Claude Monet
By Illa Vij

THE man who showed the world that light was the master painter, was Claude Monet. He was a French painter and conceived the impressionist movement. (Impressionism is a style of art).

Claude was born in Paris in 1840. Even as a child he admired nature and spent most of his life admiring and reproducing the creations of nature. Most of all he marvelled at the way light fell on objects and transformed their appearance, changing them each hour.

One day Clande was walking past a farm when his eyes fell upon a haystack. It did not look like a haystack, but a stack of gold with amethysts scattered over it! Claude rushed home, returned with his painting equipment and began working on the exquisite beauty of nature.

Very soon the haystack became orange and the amethyst turned violet. Claude had to put away the painting and return every day at the same time, to complete the painting with its right colours. The farmer appreciated Claude’s keen interest in the haystack and obliged him by leaving it there for the next two years! The painter completed 15 pictures of that very haystack, each different from the other, painted at different times of the day and in different seasons.

Similarly, he also painted the magnificent Rouen Cathedral at 20 sequent times of the day. He requested the shopkeeper of the shop facing the Cathedral, to rent him a window. He worked at that window for about two years. Hour after hour he had to change the canvas from the easel. He demonstrated to the world, how sunlight powerfully controlled the appearance of each object. Monet repeated this technique and made a village series, the hour-by-hour cycle of the Thames, the Siene and Venice. One of his most admired series is that of a water-lily pond, that he had built. The lily pond was surrounded by a beautiful garden of flowers and trees that blossomed. Unfortunately recognition of his work came rather late. His work was so original that people found it worthless. His pictures went for less than Rs 25, each. Once when he had an exhibition, so-called art lovers actually punched holes into some of his paintings. Later when some of his paintings along with the works of other impressionists were bequeathed to French national museums, a cultural body of France actually declared them to be ‘filth’.

Monet’s earnings were so meagre that he had to give his painting to various restaurants to earn his meals. Much later his work was given due recognition and wealth began pouring in. But by then he had lost his beloved wife, and suffered such poverty, that he did not care for money anymore. That’s when he built the famous lily-pond and spent the rest of his years, painting its series. Despite his poor eyesight, he carried on painting till he died in 1926.

Impressionism — Impressionism is a style of art that gives an immediate impression of an object, the highlight being the effect of light as it appears naturally. Many painters and artists in other fields have adopted this style, but the most important were the French artists who introduced it.

Their paintings were mostly works created in natural light, catching the minutest details, like moist grass, smoke rising in air, light reflecting from a window pane etc. Important impressionists were Claude Monet, Camille, Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley and Pierre Auguste Renoir. They preferred to paint everyday natural scenes, middle class people working, city traffic, buildings etc.