If a caricaturist who despised landscape painters had been told in his youth that he would spend a third of his life depicting water lilies in a backyard pond, he would have laughed. But on the artist’s creative journey, the leap from disdain to admiration can be surprisingly short.
A Profitable Hobby
One of the founders of Impressionism was a true Parisian. Oscar Claude Monet was born into a family of grocers on November 14, 1840. When his son turned five, his father moved the family to Le Havre in Normandy. He envisioned his son continuing the family business, but fate had other plans for Oscar Claude. In his youth, Monet spent more time wandering the area than studying, escaping from boring lessons to the river and the cliffs. His solitary walks through the picturesque surroundings brought him aesthetic pleasure, and in the dreary school environment, he entertained himself by doodling in his notebooks. There was hardly any space left on the colorful covers from his “disrespectful” portraits of teachers: Monet perfected his caricature skills to an art form. By the age of 15, Claude was already receiving commissions and earning 20 francs for a portrait; his talent as a caricaturist was recognized by the entire school, and soon the city took notice. The young student easily saved up 2,000 francs from his earnings.
Claude Monet with his family, 1880.
A Fateful Encounter
While displaying his caricatures for sale at a local art shop, Monet felt proud of his art and looked down on the “banal” works of his neighbors in the window. The young artist scorned landscape painters and even refused to meet the person whose canvases he saw next to his own unmatched “masterpieces.” But one day, the “disgusting” colleague entered the shop while Monet was present, and the owner had no choice but to introduce them. The newcomer turned out to be the interesting artist Eugène Boudin. With a soft voice, he expressed his admiration for Monet’s caricatures and advised him to develop his craft—learning to see the beauty of nature and paint landscapes. After a brief resistance, Monet agreed to accompany the landscape painter on sketching trips. Eventually, his eyes were opened, as the Impressionist recalled, and he became who he was meant to be.
“View of Rouelles,” Le Havre 1858, one of Monet’s early landscapes.
Thanks to His Aunt
With recommendations from Boudin and his artist friends, Monet set off for Paris to study under the masters. However, he was in no hurry to enroll at the School of Fine Arts, and his father refused to support him financially. His aunt, who painted herself, came to the rescue, sharing her studio in Le Havre with her talented nephew. She began sending him money for the high cost of living in the world capital and even secured his exemption from military service after he contracted typhoid fever while serving in Algeria. In 1861, Monet enrolled in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Le Havre, but he didn’t last long there either. Leaving his alma mater due to creative disagreements with his professors, Claude began attending Charles Gleyre’s painting studio, where he found like-minded peers: Auguste Renoir, Frédéric Bazille, and Alfred Sisley. These contemporaries, sharing similar views on art, would later establish a new artistic movement—Impressionism.
Impression or Impact
The Franco-Prussian War forced the artist to wander through Europe. In London, his works were not accepted for the Royal Academy exhibition, and in the Netherlands, where Monet planned to settle and painted 25 canvases, the police accused him of revolutionary activities. After returning to France in 1872, the painter created the very landscape that would give its name to the innovative movement: Impression, soleil levant (“Impression, Sunrise”).
“Impression, Sunrise” (Impression, soleil levant), 1872. Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris.
This work, which defined a new artistic direction, was showcased to the public at the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874. However, critics did not appreciate the innovation and remarked that what they saw was merely “an impression.” It took six years for the new style to resonate with gallery owners. In 1880, Claude Monet received an offer from Paul Durand-Ruel to sell his paintings on a permanent basis, and the painter’s financial situation quickly improved.
The Main Theme
In 1883, the Impressionist purchased the famous house in Giverny (Northern Normandy, 80 km from Paris), where he would live for a quarter of a century. On the estate, he created a pond in Japanese style, a copy of which was later made for tourists in Japan.
This is how the garden created by Claude Monet looks today.
The artist personally designed the garden and implemented it on the property. A decorative bridge appeared, and the surface of the pond was adorned with water lilies and lotus flowers that he personally selected—those very same flowers that Monet painted for the last 26-30 years of his life.
Water lilies in the artist’s paintings from various years.
The flowers on the water’s surface became the sole theme of his late artistic achievements. The artist depicted the same landscape on canvas in different variations 250 times! The first series of paintings featuring the pond and lotus flowers was created between 1898 and 1908. The second series, consisting of 25 paintings, was completed in 1900, and the third from 1903 to 1908.
The room with water lilies at the Musée de l’Orangerie.
In the 1920s, the Orangerie Museum was enriched with two oval rooms (shaped like a pond), built with state funds for the permanent exhibition of eight large Monet canvases featuring water lilies (which the Impressionist painted specifically for these rooms in the later years of his life).
Monet in his studio, 1920.
A Unique Perspective
Interestingly, few people know about the peculiarities of the French artist’s perception of color. For instance, he saw his water lilies not as white, like most people, but as blue: after two eye surgeries in 1912 to replace his lens, Claude Monet, who suffered from cataracts, began to see the world in the ultraviolet spectrum, which is why his paintings exhibit such unusual color representation. The Impressionist truly had a unique perspective on the world. This also applied to his tendency for “repetition”—creating series of paintings on a single theme. This trend in the artist’s work began in 1877: the first series of 12 paintings was “The Gare Saint-Lazare.” Following that were (besides the water lilies) series like “The Haystacks” (10 paintings), “The Poplars” (11 paintings), “The Rouen Cathedral” (35 works), “London” (98 cityscapes in oil and 26 pastel drawings), and “Venice” (28 paintings).
The artist in his garden.
No More Followers
Claude Monet created his last work at the age of 84—two years before his death. The artist passed away from lung cancer on December 5, 1926, and was buried in the church cemetery in Giverny. In the family grave, his second wife, Alice Hoschedé, who had lived with Monet for 18 years (she married Claude at 48, after helping the painter with household chores and caring for his children from his first marriage), was laid to rest beside him. Their sons and daughters-in-law are also buried there. The paintings inherited by his son Michel Monet (from his marriage to his first wife, Camille Doncieux) were donated to the Musée Marmottan Monet shortly before his tragic death in a car accident (just weeks before his 88th birthday) in 1966. The value of such a gift is hard to imagine: it is the largest collection of the famous artist’s works in the world. One of the paintings, “Water Lilies,” sold at a Sotheby’s auction in 2015 for $54 million.