Claude Monet: The Life Story Behind the Water Lilies Painter
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Claude Monet painted light. That sounds simple, and it was, in many ways, simple, but it changed art forever. Before Monet, painters painted things: a house, a tree, a person, a boat, and they painted them as they were supposed to look, in a studio, in a fixed light, with clear outlines, with careful detail. Monet went outside, he set up his easel in a field, by a river, in a garden, and he painted what he saw, in that moment, in that light, knowing that in an hour the light would change, and the painting would be different, and that was, for him, the point. He painted the same haystack, the same cathedral, the same pond, again and again, at different times of day, in different weather, because the haystack was not the subject. The light was the subject, and the light was always changing.
He was the leader, though he did not always want to be a leader, of Impressionism, a movement named, mockingly, after his painting Impression, Sunrise, a painting of a harbour at dawn, with a sun that is little more than an orange smudge, with boats that are little more than dark shapes, with water that is little more than a reflection. Critics laughed at it, they called it unfinished, they called it a sketch, they called it an impression, not a painting, and Monet, and his friends, took that insult and made it a name, a movement, a revolution in art that would, in time, change the way the whole world paints, and the way the whole world sees.
He lived to eighty-six, he painted until the end, even when his eyes were failing, even when he could barely see, he built a garden at Giverny, a garden with a pond, with water lilies, with a Japanese bridge, and he painted that garden, again and again, for the last thirty years of his life, in paintings that are now among the most loved in the world. This is his story, from a boy who drew caricatures in Le Havre to an old man in a garden, painting light, until he could no longer see it clearly, and painting it anyway.
Paris, Le Havre and a Boy Who Drew Caricatures
Oscar-Claude Monet was born on 14 November 1840 in Paris, France, the second son of Claude-Adolphe Monet, a grocer, and Louise-Justine Aubree, and when he was five, the family moved to Le Havre, a port city on the Normandy coast, where his father ran a grocery business, and where Claude grew up by the sea, by the harbour, by the light that comes off the water, a light that would, in time, become the centre of his art. He was, as a boy, not a good student, he did not like school, he liked to draw, he liked to be outside, he liked to watch the sea, and he began, as a teenager, to draw caricatures, funny, exaggerated portraits of people in Le Havre, of teachers, of shopkeepers, of sailors, drawings that he sold, for a few francs, in a shop window, and that made him, in his town, a little bit famous, a boy who could draw, who could make people laugh, and who had, even then, a gift for seeing a face, and for catching it in a few lines.
His mother died in 1857, when Claude was sixteen, a loss that marked him deeply, and his father, who wanted him to go into the family business, did not understand his love of art, and did not support it. Claude was, in those years, a young man in conflict with his family, a young man who wanted to paint, and a father who wanted him to be a grocer, a conflict that many young artists know, and that Claude resolved, in his own way, by leaving, by going to Paris, by studying art, and by, in time, proving, through his work, that he had been right to follow his talent, even when it meant poverty, even when it meant hunger, even when it meant being, for many years, an outsider in the art world.
In Le Havre, he met Eugene Boudin, a painter who painted the sea, the sky, the beach, outdoors, in the open air, and who became, in many ways, Monet’s first teacher, a man who taught him to paint outside, to look at nature, to paint what he saw, not what he had learned in a studio, and who, in Monet’s own words, opened his eyes, and taught him to love the light, the air, the sea. Boudin was not a famous painter in the way Monet would become, but he was, for Monet, essential, because he showed him that a painting could be made outdoors, in a few hours, in the wind, in the rain, and that it could be, in its own way, true.
Monet went to Paris in 1859, to study art, he met other young painters, he visited the Louvre, he copied the old masters, he learned, as all young painters do, the rules, and he began, slowly, to break them, to paint in a way that was, even then, different, looser, brighter, more interested in light than in detail. He was called up for military service in Algeria in 1861, he spent two years there, he saw a different light, a North African light, a light that was, in his words, blinding, and he returned to Paris, ill, determined to paint, and, in 1863, he met, in the studio of Charles Gleyre, other young painters who would become his friends, and his fellow revolutionaries: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Frederic Bazille, Alfred Sisley, men who, like Monet, wanted to paint outdoors, wanted to paint modern life, wanted to paint light, and who would, together, change art.
