PAINTING MASTERS.

Painting masters sometimes are called old masters referring to any painter of different styles and skills
who existed and worked in Art field before about 1800. They are the most recognized European artists
mostly working between the Renaissance and Modern Art. This category includes artists who fall within
Gothic Art, The Early, High and Northern Renaissance, Mannerism, Baroque, the Dutch golden Age,
Rococo, Neoclassicism and Romanticism.

Painting masters applies only to artist who were fully trained, and worked independently but also
applies to paintings produced by pupils or workshops. It includes figure like Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent
Van Gogh, Michelangelo, William Turner, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Masaccio, Peter Paul Reuben, Paul
Cézanne, and Oscar Claude Monet.

The discussion deals with one painting master called Oscar Claude Monet. We were curious to study
him therefore We had a deep discussion about the history of his life, what makes him famous, what is so
unique about him, what kind of paintings did he do, techniques and skills he used to paint.

WHO IS OSCAR CLAUDE MONET?

Oscar Claude Monet (14, November 1840 - 5, December 1926) was a French painter and founder of
impressionist painting who is seen as a key to modernism especially in his attempts to paint nature as he
perceived it.

He was the second son and he was baptized in the local Paris church. Despite being baptized catholic
later he became an atheist, his father was a wholesale merchant and his mother was a singer. Monet
was raised in Le Havre Normandy and became interested in the outdoors and drawing from an earl age.
His mother, Louise Justin Monet supported his ambitions to be a painter his father disapproved and
wanted him to pursue a career in business, he was very close to his mother who died when he was
sixteen years old and he was sent to live with his childless widowed but wealthy aunt Marie Jeanne.

He went on the study at the Académie Suisse, and under the academic history painter Charles Gleyre
where he was a classmate of Camille Pissarro and Auguste Renoir who introduced him to the concept of
plein Air painting. He was called for military service and served under the African hunters in Algeria from
1861 to 1862 where his time had powerful effect on him, as said later “The light and vivid colors of
North Africa contained the gem of my future research”, Illness brought him back to Paris where he met
Auguste Renoir and his closest friend Bazile. In search of motifs they travelled to Honfleur where Monet
often painted alongside Renoir and Alfredo Sisley. Monet lived in Giverny, also in northern France
where he purchased a house and property and began a vast landscaping project, including a water lily
pond. He married Camille on 28 June 1870, just before the outbreak of Franco Prussian war. They had
two children, Jean and Michel. Camille Leonie died at 1879 with 32 years of age after an illness, cervical
cancer. He married a second wife, Alice Hoschede.

Monet had ambitions to document the French countryside led to a method of painting the same scene
many times so as to capture the changing of light and passing seasons. Monet was inspired and
influenced by Ukiyo-e Japanese Art, Gustave, William Turner, John Constable and Eugene Boudin.
Oscar Claude Monet. (1899) Nadar studio. Portrait, jpg440px

WHAT MAKES HIM FAMOUS?

Impressionism was named after one of the Monet’s paintings. Claude Monet was a key figure in the
Impressionist movement that transformed French painting in the second half of the nineteenth, the man
Is said to be the founder of impressionism Art movement, The name impressionism originated from
Claude Monet’s painting (Impression, Sunrise) at the first impressionist exhibition in 1874 Paris France.

Impression, Sunrise (soleil levant). 1872. By Claude Monet

Claude Monet mostly depicted the landscape and leisure activities of Paris and its environment as well
as the Normandy Coast. He led the way to a twentienth century modernism by developing a unique style
that strove to capture on canvas the very act of perceiving nature.

Monet was introduced to Plein Air painting by Eugene Boudin, Plein Air involves the outdoor painting.
When Monet entered the Paris studio of Charles Gleyre, his classmates included Auguste Renoir and
Fredric Bazile. Monet enjoyed limited success in Landscape, Seascape and potraits accepted for the
exhibitions at annual salons of the 1860s.

Establishment of an independent exhibitions in 1874 inspired by rejection of many of his more

ambitious works, notably the large scale women in the Garden of 1866. Monet joined with Edgar Degas,
Edouard Manet, Camille Pissaro, Renoir and others. The artist saw criticism as a badge of honor and
subsequently called themselves Impressionists after the painting’s title.

