Claude Monet

by Jolanta Cole

Claude Monet was born on 14th November 1840 in Paris. He showed his interest for painting at an early stage and at the age of fifteen he was receiving money for creating caricatures.

                                           

Monet was always working from life – outside. Every canvas he painted was complete at the same place where he started it. He also was very often working on two or more canvases at once. His method was to change the canvas on the easel when the light changes. In that way he got many different pictures with different light from that same place.

                     

Monet was never bored of painting the same view several times, like the scene with Rouen Cathedral: “In the Morning”, “Morning Sun – Harmony in Blue”, “Morning Effect – Harmony in White” or The Haystacks: “At noon”, “In the Snow”, “Setting sun”, “At Sunset”… Also Poplars: “Pink Poplars”, “Poplars in the Sun” and many more pictures painted in his own garden in Giverny.

                          

Before Monet settled down in 1890 in Giverny he was in many places, he had travelled around France and Europe every year painting but none of those places held his attention as much as Giverny. As many times he walked around this village he could always find a new place for a new picture.

                         

On February 5th in 1893 when Monet bought a strip of land at the bottom of his property he decided that this would be the perfect place for a pond and he went ahead with it. He had many problems with permits for excavation. He thought, the best solution would be to dig a hole.

     

Monet was not a trained gardener but he planned every aspect of his garden by himself: the arrangement of the flowerbeds, garden paths, lily ponds and the footbridge. Soon the garden became Monet’s favourite subject to paint.

    

In the summer in 1897 Monet had finished painting the very large “Water lilies” collection. In the entire Giverny period there has been found 81 pictures, which were painted within two miles walking or boating distance from Monet’s house. He was painting the landscape in every season and under every weather condition.