Oscar-Claude Monet (1840-1926) was a French painter, credited to be the father of impressionism.
It’s been said that Monet wouldn’t be Monet if it hadn’t been for purple. Most of us are familiar with Monet’s impressionistic purple shadows.
But do you know:
- By the time Monet was 15, he made a name for himself as a caricaturist and sold his drawings for around 20 francs each ($4.00 in 1850; $157 in 2023).
- Monet met the artist Eugène Boudin, who became his friend and mentor, on the Beaches of Normandy when he was just a teenager. Boudin introduced him to en plein air, which became the hallmark of the Impressionist movement.
- By 1886, Monet was impoverished. Struggling to support his family and essentially outcast by the French art community, the severely depressed artist attempted suicide by jumping off a bridge into the Seine River.
- During the Franco-Prussian War, Monet and his family fled France and took refuge in London. While there he created 25 paintings and was scrutinized for “revolutionary activities.”
- Camille Monet, his first wife, modeled for over 30 of his paintings. Camille died tragically when she was 32. Monet painted her for the last time while she rested on her deathbed. The painting Camille on Her Deathbed has been touted by art critics as “one of few deathbed paintings so intensely felt.”
- Alice Hoschedé, Monet’s second wife, was reportedly so jealous of Camille she commanded her husband to destroy all Camille’s photos and mementos.
- Much to his neighbors’ displeasure and ignoring authorities’ demands, Monet diverted a local river to create the pond in his gardens in Giverny. He filled the pond with water lilies from South America and Egypt. Whenever Monet decided to paint his water lilies, a gardener rowed a boat onto the pond and pushed each lily into the water to clean off any accumulated dust before Monet started painting.
- The master was his own worst critic. When he was angry or dissatisfied he cut up his paintings—500 in all.
- Monet died from lung disease when he was 86. When French statesman, Georges Clemenceau, noticed the black shroud intended for Monet’s casket, he rushed to replace it with a floral wreath exclaiming, “No! No black for Monet!” Indeed, Monet almost never used black in his paintings. He preferred purple.