Brief Biography-Claude Monet was born in Paris in 1840; in 1845, the family moved to Le Havre, where he studied in the art school from 1851. Eugene Boudin, whom he met a few years later, introduced him to en plein air. In 1859, Monet moved to Paris and became friends with Camille Pissarro at the Atelier Suisse. The Atelier was an informal academy which Monet preferred over École des Beaux-Arts to his father’s dissatisfaction.
In 1860, the army conscripted him, and he served in Algeria for two years. On his return to Paris, Johan Jongkind profoundly influenced him. He studied under Charles Gleyre alongside Pierre Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley in 1862, and in Trouville, he worked with Gustave Courbet in 1865. In these relationships emerged the form of painting we know today as Impressionism. In Le Havre, Manet painted An Impression. which is where the word originates.
During the Franco-Prussian war, he went to London with Pissarro, where they scrutinised the works of John Constable and J.M.W Turner, pieces which did not necessarily impress Monet. It was there he met the art dealer Durand-Ruel. After the Royal Academy exhibition turned down his works in 1871, Monet went to Zaandam in Holland and Paris, where he met Édouard Manet in Argenteuil. There he undertook many of his most famous paintings. Finally, in 1883, he stayed in Giverny, where, in the nineties, his renowned lily pond became his setting for the Nymphéas pictures.
In the eighties, he travelled throughout Europe, and due to exhibitions held worldwide by Durand-Ruel, he, at last, became quite successful.
Changing light conditions and hue tones are the primary features in Monet’s work, mainly evident in his haystacks and Rouen Cathedral paintings. Monet is considered today the Michelangelo of Impressionism.