Paris, Renoir and Painting Outdoors
In Paris in the 1860s, Monet lived in poverty, in cold rooms, in a city that was, at the time, the centre of art in the world, a city where the Salon, the official exhibition, decided who was a real painter and who was not, and where Monet, and his friends, were, again and again, rejected, because their paintings were too bright, too loose, too unfinished, too modern, for the judges of the Salon. He painted, in those years, in the forest of Fontainebleau, outdoors, with Renoir, with Bazille, with Sisley, sitting in the grass, painting trees, painting light through leaves, painting, in short, what they saw, not what they were supposed to see, and he learned, in those years, the lessons that would define his whole career: that light changes, that colour is not fixed, that a shadow is not black but blue, purple, green, and that a painting, to be true, must be painted quickly, before the light changes, before the moment passes.
He met Camille Doncieux in 1865, a young woman who became his model, his lover, his wife, and the mother of his two sons, Jean, born in 1867, and Michel, born in 1878. Camille was, in many ways, the centre of Monet’s early life, a woman who believed in him, who lived with him in poverty, who posed for him, in many of his early paintings, including Women in the Garden, and The Woman in the Green Dress, and who, in 1879, died, at the age of thirty-two, from an illness that, at the time, could not be cured, a loss that devastated Monet, and that he painted, in a terrible, beautiful painting, Camille on her deathbed, a painting of his wife, dead, in a bed, with flowers, a painting that is, in many ways, the most honest, the most painful painting he ever made, because it is not a portrait of a living woman, but a portrait of a dead one, painted by a husband who loved her, and who could not, even in grief, stop painting.
He was, in the 1860s and 1870s, poor, often hungry, often in debt, often helped by friends, by Bazille, who lent him money, who bought his paintings, who, in 1870, was killed in the Franco-Prussian War, a loss that, like Camille’s death, marked Monet deeply. He went to London during the war, he saw Turner, the great English painter of light, he saw the fog, the Thames, the light of London, and he returned to France, to Argenteuil, a village on the Seine, near Paris, where he lived, painted, and, with Renoir, developed, in the early 1870s, the style that would become Impressionism: short, broken brushstrokes, bright, unmixed colours, paintings made outdoors, in a few hours, capturing a moment, an impression, of light.
Impression, Sunrise and a Name That Stuck
In 1872, Monet painted Impression, Sunrise, a small painting of the harbour at Le Havre at dawn, with a sun rising over the water, with boats, with smoke, with a mist that makes everything soft, vague, and, in the eyes of many people at the time, unfinished. He exhibited it in 1874, in the first exhibition of the group that would become the Impressionists, an exhibition held, not in the Salon, but in a photographer’s studio in Paris, by a group of young painters who had been rejected by the Salon, and who decided, in effect, to exhibit on their own, to show the world what they could do, without asking permission. A critic, Louis Leroy, writing about the exhibition, mocked Monet’s painting, calling it an impression, not a painting, and the name stuck, and the group, who had, until then, called themselves the Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors and Engravers, became, in the public mind, the Impressionists, a name they accepted, and that, in time, became one of the most famous names in art history.
Impressionism was, in its essence, a simple idea: paint outdoors, paint quickly, paint what you see, paint light, and do not worry about detail, about drawing, about the rules of the academy. Monet and his friends, Renoir, Sisley, Pissarro, Degas, Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, and others, painted in that way, in the 1870s, in Paris, in Argenteuil, in the countryside, and they were, at first, mocked, they were poor, they sold few paintings, they were, in the eyes of the art world, failures, but they kept going, because they believed, deeply, that they were right, that light mattered, that modern life mattered, and that a painting could be, not a copy of nature, but an impression of it, a feeling, a moment, a truth that was, in its own way, more real than a photograph.