Monet found subjects in his immediate surroundings, as he painted the people and places he knew best.
His wife Camille and his second wife Alice served as models, his landscape chart journeys around the
north of France and to London where he escaped the Franco prussian war, His home and gardens were
became gathering place for his friends who often painted alongside their Host.

Monet adopted and extended his commitment to close observation and naturalistic representation,
Monet often worked directly on large scale canvases out of doors, then reworked and completed them
in his studio.

Monet’s interest in recording perceptual processes of his series paintings such as Haystacks of 1891,
Poplars of 1892, Rouen Cathedral of 1894 that dominate his output. In each series Monet painted the
same site again and again recording how its appearance changed with time of the day.

In the 1910s and 1920s Monet focused almost exclusively on the picturesque water lily pond that he
created on his property at Giverny. His final series depicts the pond in a set of mural sized canvases
where abstract rendering of plant and water emerge broad strokes of color and intricately built up
textures.

Monet not only he painted the water lilies, he painted them too. After buying the house in Giverny he
built a japanese style garden in the space as he was inspired by Ukiyo-e Japanese Art

His popularity soared in the second half of the 20th century when his works traveled the world in
museum exhibitions that attracted record breaking in market.

KIND OF PAINTINGS CLAUD MONET DID.

Monet was exceptionally artist of painting controlled by nature; his own garden in Giverny, with its
water lilies, pond and bridge. He also painted up and down the banks of the seine. Between 1883 and
1908 Monet travelled to the mediterranean where he painted landmarks, landscapes, seascapes, such
as Bordighera, He painted an important series of paintings in venice, Italy, and London that is view of
parliament and views of charing cross bridge, landscapes of the french countryside, human figures
especially his wives and children.
WHAT IS SO UNIQUE ABOUT CLAUDE MONET.

Monet rejected the traditional approach to landscape painting and instead of copying old masters he
had been learning from his friends and the nature itself. Monet observed variations of color and light
caused by the daily or seasonal changes at the field instead of painting in the studio.

He Created 250 Water Lilies Paintings in Thirty Years. When people think of Monet, it’s no wonder many
immediately think of water lilies. Over the last three decades of his life, water lilies became the subject
of around 250 of Monet’s paintings.

Though water lilies were certainly Monet’s most-painted subject, it was not the only one he revisited
throughout his life. Monet often created series of paintings exploring the way light and colour changed
the same landscape at different times of day, seasons, and weather conditions. In addition to the water
lilies, he also painted a series featuring Haystacks from 1890–1891 and a series of paintings of the Rouen
Cathedral from 1892–1894.

Monet was known for painting the same subjects over and over, the unique qualities of color and light
he observed each time he sat down to paint. The practice led to a wide aesthetic art and vibrant body of
work.

Monet was known for destroying his own work when he was dissatisfied with paintings or angry. In
1908, he cut at least fifteen water lily paintings with a knife, which caused a show of his work in Paris to
be postponed. Later, after his eye surgery, he destroyed many of the paintings he created when he
suffered the worst of his vision problems. Altogether, he is thought to have destroyed up to 500 of his
own paintings

Monet Attempted Suicide. In 1868 Monet faced severe depression and attempted to kill himself by
jumping off a bridge into the Seine. Though Monet survived the fall and became one of the most
prominent painters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he struggled with depression for the rest
of his life.

STYLES AND TECHNIQUES USED BY CLAUDE MONET IN HIS PAINTINGS.

The techniques and styles applied by Master Painter Oscar Claude Monet defines Impressionism and
neo impressionism. Impressionism was an art movement that came into existence during the 19th
century. It was characterized by the Monet art style, which mainly included relatively thin and small yet
visible brush strokes

As a teenager, Claude Monet would only use charcoal to draw Human figures, up until he came across
Eugene Boudin. However, with practice and more knowledge, his style changed drastically in the middle
years. In addition to learning oil painting from Boudin, he also learned 'en plein air,' essentially outdoor
painting. At this time, Claude Monet’s type of art would mainly consist of rapid and broke brush strokes,
with intentionally unblended colors.

