You probably heard about Oscar Claude Monet (1840-1926), but it is very likely his first name is new to you. His parents called him only by his first name, by the way, but this is not the only interesting trivia from a long and fruitful life of the most influential impressionist. So here I prepared a few more interesting …
Facts about Claude Monet
His father Claude Adolphe wanted him to become part of the home grocery business, but little Claude wanted to become an artist. He was not a good pupil, instead of listening to he preferred to draw caricatures of his professors and other kids.
He was so good he started to sell charcoal caricatures at 15 years of age. At about 22 he met Renoir, Bazille, and Sisley, all students of Charles Gleyre and they together started a discussion about light, colors, and a possibility to catch the moment of truth, what eventually led to Impressionism.
If you didn’t know, the term was coined by Louis Leroy (1812-1885), when he said he saw only impressions, not finished paintings, at the first exhibition of Monet (his painting Impression, Sunrise initiate the name of whole artistic movement) and his colleagues in 1874.
This is the painting which gave the name to Impressionism. Louis Leroy satirically commented it with 'wallpaper is more finished than this seascape'. But the new approach where the painter focused on colors and lights proved to be interesting enough for the audience the Impressionism grew into so important art movement it extended its influence from the field of visual arts to music and literature as well.
Monet was an extremely productive artist and although he for some time struggled with money so much he even tried to commit suicide by jumping into the Seine, he eventually became so successful he could buy his own house with some land and at certain moment employed seven gardeners. Nature under controlled circumstances was his favorite subject for painting and water lilies the most popular motif of all. He could paint the same scene dozen or more times, all at different times of day, year, in different weather conditions, etc. Here is a very small example in no particular order:
Claude Monet: Water Lilies Series
He painted water lilies from about 1895 to 1925 and we can find paintings from different eras in all major museums all over the world.
Monet’s paintings are among the most expensive artworks in human history. Several of them were stolen more than once and their price could surpass tens of millions of dollars. The last from the series of water lillies, for instance, was sold for 80 million dollars!
It’s interesting to note impressionistic paintings are in general among the most costly pieces of canvasses ever. Maybe because they were initially created and promoted by unconventional minds who believed in their right to think differently?
Or maybe because impressionism doesn’t really care about reality, because, there is no one? It’s only the moment, the one, unique and unrepeatable moment, which could be only caught into a perspective of a skilled master?
