TO ‘GRANDE DECORATION’ PROJECT

As a student, Oscar-Claude Monet had no precise idea what he wanted to be.  His early sketches were caricatures of his teachers.  These “portraits” soon became much prized among his fellow pupils, bringing Monet his first recognition.   His drawings were quite clearly to the public’s taste, as young Monet had soon earned a proud 2,000 francs with them.  As business was running to his satisfaction, he saw no reason to stop.  Only when fellow artist (and later mentor) Eugene Boudin introduced him to landscape painting in 1858 did Monet take on to painting landscapes and develop his own ‘en plein air’ technique. 

In 1862 Monet became a student of Charles Gleyre in Paris, where he met Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Frédéric Bazille and Alfred Sisley.  Together they shared new approaches to art, painting the effects of light ‘en plein air’ with broken colour and rapid brushstrokes, in what later came to be known as Impressionism.

In April 1883 Monet moved to a house in Giverny in Upper Normandy, around which he planted a large garden where he painted for much of the rest of his life.  Beginning from here, Monet worked on "series" paintings – each subject was depicted in varying light and weather conditions.  His first series exhibited was of “Haystacks”, painted from different points of view and at different times of the day.  He later produced other series, including “Rouen Cathedral”, “Poplars”, “Houses of Parliament”, “Mornings on the Seine” and “Water Lilies”. 

The artist was buoyed by words from his long-standing friend (and later French prime minister), George Clemenceau.  The latter encouraged Monet to fulfill his long cherished desire to paint giant water lily pictures to be installed in public rooms to create a place for meditation.  Because of his poor vision and constant revisions, the project was never revealed to the public till in May 1927, after Monet’s death.  The Musée de l'Orangerie in the Tuileries was specially renovated with curved walls to house eight giant 2m x 6m panels of Nymphéas (Water Lilies).  Don’t miss out on this stop in your next trip to Paris.

As the official distributor of the French museum replicas, ARTICA carries a full range reproduced from Monet’s works. 

TRIVIA FOR YOU:

> Monet lived from 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926

> ‘En plein air’ is a French expression for ‘in the open air, to describe the act of painting outdoors.  Artists have long painted outdoors, but in the mid-1800s working in natural light became particularly important to the Barbizon school and Impressionism.  Its popularity increased with the introduction of paints in tubes (like our toothpaste).

> Monet’s art master in school was Francois Ochard, a pupil of Jacques-Louis David.  David (1748 – 1825) was a prominent and highly influential and French painter in the Neo-classical style.  His famous works include “The Death of Marat” (1793), “Napoleon at the Saint-Bernard Pass” (1801), “Coronation of Napoleon” (1806) and “Madame Récamier” (1800).  See the originals in the Louvre, and prints in ARTICA.

> By 1883 when he moved to Giverny, Monet’s oeuvre already comprised more than 800 paintings.

> In 2004, the “London, The Parliament, Effects of Sun in the Fog” painting (1904) was sold for US$20.1 million.

> “Cliffs near Dieppe” painting has been stolen on two separate occasions:  Once in 1998 (in which the museum's curator was convicted of the theft and jailed) and most recently in August 2007.  It has yet to be recovered.

> Monet's “Railway Bridge over the Seine” (1873) was bought by an anonymous telephone bidder for US$41.4 million at Christie's auction in New York on 6 May 2008.

> The above record was smashed with the sale of “Le bassin aux Nymphéas” (1919) for US$80.4 million at Christie's auction on 24 June 2008.