natural light was at the same height.  

Claude-Oscar Monet’s paintings are very bright and colourful with quick brush strokes of landscapes and scenery. His paintings involve a lot of water as a subject matter which works very well with the impressionism style due to the colourful nature of the style being able to capture the vivid colours and with the fast brush strokes capturing the waters movement. The bright colours and fast brush strokes work very well with the nature subject matter and capture it well whilst the brush strokes also add a sense of depth and texture to the paintings. Many natural aspects within Monet’s paintings work mainly due to the impressionism style and the work has a huge amount of detail whilst still having an interesting  style which is two aspects that many can have on their own but few have both within their work.   

Monet’s work is very realistic which is because his work has been painted quickly and capturing the true form of the landscape. There are no further additions to the imagery to add more subject matter, his work is very true and doesn’t adapt the subject matter to suit his needs or to make his work seem more interesting. The work is still very picturesque and the environments seem like places the audience would enjoy visiting and capture an environment at it’s best or at least make it seem picturesque. Monet is in my opinion one of the best impressioism painters and a highly talented painter, his work is what I think about when picturing impressionism paintings and his work is some of the finest paintings since he captures so much detail yet incorporates it into a interesting style which influences artists such as Vincent Van Gogh carries on influences artist to this day whilst also being an original impressionism painter. The main point behind a impressionism artist is that the work they create is their work impression of the imagery and what they see around them. The work often captures the emotion behind the work more than the subject matter itself. Due to this people can have alternative impressions from a artist work and what they were depicting within their work. Monet is a artist who uses this process yet also strides for realism which isn’t what is considered impressionism within the art world yet he is one of the first impressionism artists.