Claude Monet captured the beauty of nature on his canvases. Monet's masterpieces are loved not only in France but also by many people around the world, including Japan and the United States. In the special corner of the Impressionist exhibition and Monet exhibition held,revival paintingWhen we exhibited, we received more orders for works by Monet than by any other artist. Here, we will feature a close-up of the artist Monet in order to capture the essence of his works.

Claude Monet, the path of a painter

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Claude Monet was a painter who dedicated his life to exploring and expressing light, capturing the beauty and colors of sunlight shining in nature in his works.
Monet was born in Paris in 1840 and, at the age of five, moved with his family to Le Havre, a port city in northwestern France, where he spent his childhood. It was here that his senior painter Eugene Boudin discovered his talent and taught him the wonders of working outdoors. This would determine the fate of the painter Monet.

Sunset in Le Havre


Boudin's work depicting the sky

After awakening, Monet moved to Paris at the age of 19 and began his career as a painter in earnest. In 1862, he entered Charles Gleyre's atelier, where he met the later Impressionist painters such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Jean Frederic Bazille, and Alfred Sisley. The art world was conservative, and the salons, which could be considered the only place to present works, were dissatisfied with the current state of art, such as realistic historical paintings and mythological paintings carefully completed in the atelier. Monet formed a group with like-minded painters and continued to create works that were bold yet full of light.

On the other hand, Edouard Manet, later called the father of Impressionism, caused a scandal with his Luncheon on the Grass, which he presented at the Salon in 1863. Monet was so impressed by this shocking work that he painted Luncheon on the Grass using the same subject in 1866. This work is known as a representative work of the artist Monet's early years, and also depicts Courbet, with whom he had an exchange at the time.


“Lunch on the Grass” (left), “Women in the Garden” (right)

Monet lived in Giverny for the second half of his life, but before that he traveled a lot and painted the landscapes of his travels. His first trip was to London in 1870, where he stayed for six months. It was here that Monet encountered the landscape of London, blurred by fog and dust. Monet was also greatly influenced by the works of British landscape painter Joseph William Turner and others in London.

 
Monet “The River Thames and the Houses of Parliament” (left), Turner “Battleship Temeraire” (right)

After returning to France in 1872 via the Netherlands, he moved to Argenteuil, a town on the Seine River, 15 minutes by train from Paris, where he lived until 1878. Argenteuil is a popular tourist destination for leisure activities such as swimming in the Seine, where Monet created over 170 works.
 
"Argenteuil Pier" (left), "Argenteuil Regatta" (right)

 
"The Bridge of Argenteuil" (left), "Argenteuil" (right)

In 1873, when Monet was 32 years old. His monumental work ``Impression, Sunrise'' (exhibited for the first time in 21 years at the Monet exhibition at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum), which heralded the birth of Impressionism, was painted in the port of Le Havre, his hometown during his childhood. Ta. The sun rises over the port of Le Havre in the early morning, and the sky and sea are colored by that light in the morning mist. A small boat floats in the foreground, a large ship appears in the background, and the ships and people are vaguely depicted. However, this work did not have a title when it was first painted, and Monet only responded when asked that he wanted it to be called "Impression." What Monet wanted to depict was the very impression that was difficult to retain, such as the air of a harbor or the sea reflected in the sun's rays as it began to rise in the morning mist.


Monet, Impression, Sunrise, owned by Musée Marmottan

This work was exhibited at the first exhibition held in 1874 by a joint venture of painters, sculptors, printmakers, etc. Monet and other painters with a new style of expression were given the name ``Impressionism'' after critic Louis Leroy published a review of this exhibition in Le Charivari magazine, calling it an ``Impressionist exhibition.'' This exhibition later became known as the First Impressionist Exhibition. Over the years, the works of Impressionist painters gradually gained recognition from the public.

Monet also gained fame as a painter, working on series such as ``The Stack of Straw'' and ``Rouen Cathedral.''


A series of ``Straw stacks''

Monet and Giverny, series of ``Water Lilies''

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After working in Le Havre and Paris, Monet was captivated by the beauty of the scenery he saw from the train window, and chose Giverny in the Normandy region of Paris as his final resting place. Yes, this is the location of the garden depicted in Monet's works from the latter half of his life.


