Claude Monet
He taught the world to see light and color anew, founding a movement that captured the fleeting moments of modern life.
1840–1926 (age 86)·French painter·Birthday: November 14
Biography
Claude Monet’s life was a rebellion against the dark studios of the French academy. Born in Paris but raised on the Normandy coast, he was sketching caricatures for cash as a teenager before finding his true teachers in the open air. His early adulthood was a grind of poverty and rejection, his canvases deemed messy and unfinished by the Salon establishment. Undeterred, he gathered a band of fellow painters—Renoir, Pissarro, Degas—and in 1874, they staged their own exhibition. A critic mockingly seized on Monet’s hazy harbor scene, 'Impression, Sunrise,' and gave the movement its name. Monet embraced it. He spent decades chasing perceptual truth, painting the same subject—haystacks, Rouen Cathedral, his water lily pond at Giverny—in dozens of lights and weathers. His later years, despite failing eyesight, produced the monumental, immersive Water Lilies series, blurring the line between reflection and reality and paving a watery path toward abstract art.
#1 When Claude Was Born
The biggest hits of 1840
Claude's Life & Times
The world at every milestone
1840Born
1845Started school
1853Became a teenager
1856Could drive
1858Could vote
1861Turned 21
President: Abraham Lincoln
1870Turned 30
President: Ulysses S. Grant
1880Turned 40
Edison patents the incandescent light bulb
President: Rutherford B. Hayes
1890Turned 50
Wounded Knee massacre marks the end of the Indian Wars
President: Benjamin Harrison
1900Turned 60
Boxer Rebellion in China
President: William McKinley
1910Turned 70
Halley's Comet makes its closest approach
President: William Howard Taft
1920Turned 80
Women gain the right to vote in the US
Home: $3,395President: Woodrow Wilson"Swanee" — Al Jolson
1926Died at 86
Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket
President: Calvin Coolidge"Baby Face" — Jan Garber
Key Achievements
- Co-organized and exhibited at the pivotal 1874 exhibition that launched the Impressionist movement, named after his painting 'Impression, Sunrise.'
- Pioneered the 'series' painting technique, producing multiple works like the 'Haystacks' and 'Rouen Cathedral' to study changing light and atmosphere.
- Created the extensive 'Water Lilies' cycle, large-scale immersive paintings that are considered a crucial bridge to 20th-century abstraction.
- Transformed his property in Giverny into a living artwork, designing the water garden that became the sole subject of his final decades of work.
Did You Know?
He served in the French military in Algeria but was discharged early due to illness, an event that shaped his path back to painting.
Monet was an avid gardener and employed several gardeners to maintain the precise conditions of his Giverny garden for his paintings.
He destroyed several of his own water lily canvases with a knife before a major exhibition, dissatisfied with the work.
The famous water lily pond at Giverny was created by Monet diverting a local river, a project his neighbors initially opposed.
“Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.”
