Claude Monet (November 14, 1840-December 5, 1926) is arguably the most important figure in the foundation of the French Impressionist school of painting. Its most consistent and prolific practitioner, Monet applied the movement's philosophy of exploring and expressing one's perceptions before nature, particularly in his well-known landscape paintings. In fact, the term Impressionism is derived from the title of his 1872 painting Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant). Inspired by the Barbizon painters of the early-nineteenth century, Monet's dedication to painting en plein air led him to question the formalized European traditions of color, composition, and representation. Monet's studies of French landscapes, leisurely activities of the upper-middle class, portraits, architecture, and garden scenes are recognized as seminal influences on not only the late 1800s, but also the painters of the early twentieth century. Monet died in Giverny in 1926, and his home and prolific garden were bequeathed to the French Academy of Fine Arts, and are currently open to the public.
View all of Claude Monet's work.
Just 15 minutes out of Paris by train, the small suburb of Argenteuil sits on the right bank of the Seine. Returning to France after a prolonged stint abroad, Claude Monet took up residence in the small, picturesque town from 1871 to 1878. While living there, he painted some of his most well-known works, refining his detailed technique with garden scenes, portraits, and landscapes. Given its proximity to Paris and the fact that Monet was a central force in the budding Impressionist movement, many prominent artists of the time, such as Edouard Manet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pisarro, Alfred Sisley, Gustave Caillebotte, and Vincent van Gogh, passed through Argenteuil. A sort of Sunday escape for Parisian artists, the fields, river banks, and village buildings of Argenteuil can be seen in hundreds of nineteenth-century canvases from the period’s now-famous artists.
