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The master of the Impressionists, Claude Monet was born on November 14, 1840, in Paris. It is beyond doubt that he is the most famous Impressionist painter till day. His water lilies are one of the most famous works of art that hang in art galleries and museums all around the world. People, who love to buy paintings online, buy fine art prints of his artwork from online art selling portals. 

Monet’s father, Adolphe Monet, was a grocery man. Financially, they were well off. Adolphe wanted his son to join his grocery business; however, he was put off because Monet wanted to be an artist. In 1845, Monet’s family moved to Le Harve, Normandy. It was in Le Harve that he met landscape artist Eugene Boudin who taught him to paint outdoors. Painting outdoors has been practiced by artists since before 1800, but they used to create only sketches. What Monet did was completely different. He would actually produce a painting from start to finish entirely outdoors.  He was in the military for about two years. His aunt agreed that if he would actually enroll in a formal art institute then she would buy his way out of the service. The academy that he enrolled in was teaching art in a tradition that dated back to the Renaissance. Monet believed that this tradition had become outdated. Within a very short period of time, he quit the academy and went his own way. In 1865, Monet won acceptance at Salon, an annual art show in Paris, but he struggled financially. For him, it was a case of survival from day to day. In 1867, he had a child with his model and muse Camille Doncieux. Camille gave birth to their first son. Monet adored Camille.

During his time in Paris, Monet formed a friendship with other young painters such as Alfred Sisely, Paul Cezanne and Auguste Renoir. They called themselves an anonymous society of painters and sculptures. Suddenly, there was a generation of young painters who wanted to paint everyday life. In 1874, the society had their first exhibition featuring Monet’s painting “Impression Sunrise”. The critics and public were just perplexed and lost. It was truly a revolutionary change in the subject matter. Later, it went beyond that and became a revolutionary change in the actual technique of painting. One of the things that were so shocking about Monet’s work was that it had these individual brush strokes and it did not look finished that is why one of the critics said that Monet’s work was conveying an impression. That is how a new term ‘impressionist’ was coined.

In 1878, Camille became ill during her second pregnancy. Monet was in the bedroom with Camille on the day of her death. When she passed, he closed and locked the door, and painted her portrait. Monet’s fortune continued to change for the better as his art dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel, had increasing success selling his paintings. Monet always wanted to be the artist who charged and received the most money for his work. As time went on, many of his colleagues moved away from impressionism, but Monet immersed himself into it further producing a series of several studies of the same motif such as haystack and the poplar series. He was depicting them under different weather conditions and different lighting conditions. He was exploring a new way to look at art instead of trying to show a new subject every time.

In was in the year 1893 that Monet created the water lily pond in the garden at his home in Giverny. The Water lily pond inspired his most celebrated works. Many of the art critics are of the opinion that the crowning achievement of Monet’s career was the large water lilies. The water lilies panels were over 6 feet high and 20 to 25 feet wide. Monet wanted them to present them in an oval-shaped room so that as a viewer would walk into the room, he would be surrounded with a beautiful view.

Still painting in his late 80s, Monet died on December 5, 1926, at the age of 86. What people should know about this man is that his entire life was focused on work. Nothing else in his life came close to his dedication towards work; everything was predicated on his work. Various online art galleries display Monet’s paintings online. People adore his artworks. Not everyone can afford to buy a Monet. People like you and I, who buy paintings online, have to settle with fine art-prints of the mesmerizing paintings of these legendary Indian artists.