Claude Monet

by Joan M. Rehlin
Oscar-Claude Monet (11/14/1840–12/5/1926) was a founder of French Impressionism and was considered its most prolific practitioner, understanding the effects of light on colors and the juxtaposition of colors especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. One of Monet's creations, Impression: Sunrise, gave its name to the Impressionist movement, and although it did not sell in the first Impressionist exhibition, it was on display there in Paris in 1874. 

In 1883, Monet purchased property in the village of Giverny and began a vast landscaping project that included lily ponds, which would become the subjects of his best-known works along with bamboo, ginkgo, Japanese fruit trees, and a Japanese footbridge. In 1899, Monet began painting water lilies, first in vertical views with a Japanese bridge as the main feature, and later in a series of large-scale paintings that occupied him for the remainder of his life. His Water Lilies and the Japanese Bridge (shown here) is 35.3 in x 35.6 in and is currently at the Princeton University Art Museum.

Water Lilies and the Japanese Bridge, 1899, oil on canvas, by Claude Monet