Oscar Claude Monet

Oscar Claude Monet

Oscar Claude Monet was born on November 14, 1840 in Paris, France. Monet spent most of his childhood in Le Havre, France. In Le Havre, Monet studied drawing and painted seascapes with a French painter Eugene Louis Boudin in his teens. By 1859 Monet committed himself a career to be an artist. Monet spent a lot of time in Paris around 1859. By 1860 Monet met a pre-impressionist painter, Edouard Manet. Monet also met other French painters destined to form the impressionist school. Monet met Camille Pissaro, Pierre Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley.

Monet painted simple landscapes and sketch like scenes of bright color. Monet had some success in official exhibits. In 1874, Monet and his colleagues decided to organize their own exhibition in public. Monet and his colleagues called them selves, independents, but the press later named them impressionists because their work seemed sketchy and unfinished (like a first impression). One of Monet's paintings had the title Impression: Sunrise in 1872, in Musee Marmottan, Paris. During the rest of the 1870's and early 1880's, Monet used special techniques to paint scenes of different impressions on colors. Monet went to the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts to study the effects of light and color.

By mid 1880's Monet was generally the leader of the impressionist