Monet himself standing in his original house and garden in Giverny


A recreation of the current Monet garden (water garden)

Monet's House and Garden in Giverny is now a tourist destination visited by many of Monet's fans, but when Monet started living here in 1883 at the age of 43, the population was only 300.
Like a gardener, Monet gradually created landscaping himself, and later bought more land and created a pond by drawing water. This becomes a place called the ``water garden,'' which later gives rise to the theme of water lilies.
He ended up spending half of his life in this mansion with a garden and studio, and when he wasn't creating, he spent most of his time working in the garden. His garden itself is said to be Monet's work, and he personally selected the types of flowers and trees he planted in his garden, just like creating a painting on his own canvas. Even in the letters he wrote to his family when he was away from home for long periods of time to create, he mentioned how to care for the garden and give instructions to the gardener, and it seems that he never let go of his love for the garden. After Monet's death, the abandoned garden fell into disrepair, but it has been recreated by many mourners and can now be visited (open to the public from April to the end of October).
You can also see a collection of ukiyo-e prints collected by Monet from around 1870 at his house in Giverny.


Part of Monet's Ukiyo-e collection

Monet painted over 250 paintings with water lilies as their subject. When Monet first started painting in Giverny, he painted works that captured landscapes such as trees and bridges around ponds, but his interests gradually changed, and he began to focus on water surfaces and water lilies. I started working on my own works. Monet faces the water lilies over and over again. By painting works with the same motif, he sought to capture the changing effects of light over time and through the seasons. The changes in sunlight that vary depending on the season, weather, and time of day express the changing colors of the sky, the movement of clouds, the presence of trees, sunlight, and the world beneath the water's surface. Monet said, ``Everything changes forever, even stones.''

In his later years, the day after World War I ended and the Armistice was signed on November 11, 1918, Monet sent a letter to his friend, then Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau: ``I am about to complete two murals, and I would like to sign them on Victory Day.Then, I would like you to donate these works to the country.It may be a small amount, but it will bring joy to the whole country for me.'' It’s the only thing we can do to share.”
Through Prime Minister Clemenceau, Monet proposed donating his work Water Lilies to the nation. His grand plan was to decorate a room with a mural of ``water lilies,'' which he had entrusted with the end of his life. This later became a large mural of "Water Lilies" that occupied two rooms at the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris, and after many years of renovation work, it can now be admired in a form that reflects Monet's own intention to let in natural light. .


Musée de l'Orangerie, part of Monet's Water Lilies

Monet continued to paint the gardens at Giverny until his death in 1926 at the age of 86. After suffering from cataracts in his late 70s, Monet's works were sometimes painted with violent touches and intense colors.
Monet's works, such as Water Lilies, Japanese Bridge, Path of Roses, Wisteria, and The House as Seen from the Rose Garden, which were painted in his last ten years, were all created in series in his garden at Giverny. However, many of them are difficult to discern at first glance what is depicted. Although the effects of cataracts can be seen in these works, it is said that Monet had good eyesight at close range after surgery, and it is believed that he was able to fully recognize his own brushstrokes.

Even after his cataract surgery, many of the works that Monet kept throughout his life were abstract expressions, and were not destroyed. This is said to have opened his eyes to later abstract paintings, and these series of works show that Monet continued to be an avant-garde artist, not just an Impressionist painter.

 
Japanese bridge (left), Agapanthus (right)

 
Water lily (left), water lily (right)

 
Iris (left), rose (right)

 
Monet's later works: the painter's house seen from the rose garden (left), the Japanese bridge at Giverny (right)

"... I'm just trying to catch the phenomena to the end. The reason is that the phenomenon is involved with the unknown real existence. If we pursue the corresponding phenomena, At least I don't think we'll be away from the real existence, just looking at the whole picture brushes in front of me. That is only "(a letter addressed to a friend Clemansaw).

The Orange Museum, the Orsay Museum, the Malmottan Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Washington Museum of Art, the National Museum of Western Art, Ohara, Bridgestone, and the Pola Museum. Claude Monet's work, who is seriously heading to nature, just stares at the visible real world, and focuses on expressing its transitional appearance, is a wonderful museum in the world through donations and disclosure from collectors. It has been done and keeps fascinating the hearts of many people.



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