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Oscar-Claude Monet (/moʊˈneɪ/; French: [klod mɔnɛ]; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a founder of French Impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting.[1][2] The term "Impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise), which was exhibited in 1874 in the first of the independent exhibitions mounted by Monet and his associates as an alternative to the Salon de Paris.

IMPRESSION, SUNRISE

M O N E T ' S A M B I T I O N O F D O C U M E N T I N G T H E F R E N C H C O U N T R Y S I D E L E D H I M T O A D O P T A M E T H O D O F P A I N T I N G T H E S A M E S C E N E M A N Y T I M E S I N O R D E R T O C A P T U R E T H E C H A N G I N G O F L I G H T A N D T H E P A S S I N G O F T H E S E A S O N S . F R O M 1 8 8 3 M O N E T L I V E D I N G I V E R N Y , W H E R E H E P U R C H A S E D A H O U S E A N D P R O P E R T Y , A N D B E G A N A V A S T L A N D S C A P I N G P R O J E C T W H I C H I N C L U D E D L I L Y P O N D S T H A T W O U L D B E C O M E T H E S U B J E C T S O F H I S B E S T - K N O W N W O R K S . I N 1 8 9 9 H E B E G A N P A I N T I N G T H E W A T E R L I L I E S , F I R S T I N V E R T I C A L V I E W S W I T H A J A P A N E S E B R I D G E A S A C E N T R A L F E A T U R E , A N D L A T E R I N T H E S E R I E S O F L A R G E - S C A L E P A I N T I N G S T H A T W A S T O O C C U P Y H I M C O N T I N U O U S L Y F O R T H E N E X T 2 0 Y E A R S O F H I S L I F E .

First "Impressionist" exhibition

From the late 1860s, Monet and other like-minded artists met with rejection from the conservative Académie des Beaux-Arts which held its annual exhibition at the Salon de Paris. During the latter part of 1873, Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, and Alfred Sisley organized the Société anonyme des artistes peintres, sculpteurs et graveurs (Cooperative and Anonymous Association of Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers) to exhibit their artworks independently. At their first exhibition, held in April 1874, Monet exhibited the work that was to give the group its lasting name.

Impression, Sunrise was painted in 1872, depicting a Le Havre port landscape. From the painting's title the art critic Louis Leroy, in his review, "L'Exposition des Impressionnistes," which appeared in Le Charivari, coined the term "Impressionism".[3] It was intended as disparagement but the Impressionists appropriated the term for themselves.

MONET AND IMPRESSIONISM

BIOGRAPHY

F R A N C O - P R U S S I A N W A R A N D A R G E N T E U I L

After the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War (19 July 1870), Monet and his family took refuge in England in September 1870,[16] where he studied the works of John Constable and Joseph Mallord William Turner, both of whose landscapes would serve to inspire Monet's innovations in the study of color. In the spring of 1871, Monet's works were refused authorisation for inclusion in the Royal Academy exhibition.[15]

In May 1871, he left London to live in Zaandam, in the Netherlands,[15] where he made twenty-five paintings (and the police suspected him of revolutionary activities).[17] He also paid a first visit to nearby Amsterdam. In October or November 1871, he returned to France. From December 1871 to 1878 he lived at Argenteuil, a village on the right bank of the Seine river near Paris, and a popular Sunday-outing destination for Parisians, where he painted some of his best-known works. In 1873, Monet purchased a small boat equipped to be used as a floating studio.[18] From the boat studio Monet painted landscapes and also portraits of Édouard Manet and his wife; Manet in turn depicted Monet painting aboard the boat, accompanied by Camille, in 1874.[18] In 1874, he briefly returned to Holland.

I M P R E S S I O N I S M

The first Impressionist exhibition was held in 1874 at 35 boulevard des Capucines, Paris, from 15 April to 15 May. The primary purpose of the participants was not so much to promote a new style, but to free themselves from the constraints of the Salon de Paris. The exhibition, open to anyone prepared to pay 60 francs, gave artists the opportunity to show their work without the interference of a jury.[20][21][22]

Renoir chaired the hanging committee and did most of the work himself, as others members failed to present themselves.[20][21]

In addition to Impression: Sunrise (pictured above) Monet presented four oil paintings and seven pastels. Among the paintings he displayed was The Luncheon (1868), which features Camille Doncieux and Jean Monet, and which had been rejected by the Paris Salon of 1870.[23] Also in this exhibition was a painting titled Boulevard des Capucines, a painting of the boulevard done from the photographer Nadar's apartment at no. 35. Monet painted the subject twice, and it is uncertain which of the two pictures, that now in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, or that in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, was the painting that appeared in the groundbreaking 1874 exhibition, though more recently the Moscow picture has been favoured.[24][25][26] Altogether, 165 works were exhibited in the exhibition, including 4 oils, 2 pastels and 3 watercolors by Morisot; 6 oils and 1 pastel by Renoir; 10 works by Degas; 5 by Pissarro; 3 by Cézanne; and 3 by Guillaumin. Several works were on loan, including Cézanne's Modern Olympia, Morisot's Hide and Seek (owned by Manet) and 2 landscapes by Sisley that had been purchased by Durand-Ruel.[20][21][22]

The total attendance is estimated at 3500, and some works did sell, though some exhibitors had placed their prices too high. Pissarro was asking 1000 francs for The Orchard and Monet the same for Impression: Sunrise, neither of which sold. Renoir failed to obtain the 500 francs he was asking for La Loge, but later sold it for 450 francs to Père Martin, dealer and supporter of the group.

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