Claude Monet

Biography

Claude Monet (1840–1926) led Impressionism’s pursuit of open-air painting and optical immediacy, especially during his Argenteuil years focused on modern leisure and light. He later developed serial studies of changing conditions, culminating in the Water Lilies cycle [2].

Themes in Their Work

Weather, atmosphere, and moodThe modern lens: urban life & speedClass distinction & status displayMaternal/paternal bondsMimesis vs. abstraction (truth vs. artifice)Everyday life as art (the ordinary)The pastoral/ArcadiaLasting vs. fleeting (ephemerality)Gardens & controlled natureHybridity and mixed identitiesMedium reflexivity (art about art)Colonial encounter & empireCraft, skill, and techniqueCapital, commodity, and consumptionSovereignty & legitimacyAnthropocene & ecological crisisPublic space vs. private spaceSacred vs. profaneNationalism & imagined communitiesEveryday life as art (readymade, the ordinary)Industrial sublime (factories, rail, steam)Revelation & epiphanySpeed, circulation, and networks

Featured Artworks

Woman with a Parasol by Claude Monet

Woman with a Parasol

Claude Monet (1875)

Claude Monet’s Woman with a Parasol fixes a breezy hillside instant in high, shifting light, setting a figure beneath a <strong>green parasol</strong> against a vast, vibrating sky. The low vantage and <strong>broken brushwork</strong> merge dress, clouds, and grasses into one atmosphere, while a child at the rise anchors depth and intimacy <sup>[1]</sup>. It is a manifesto of <strong>plein-air</strong> perception—painting the sensation of air in motion rather than the contours of things <sup>[2]</sup>.

The Japanese Footbridge by Claude Monet

The Japanese Footbridge

Claude Monet (1899)

Claude Monet’s The Japanese Footbridge turns his Giverny garden into an <strong>immersive field of perception</strong>: a pale blue-green arc spans water crowded with lilies, while grasses and willows dissolve into vibrating greens. By eliminating the sky and anchoring the scene with the bridge, Monet makes <strong>reflection, passage, and time</strong> the picture’s true subjects <sup>[1]</sup><sup>[2]</sup>.

Houses of Parliament by Claude Monet

Houses of Parliament

Claude Monet (1903)

Claude Monet’s Houses of Parliament renders Westminster as a <strong>dissolving silhouette</strong> in a wash of peach, mauve, and pale gold, where stone and river are leveled by <strong>luminous fog</strong>. Short, vibrating strokes turn architecture into <strong>atmosphere</strong>, while a tiny boat anchors human scale amid the monumental scene.

Rouen Cathedral Series by Claude Monet

Rouen Cathedral Series

Claude Monet (1894)

Claude Monet’s Rouen Cathedral Series (1892–94) turns a Gothic monument into a laboratory of <strong>light, time, and perception</strong>. In this sunstruck façade, portals, gables, and a warm, orange-tinged rose window flicker in pearly violets and buttery yellows against a crystalline blue sky, while tiny figures at the base anchor the scale. The painting insists that <strong>light—not stone—is the true subject</strong> <sup>[1]</sup><sup>[2]</sup>.

Poppies by Claude Monet

Poppies

Claude Monet (1873)

Claude Monet’s Poppies (1873) turns a suburban hillside into a theater of <strong>light, time, and modern leisure</strong>. A red diagonal of poppies counters cool fields and sky, while a woman with a <strong>blue parasol</strong> and a child appear twice along the slope, staging a gentle <strong>echo of moments</strong> rather than a single event <sup>[1]</sup>. The painting asserts sensation over contour, letting broken touches make the day itself the subject.

Gare Saint-Lazare by Claude Monet

Gare Saint-Lazare

Claude Monet (1877)

Monet’s Gare Saint-Lazare turns an iron-and-glass train shed into a theater of <strong>steam, light, and motion</strong>. Twin locomotives, gas lamps, and a surge of figures dissolve into bluish vapor under the diagonal canopy, recasting industrial smoke as <strong>luminous atmosphere</strong> <sup>[1]</sup><sup>[2]</sup>.

La Grenouillère by Claude Monet

La Grenouillère

Claude Monet (1869)

Monet’s La Grenouillère crystallizes the new culture of <strong>modern leisure</strong> on the Seine: crowded bathers, promenading couples, and rental boats orbit a floating resort. With <strong>flickering brushwork</strong> and a high-key palette, Monet turns water, light, and movement into the true subjects, suspending the scene at the brink of dissolving.