Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge

CLAUDE MONET

Claude Monet was born in 14 November 1840, in Paris, France. His father wanted him to go into the family grocery business, but Monet's aspirations lay in art. As he was growing up in Le Havre he developed a good reputation as a charcoal impressionist.

These caricatures earned him his first income from art and encouraged him to pursue art more seriously

In May 1871, he left London to live in Zaandam, in the Netherlands, where he made twenty-five paintings. From December 1871 to 1878 he lived at Argenteuil, a village on the right bank of the Seine river near Paris, where he painted some of his best known works.

He died from lung cancer in December 1926.

In 1883 Monet moved from the north-west of Paris to Giverny where he lived until his death. Adjacent to his property was a small pond which was the main source of his inspiration with an arched bridge in the Japanese style. The Japanese Bridge immerses us in the physical experience of being in the garden. With the bands of the blue bridge suspended like a canopy near the top of the canvas and no sky to be seen, the water and billowing foliage fill the visual field, immersing the viewer in the verdant, brightly colored waterscape. Cool blue and green tones predominate, but are balanced by the pink, white, and yellow lilies.

Claude Monet was in many ways fascinated by Japanese culture. Many woodcuts and decorations at his house in Giverny attest to this, not least the bridge he had built in his garden. Monet included the bridge in many paintings that not only focused on the bridge itself but also on the pond it spanned, the water lilies in the pond and the banks surrounding the bridge.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art located in New York City, is the largest art museum in the United States, and one of the ten largest in the world, with the most significant art collections. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided among seventeen curatorial departments.

Represented in the permanent collection are works of art from classical antiquity and Ancient Egypt, paintings and sculptures from nearly all the European masters, and an extensive collection of American and modern art. The Met also maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanic, Byzantine, and Islamic art. The museum is also home to encyclopedic collections of musical instruments, costumes and accessories, and antique weapons and armor from around the world.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 by a group of American citizens.

References

Wikipedia Biography Online The National Gallery National Gallery of Art www.claude-monet-paintings.net/water-lilies-

and-japanese-bridge/