Who was Claude Monet?
Oscar-Claude Monet (1840-1926) was a famous French painter. Monet was one of the founders of the Impressionism movement along with his friends Renoir, Sisley and Bazille.
Claude Monet was born on November 14, 1840 in Paris, France but he had spent his childhood in Le Havre. There he had learned to paint in the open air under influence of his first mentor Eugène Boudin.
Even after Monet moved back to Paris and made a life lasting friendship with Pissarro, Cézanne, Renoir, Sisley and Bazille, he stayed loyal to nature becoming one of the foremost painters of landscape in the history of art.
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.
After his first independent exhibition apart from the official Salon, organized with Sisley and Morisot the Impressionism movement was born, named after Monet's Impression: Sunrise painting. Even though the exhibition failed financially Monet becomes one of the most important and most popular painter in the history of art.