Claude Monet
Landscape to him was a decadent art and the eminent status it had gained in contemporary art was an usurpation; he saw nothing in nature beyond frames and grounds, and in truth he never made use of nature except as an accessory, although his landscapes were always treated with as much care and consideration as the figures he was called upon to include.
Impression,Sunrise (1873, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris) was the prescient title of one of Claude Monet’s paintings shown in 1874 in the first exhibition of the Impressionists, or as they called themselves then, the Société anonyme des artistes, peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs, etc. (The Anonymous Society of Artist, Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers). Monet had gone painting in his childhood hometown of Le Havre to prepare for the event, eventually selecting his best Havre landscapes for display. Edmond Renoir, journalist brother of Renoir the painter, compiled the catalogue. He criticised Monet for the uniform titles of his works, for the painter had not come up with anything more interesting than View of Le Havre.
Among these Havre landscapes was a canvas painted in the early morning depicting a blue fog that seemed to transform the shapes of yachts into ghostly apparitions. The painting also depicted smaller boats gliding over the water in black silhouette, and above the horizon the flat, orange disk of the sun, its first rays casting an orange path across the sea. It was more like a rapid study than a painting, a spontaneous sketch done in oils — what better way to seize the fleeting moment when sea and sky coalesce before the blinding light of day? View of Le Havre was obviously an inappropriate title for this particular painting, as Le Havre was nowhere to be seen. “Write Impression,” Monet told Edmond Renoir, and in that moment began the story of Impressionism.
Gustave Geffroy, the friend and biographer of Claude Monet, reproduced two portraits of the artist in his monograph. In the first, painted by an artist of no distinction, Monet is eighteen years of age. A dark-haired young man in a striped shirt, he is perched astride a chair with his arms folded across its back.
His pose suggests an impulsive and lively character; his face, framed by shoulder-length hair, shows both unease in the eyes and a strong will in the line of the mouth and the chin.
Geffroy begins the second part of his book with a photographic portrait of Monet at the age of eighty-two.
A stocky old man with a thick, white beard stands confidently, his feet set wide apart; calm and wise, Monet knows the value of things and believes only in the undying power of art. Not by chance has he chosen to pose with a palette in his hand in front of a panel from the Water Lilies series.
Numerous portraits of Monet have survived — self-portraits, the works of his friends (Manet and Renoir among others), photographs by Carjat and Nadar — all of them reproducing his features at various stages in his life.
Many literary descriptions of Monet’s physical appearance have come down to us as well, particularly after he had become well-known and much in demand by art critics and journalists. How then does Monet appear to us? Take a photograph from the 1870s. He is no longer a young man but a mature individual with a dense, black beard and moustache, only the top of his forehead hidden by closely-cut hair.
To get a better insight into this book, please continue this exciting adventure by clicking on our Blog.
If you want to buy this book, we have several possibilities for you:
- Amazon US
- Amazon UK
- Amazon Australia
- Amazon French
- Amazon German
- Amazon Mexico
- Amazon Italy
- Amazon Spain
- Amazon Canada
- Amazon Brazil
- Amazon Japan
- Amazon India
- Amazon Netherlands
- Parkstone International
- Ebook Gallery
- Kobo
- Barnes & Noble
- Apple
- Overdrive
- Scribd
- Bookbeat
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
PARKSTONE INTERNATIONAL offers a wide range of lavishly-illustrated fine art books and ebooks.
- Website
- Blog
- Amazon store
- Facebook: @parkstoneinternational
- Instagram: @parkstone_international
- Twitter: @parkstonebooks
- Youtube: @parkstone_international
- TikTok: @parkstone_international
- Email: info@parkstone-international.com
