Monet was one of the first artists that I recognized and loved. Several of his work’s captured my heart with their colors and almost ‘mistiness’. There was a sense of mystery in the paintings, as if the artist wanted me to interpret the scene myself and determine where I would find the beauty. The vibrant colors of “San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk” made me long to step onto a boat and visit that faraway place. While the muted colors of “Impression; Sunrise” in contrast with the lovely orange sun tugged at my heart is ways that I wouldn’t understand until later. A sense of wanderlust and adventure was rooted in those collections of paint and strokes.
Claude Monet and his contemporaries were exceptionally talented, and when the Salon de Paris jury snubbed them because they did not follow the ‘academic rules’ of art at the time, they created their own exhibit and Impressionism was born. Art steeped in emotion rather than realism began to take hold and thrives to this day.
- Read more about Monet’s life and see his works HERE and HERE
- Check out the pop culture interpretation of Monet at Selby Garden’s exhibit: Roy Lichtenstein: Monet’s Garden Goes Pop!
- Learn more about Salon de Paris, as well as the Impressionists
A Gallery of Monet’s Work
Impression, Sunrise 
Boulevard des Capuchins 
Bouquet of Sunflowers 
The Luncheon 
Camille Monet on Her Deathbed 
Woman with Parasol 
Japanese Footbridge 
Water Lily Pond 
Water Lily Pond Water Irises 
Water Lilies 
Poplars at Giverny Sunrise 
San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk
Monet at Giverny
Best described by The Claude Monet Foundation on their site – A world of senses, of colors and of memories, the house in which the artist and his family lived notably contains his studio-sitting room and his exceptional collection of Japanese prints. The gardens are composed of the Clos Normand, with its flowerbeds, and the Water Garden, planted with oriental vegetation and weeping willows, its Japanese bridge painted green and its waterlilies. Monet settled in Giverny in 1883. He untiringly transformed an abandoned domaine into a floral masterpiece, to be the inspiration for many of his greatest works of art. Monet was not only a painter of his own garden but also an artist whose painting trips took him away for lengthy periods of time. However, he was never really far from his garden . Through constant correspondence, he kept a close eye on his family and his flowers . Frequent visits from his friends and admirers made Giverny the centre of his existence . Until his death in 1926, the painter, the father , the gardener and the man would never really leave Giverny.
“It took me some time to understand my water lilies… I cultivated them with no thought of painting them… One does not fully appreciate a landscape in one day… And then, suddenly, I had a revelation of the magic of my pond. I took my palette. From this moment, I have had almost no other model.”
Claude Monet
This house is modest and yet sumptuous by the interior arrangement and the garden, or rather the gardens which surround it. The person who conceived and arranged this wonderful familiar little world is not only a great artist in his creation of his paintings, but also in the surroundings he created for his own pleasure. The studio-sitting room was full of life and youth in 1886 when I went there for the first time, young girls, young men, adolescents, the children and the stepchildren of Madame Monet (…). The meal finished, we returned to the studio to have a coffee, crossing the blue sitting-room which contains Monet’s library. It is here that Madame Monet, surrounded by her children and Monet’s children, appeared in all her peaceful splendour, her eyes sparkling under a halo of powdered hair.
Gustave Geffroy – from https://fondation-monet.com/en/claude-monet/quotations/
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