What was claude monets wifes name

A striking example of his early style is the Terrace at the Seaside, Sainte-Adresse , which contains a shining mixture of bright, natural colors. Throughout the s and s, he was often short of money and destroyed his own paintings rather than have them taken away by creditors those to whom money is owed. As William Seitz wrote, "The landscapes Monet painted at Argenteuil between and are his best-known, most popular works, and it was during these years that impressionism most closely approached a group style.

On that occasion his painting Impression: Sunrise inspired a newspaper critic to call all the artists "impressionists," and the name stuck. Monet and the impressionists discovered that even the darkest shadows and the gloomiest days contain a wide variety of colors.

However, Monet learned that he had to paint quickly and to use short brushstrokes loaded with individual colors. During the s the impressionists began to drift apart, although individual members continued to see one another and occasionally work together. Monet gradually gained critical and financial relating to money success during the late s and the s.

This was due mainly to the efforts of Durand-Ruel, who sponsored one-man exhibitions of Monet's work as early as and who, in , also organized the first large-scale impressionist group show to take place in the United States. During the s he devoted his energy to paintings of haystacks and the facade front of Rouen Cathedral — In these works Monet painted his subjects from the same physical position, allowing only the light and weather conditions to vary from picture to picture.

By he began work on his famous paintings of the many water lilies in his gardens at Giverny, France. Monet's late years were very difficult. His health declined rapidly, and by the s he was almost blind. In addition to Monet's physical ailments, he struggled with the problems of his art. In he began work on twelve large canvases each fourteen feet wide of water lilies, which he planned to give to the state. To complete them, he fought against his own failing eyesight and the fact that he had no experience in creating large-scale mural art.

In effect, the task required him to learn a new kind of painting at the age of eighty. The paintings are characterized by a broad, sweeping style and depend almost entirely on color. Monet worked on the water lily paintings until his death on December 5, He famously said: "My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece.

I work at my garden all the time and with love. What I need most are flowers. My heart is forever in Giverny, perhaps I owe it to the flowers that I became a painter. It was at Giverny that Monet found his ultimate success. His paintings began to sell in the United States, England, and locally. He became quite the gentleman employing a large staff in his house, including six gardeners that maintained his beloved garden and lily pond.

Monet was less concerned with modernity in his works and more with atmosphere and environment. His series of grainstacks, painted at different times throughout the day, received critical acclaim from opinion-makers, buyers, and the public when exhibited at Durand-Ruel's gallery. He then turned his sights to Rouen Cathedral, making similar studies of the effects of changing mood, light, and atmosphere on its facade at different times of the day.

The results were dozens of canvases of brilliant, slightly exaggerated colors that formed a visual record of accumulated perceptions. Ultimately, Monet preferred to be alone with nature, creating his paintings rather than participating in theoretical or critical battles within the artistic and cultural scene of Paris. Whereas he traveled throughout the s and to places like London, Venice, Norway, and around France - in he settled for the remainder of his life in Giverny.

The year saw the death of his second wife Alice, followed by the passing on of his son Jean. Shattered by these deaths, the ragings of the First World War, and even a cataract forming over one of his eyes, Monet essentially ceased to paint. At the time, the French statesman Georges Clemenceau who happened to also be Monet's friend asked Monet to create an artwork that would lift the country out of the gloom of the Great War.

At first, Monet said he was too old and not up to the task, but eventually Clemenceau lifted him out of his mourning by encouraging him to create a glorious artwork - what Monet called "the great decoration".

Monet conceived a continuous sequence of waterscapes situated in an oval salon as a world within a world. A new studio with a glass wall facing the garden was built for this purpose, and despite having cataracts one of which he had surgically removed , Monet was able to move a portable easel around to different places within the studio to capture the ever-changing light and perspective of his water lilies.

He continued to work on his water paintings right up until the end of his life. The Orangerie museum was ultimately built with two eliptical rooms constructed to house Monet's water lilies. The all-over compositions of the canvases and the designed rooms allowed the viewer to feel as if they were within the water surrounded by the foliage. The ultimate installation was loved by many critics, and was most famously proclaimed "the Sistine Chapel of Impressionism" by the Surrealist writer and artist Andre Masson.

Monet's extraordinarily long life and large artistic output befit the enormity of his contemporary popularity. Impressionism, for which he is a pillar, continues to be one of the most popular artistic movement as evidenced by its massive popular consumption in the form of calendars, postcards, and posters.

Of course, Monet's paintings command top prices at auctions and some are considered priceless, in fact, Monet's work is in every major museum worldwide.

Even though his works are now canonized, for a number of years after Monet's death, he was only known in select circles of art lovers. The major renaissance of his work occurred in New York by the Abstract Expressionists. Artists like Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock , and critics such as Clement Greenberg learned much from Monet's large canvases, and semi-abstract, all-over compositions. Pop artists also referred to Monet's haystacks in pieces like Andy Warhol's repeating portraits.

Trained to expect the polished illusions of the Salon painters, they were shocked by the raw, unblended, ill-defined paint used by Degas, Renoir, Monet and company. As he neared the end he died at just 51 Manet was painting exquisite flower bouquets and vibrant portraits — vigorous, life-affirming canvases.

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