Claude-monet.com Website Review

Most well-known today for his series of serene water lilies paintings, 19th century Impressionist Claude Monet was a groundbreaking tour de force in the development of expressive art. Throughout his long life, which spanned the years between 1840 and 1926, Monet would progress from drawing amusing caricatures of friends to capturing the elusive nuances of natural scenes in various attitudes of light and color. By striving to translate his unique perception of the natural world directly to the canvas, the artist was instrumental in forging an entirely new direction for the world of art. EARLY YEARS: 1845-1870 ROOTS IN REALISM When the artist was 11, he attended an art-focused secondary school in his hometown of Le Havre, taking beginning drawing clas*es from Jacques-Francois Ochard. A few years later, Monet studied the art of the landscape from a local painter, Eugene Boudin, who also acclimated the young artist to painting in the open air so as to capture nature in the moment. Under the informal tutelage of the landscape master, Johan Jongkind, the two men became adept in the One of the first Monet paintings, completed in 1858, was a realistic landscape entitled View at Rouelles, Le Havre artist's early efforts pay homage to the Realist school of art that came to dominance during his childhood. Reacting against Romanticism, their subject matter, which often consisted of working-clas* figures and unembellished, natural scenery. TRAVELS TO PARIS During this period from his late te*ns to early 20s, Monet spent time in the Louvre in Paris, where he met contemporary painters, such as Edouard masterworks on display in the Louvre, Monet preferred sketching what he could see out the window of the revered art museum. CHAS*EURS D'AFRIQUE The artist was drafted in 1861 into Les Chas*eurs d'Afrique, a light cavalry unit headed for Algeria. During his year-long tour of duty, he had only a few opportunities to paint, producing just one landscape, a few sketches and some military portraits. While none of