His composition accurately depicted light and its changing qualities. His paintings also consisted of
simple and minimalistic subjects with unusual viewing angles and added movement as a crucial element
of human experience and perception.

Monet’s love for natural lighting can be seen in some of his earliest works. He used to study how light
reflects on touching a subject and the different shades of each as well

Another very distinct feature of Claude Monet’s style and technique is the brush strokes. This technique,
further refined throughout his entire career, mainly relied on fast and abrupt strokes. In the art piece,
impression, Sunrise, this can be seen in full effect. He used broken and short brushstrokes of both mixed
and unmixed colors which were intentionally not blended properly. This was done to achieve a more
intense and colorful palette.

He was also renowned for his color palette. As Claude Monet’s impressionism art showed, he loved
depicting color in a way the natural lighting reflected off of a surface. He used it in experimental and
innovative ways, and it was heavily dependent on how things would look at different times of the day.
He often used dark tones to further highlight the use of brighter hues. Monet used quite a limited
palette, banishing browns and earth colors and, by 1886, black had also disappeared. Asked in 1905
what colors he used, Monet said: "The point is to know how to use the colors, the choice of which is,
when all is said and done, a matter of habit. Anyway, I use flake white, cadmium yellow, vermilion, deep
madder, cobalt blue, emerald green, and that's all." According to James Heard in his book Paint Like
Monet, analysis of Monet's paintings show Monet used these nine colors: Lead white, Chrome yellow,
Cadmium yellow, Viridian green, Emerald green, French ultramarine, Cobalt blue, Madder red,
Vermilion, Ivory black.

All of Monet's paintings were done on location. In fact, many were painted or finished back in his studio.
Monet is quoted as saying: "Whether my cathedral views, my views of London and other canvases are
painted from life or not is nobody's business and of no importance whatsoever."

Monet's Use of a Light Ground. Monet painted on canvas which was a light color, such as white, very
pale gray or very light yellow, and used opaque colors. A close-up study of one of Monet's paintings will
show that colors were often used straight from the tube or mixed on the canvas. But that he also
scumbled colors using thin, broken layers of paint that allows the lower layers of color to shine through.
Monet's art seeks to capture what the eye sees and the dynamic change of landscape depending on
perspective and light. After 1886, Monet no longer used dark colors such as shades of brown, earth
tones or black
Repeating images. Monet is also well-known for his repeated paintings of the same object at different
times of day, reflecting the changes of color and light. One of his best-known series is of haystacks in a
field, painted throughout a day and over several days in different qualities of light.

The master painter Claude Monet used Mediums of Oil on canvas and the Subjects he painted involved
Figures, Landscapes, Scenery and Water lilies.

Monet builds up texture through his brushstrokes, which vary from thick to thin, with tiny tones of light,
adding contours for definition and color harmonies, working from dark to light.

Monet's work primarily focuses on scenes in nature. Even in his early work, which featured human
forms, the natural world received as much attention as the human figures. His most famous paintings,
such as his haystack series and water lilies, are exclusively depictions of nature

Monet studied his subjects intensively, planned his paintings, and worked hard to achieve his results. He
often painted a series of the same subject to capture the changing effects of the light, swapping
canvases as the day progressed. Monet's use of series was to document light and other seasonal
changes in the French countryside over the course of his life.

FAMOUS PAINTING BY CLAUDE MONET

There have been several works of Monet that now hung across different museums in the world.
However, when Monet first came into view, the critics and the general public were not pleased with him
either. Further mentioned here are the five of the most recognizable and notable art pieces painted by
Claude Monet that later changed the perspective of the viewers:

La Grenouillère, 1869

.
 Impression, Sunrise 1872

Woman with a Parasol, 1875

 Haystack at the End of Summer1890−1891

The parliament House, 1900-1901.

 REFERENCE

Monet's Years at Giverny, p28, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 1978.

Monet by Himself, edited by Richard Kendall, MacDonald & Co, London, 1989.

Monet Claude, et al. Monet & Japan. Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 2001.

Monet Claude, the Impressionist’s Eye. Paris: Musée Marmottan , 2008