Impressionism- Oscar-Claude Monet

Impressionism- Oscar-Claude Monet

Oscar-Claude Monet belonged to the Impressionist movement. He was born on the 14^th of November 1840 in Paris, France and died on the 5^th of December 1926 in Giverny France. The reason this group of artists were called impressionist was because after an art exhibition in 1874, a critic labelled Monet's painting style as "Impression" since it was mostly based around form and light rather than realism, and the phrase stuck. Monet struggled with poverty, depression and poor health throughout his whole life. He often painted a number of the same subject to capture the vast changing effects of light, swapping each canvas as the day went on. He mostly painted on site and many were finished back in his studio. Monet was a traveller which was one of the main things that inspired his paintings. He didn’t travel for tourism but only for the sake of painting a beautiful motif. Monet’s use of brushstrokes are consisted of dots applied on the canvas in order to produce texture and the effect of the natural light. If you look at one of Monet’s paintings close up it gives off a very pixelated look but from a far the small dots of colour form a picture. One of my favourite pieces by Monet is “The Water-Lily Pond, Water Irises” which was completed in 1900. It is part of a huge collection called “Water Lilies” which is made up of around 250 oil paintings. Each of the 250 paintings depict his flower garden at Giverny and were the main focus of his work during the last thirty years of his life and many of the works were painted while he suffered from cataracts. In my opinion I really like the painting “The Water-Lily Pond, Water Irises” because of the use of all the bright exaggerated colours. I love bright vibrant colours in a painting so this ticks all the boxes.