A Glance At The Life Of Claude Monet.

BlouinArtInfo
Jul 27, 2017 · 3 min read

Oscar-Claude Monet, born on 14th November 1840 in Paris, was the son of Louise Justine Aubrée Monet and Claude Adolphe Monet, and a young brother to Leon. Adolphe worked as a successful grocer who later turned to shipping business, while Louise, a trained singer who appreciated poetry, took care of the family and was a popular hostess as well.

Monet, when he was 5, moved to Le Havre in the Normandy region with his family in 1845. Monet was a decent student who did not like the confines of the classroom and was more interested in being outdoors. Monet grew a liking of drawing at an early age, filling up his schoolbooks with caricatures and sketches of his teachers and residents of the town and sold them for about 20 francs. His mother appreciated his artworks but his father wanted him to join the shipping business.

After meeting Eugene Boudin, a landscape artist, Monet practised natural landscapes in his work. Boudin introduced him to painting outdoors, also known as plein air painting, which later became his expertise. He quit school and lived with his aunt, after his mother died on 28th January 1857. In 1859, Monet moved to Paris where he enrolled as a student at the Academie Suisse and pursued art.

In March 1861, Monet obliged to serve in the military into the ’Chasseurs d’Afrique’ meaning First Regiment of African Light Cavalry, for a period of seven years in Algeria where the environment influenced his personal and artistic outlook. His father could have bought out Monet’s exemption but refused since Monet wouldn’t give up painting. Monet contracted typhoid, a year into service of garrison duties, and went absent after which Monet’s aunt intervened to get him out of the army on the condition that he graduate in a course at an art school.

Monet liked to work outdoors and his two paintings depicting marine landscapes, (which can be viewed on websites such as BlouinArtinfo.com and Artsy.net), secured him an acceptance to the Salon of 1865, an annual art exhibition in Paris. The next year, the Salon displayed a portrait ‘Woman in Green,’ in which the subject was his lover and future wife, Camille Doncieux, who served as a muse for him. Monet’s works received praise but he still struggled financially around the birth of their first son, Jean, in 1867. Monet’s father refused to help them and Monet grew so distressed over the situation that he attempted suicide by throwing himself in the Seine River in 1868. Fortunately, Monet found a patron of his work which allowed him to continue work on art while caring for his family. Monet and Camille married in June 1870 fled with their son to London due to the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War.

Monet suffered from bouts of self-doubt and depression and destroyed about 500 paintings by burning, cutting or kicking the artworks.

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