Why is claude monet so famous

Finally wealthy from sales of his paintings, Monet invested serious money into his garden. He put a Japanese footbridge across his pond, which he famously painted, and he imported water lilies from Egypt and South America. For the last 25 years of his life, he painted the water lilies in a series of paintings that showcased the plants in varying light and textures.

Once the lilies were clean, Monet began painting them, trying to capture what he saw as the light reflected off the water.

Around when he was in his late 60s, Monet began having trouble with his vision. Diagnosed with cataracts in , he later described his inability to see the full color spectrum: "Reds appeared muddy to me, pinks insipid, and the intermediate or lower tones escaped me.

Monet delayed getting risky cataract surgery until , and critics mocked him for his blurry paintings, suggesting that his Impressionist style was due to his failing vision rather than his artistic brilliance. After two cataract surgeries, Monet wore tinted glasses to correct his distorted color perception and may have been able to see ultraviolet light. In , an art dealer in London discovered an unknown Monet pastel that had been hidden behind another Monet drawing that he had bought at a auction in Paris.

The pastel depicts the lighthouse and jetty in Le Havre, the port in France where Monet lived as a child. Art scholars authenticated the pastel as an authentic Monet artwork and dated it to , around the time he jumped into the Seine.

In , Monet died of lung cancer. Within a few years by Monet built a greenhouse and a second studio, a spacious building, well lit with skylights. Beginning in the s and s, through the end of his life in , Monet worked on "series" paintings, in which a subject was depicted in varying light and weather conditions. His first series exhibited as such was of Haystacks, painted from different points of view and at different times of the day.

Fifteen of the paintings were exhibited at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in He later produced several series of paintings including: Rouen Cathedral, Poplars, the Houses of Parliament, Mornings on the Seine, and the Water Lilies that were painted on his property at Giverny. Monet was exceptionally fond of painting controlled nature: his own gardens in Giverny, with its water lilies, pond, and bridge. He also painted up and down the banks of the Seine.

Between and , Monet traveled to the Mediterranean, where he painted landmarks, landscapes, and seascapes, such as Bordighera. He painted an important series of paintings in Venice, Italy, and in London he painted two important series — views of Parliament and views of Charing Cross Bridge.

His second wife Alice died in and his oldest son Jean, who had married Alice's daughter Blanche, Monet's particular favourite, died in After his wife died, Blanche looked after and cared for him. It was during this time that Monet began to develop the first signs of cataracts. During World War I, in which his younger son Michel served and his friend and admirer Clemenceau led the French nation, Monet painted a series of Weeping Willow trees as homage to the French fallen soldiers.

Cataracts formed on Monet's eyes, for which he underwent two operations in The paintings done while the cataracts affected his vision have a general reddish tone, which is characteristic of the vision of cataract victims. It may also be that after surgery he was able to see certain ultraviolet wavelengths of light that are normally excluded by the lens of the eye, this may have had an effect on the colors he perceived. After his operations he even repainted some of these paintings, with bluer water lilies than before the operation.

Monet died of lung cancer on December 5, at the age of 86 and is buried in the Giverny church cemetery. Monet had insisted that the occasion be simple; thus about fifty people attended the ceremony. His famous home and garden with its waterlily pond were bequeathed by his heirs to the French Academy of Fine Arts part of the Institut de France in Through the Fondation Claude Monet, the home and gardens were opened for visit in , following refurbishment.

In addition to souvenirs of Monet and other objects of his life, the home contains his collection of Japanese woodcut prints. The home is one of the two main attractions of Giverny, which hosts tourists from all over the world. In , the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society published a paper providing evidence that these were painted in situ at St Thomas' Hospital over the river Thames.

Once in in which the museum's curator was convicted of the theft and jailed for five years along with two accomplices and most recently in August It has yet to be recovered. From wikipedia. Impressionism was named after one of Monet's paintings The term "Impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant, which was exhibited in in the first of the independent exhibitions mounted by Monet and his friends as an alternative to the Salon de Paris.

The name 'Impressionist' was first intended as a dig at the group by humorist Louis Leroy. Leroy wrote a derisive review of the Impressionists first exhibition entitled 'The Exhibition of the Impressionists', but, strangely enough, the name caught on and made the group famous. Monet not only painted the Water Lilies, he planted them too Monet began work in in the small village of Giverny down stream on the Seine from Paris.

Then in he bought the land in front of his home and built a Japanese-style garden in the space. Monet used a small stream that ran through his property to build a huge pond which he filled with water lilies and crossed with a humpbacked bridge.

He lined the banks with willows and shrubbery and retired to this watery realm isolated from the outside world to create his final series, "The Water Lilies". He built a glass-walled studio on the side of the garden and set up a wheeled easel that he could freely roll around the room.

There he created painting after painting of the changing images of the pond, its water lilies and the reflecting light at all hours of morning, day and evening. In different works of the series he included images of the willows on the shore, the humpback bridge and the evening sky. But he finally concentrated solely on the pond itself. Monet was inspired by ukiyo-e Japanese art Monet didn't just base his landscape gardening on Japanese styles, his painting subjects and method were also greatly influenced by Japanese art.