Monet. Nathalia Brodskaya

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      1902: Spends February and March in Brittany.

      1903: Works on views of the Thames in London.

      1904: Paints his garden at Giverny. Shows his views of the Thames at the exhibition in the Durand-Ruel Gallery (9 May-14 June). In October, goes to Madrid to see works by Velázquez.

      1906: Works on the Water Lilies series.

      1908: From September to December, stays in Venice.

      1909: In the autumn, returns to Venice, where he paints a series of views.

      1912: Shows his Venetian series at the exhibition in the Bernhein-Jeune Gallery (28 May-8 June).

      1916: Begins work on the decorative panels the Water Lilies.

      1921: A retrospective exhibition in the Durand-Ruel Gallery (21 January-2 February). In September, a short trip to Brittany.

      1922: Suffers from eye disease.

      1923: Works on the decorative panels the Water Lilies.

      1926: 5 December, dies at Giverny.

      Numerous portraits of Monet have survived from various stages of his life – self-portraits, the works of his friends (Manet and Renoir among others), as well as photographs by Carjat and Nadar.

      The Painter with a Pointed Hat

      Drawing

      Many literary descriptions of Monet’s physical appearance have come down to us as well, particularly after he had become well-known and much in demand by art critics and journalists. In 1919, when Monet was living almost as a recluse at Giverny, not far from Vernon-sur-Seine, he had a visit from Fernand Léger, who saw him as “a short gentleman in a panama hat and elegant light-grey suit of English cut… He had a large white beard, a pink face and little eyes that were bright and cheerful but with perhaps a slight hint of mistrust…”

      The Towing of a Boat in Honfleur

      1864

      Oil on canvas, 55.5 × 82 cm

      Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester

      New York

      Mouth of the Seine River in Honfleur

      1865

      Oil on canvas, 90 × 150 cm

      Norton Simon Museum

      Pasadena, California

      Both the visual and the literary portraits of Monet depict him as an unstable, restless figure. Monet’s abrupt changes of mood, his constant dissatisfaction with himself, his spontaneous decisions, stormy emotions and cold meticulousness, his consciousness of himself as a personality moulded by the preoccupations of his age, set against his extreme individualism – taken together these features elucidate much in Monet’s creative processes and attitudes towards his own work. Claude-Oscar Monet was born in Paris on 14 November, 1840, but all his impressions as a child and adolescent were linked with Le Havre, the town where his family moved in about 1845.

      The Pavé de Chailly in the Forest of Fontainebleau

      1865

      Oil on canvas, 97 × 130 cm

      Ordrupgaardsamlingen

      Charlottenlund-Copenhagen

      Bazille and Camille (Study for the “Luncheon on the Grass”)

      1865

      Oil on canvas, 93 × 68.9 cm

      National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

      The surroundings in which the boy grew up were not conducive to artistic studies: Monet’s father ran a grocery business and turned a deaf ear to his son’s desire to become an artist. Le Havre boasted no museum collections of significance, no exhibitions, and no school of art.

      Woman in a Green Dress (Camille)

      1866

      Oil on canvas, 231 × 151 cm

      Kunsthalle, Bremen

      The gifted boy had to content himself with the advice of his aunt, who painted merely for personal pleasure, and the directions of his school-teacher. The most powerful impression on the young Monet in Normandy was made by his acquaintance with the artist Eugène Boudin.

      Boats in the Port of Honfleur

      1866

      Oil on canvas, 49 × 65 cm

      Private collection

      It was Boudin who discouraged Monet from spending his time on the caricatures that brought him his initial success as an artist, and urged him to turn to landscape painting. Boudin recommended that Monet observe the sea and the sky and study people, animals, buildings and trees in the light, in the air.

      Luncheon on the Grass

      1866

      Oil on canvas, 130 × 181 cm

      The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts

      Moscow

      He said: “Everything that is painted directly on the spot has a strength, a power, a sureness of touch that one doesn’t find again in the Studio.” These words could serve as an epigraph to Monet’s work.

      Women in the Garden

      1866

      Oil on canvas, 256 × 208 cm

      Musée d’Orsay, Paris

      Monet’s further development took place in Paris, and then again in Normandy, but this time in the company of artists. His formation was in many ways identical to that of other painters of his generation, and yet at the same time his development as an artist had profoundly distinctive individual features.

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