Monet painted, in the 1870s, some of his most famous early works: La Grenouillere, a painting of a bathing place on the Seine, painted with Renoir, in 1869, in which the water, the light, the people, are all rendered in short, bright strokes; Gare Saint-Lazare, a series of paintings of a Paris railway station, in 1877, in which steam, smoke, light and iron become, in Monet’s hands, beautiful, almost abstract, paintings of a modern world, a world of trains, of industry, of movement; and, in the late 1870s, paintings of his garden at Argenteuil, of his wife Camille, of his sons, paintings that are, in many ways, portraits of a happy, if poor, family life, a life that would, in 1879, be broken by Camille’s death.
He was, by the end of the 1870s, beginning to be recognised, slowly, by collectors, by critics, by a small group of people who understood what he was doing, and who bought his paintings, who supported him, and who, in time, would make it possible for him to live, not in luxury, but in comfort, to paint, to travel, to build a garden, and to become, in his old age, the most famous painter in France.
Haystacks, Rouen Cathedral and Painting the Same Thing Again
In the 1880s and 1890s, Monet developed his most famous method: the series, painting the same subject, again and again, at different times of day, in different weather, in different seasons, to show how light changes everything. He painted haystacks, in a field near Giverny, in 1890 and 1891, twenty-five paintings of the same haystacks, in snow, in sun, in morning, in evening, in summer, in winter, each one different, each one true, each one a study of light, not of hay. He painted poplar trees, in a row, in different light, he painted the Rouen Cathedral, in 1892 to 1894, more than thirty paintings of the same cathedral, from the same viewpoint, at different times, in fog, in sun, in rain, each one showing how the stone, which seems solid, is, in fact, changing, in light, in colour, in feeling, from hour to hour.
He painted, in the 1890s, the Houses of Parliament in London, in fog, in sun, in a series that shows the Thames, the great building, dissolving into light, into mist, into colour, and he painted, in the early 1900s, water lilies, in his garden at Giverny, a subject that would become, in his last years, his obsession, his life’s work, and his greatest achievement. The series paintings were, at first, puzzling to many people, who asked, why paint the same thing again and again, and Monet’s answer, in effect, was, because the thing is not the same, because light makes it different, because a haystack at dawn is not a haystack at noon, and a cathedral in fog is not a cathedral in sun, and to paint it once is to lie, to paint it many times is to tell the truth.
He travelled, in those years, to Norway, to Venice, to London, to the south of France, painting, always painting, outdoors, in all weathers, with a hat, with an easel, with a palette, with a determination that, even in his fifties and sixties, did not flag. He was, by the 1890s, successful, he sold his paintings, he was respected, he was, in France, a national figure, and he used his money, his success, to buy a house at Giverny, in Normandy, in 1890, a house with a garden, a house that would become, in time, his world, his studio, his subject, and his home for the last forty years of his life.
Giverny, Alice Hoschede and a Garden Made for Painting
Giverny is a small village in Normandy, on the Seine, about fifty miles from Paris, and Monet bought a house there in 1890, a long, pink house with green shutters, with a garden that he made, over many years, into a work of art in itself, a garden with flowers, with a pond, with water lilies, with a Japanese bridge, painted green, with willow trees, with a path, with a studio, a large studio, built in 1915, where he could paint his largest canvases, in winter, when it was too cold to paint outdoors. He lived at Giverny with Alice Hoschede, a woman who had been married to Ernest Hoschede, a collector who had gone bankrupt, who had, with Alice, lived with Monet, in a complicated household, and who, after Ernest’s death, married Monet in 1892, and became his second wife, his partner, his manager, the woman who ran his household, who raised his children and her own, and who, in many ways, made it possible for Monet to paint, by taking care of everything else.
Alice died in 1911, a loss that, like Camille’s death, marked Monet deeply, and he was, in his seventies, a widower again, a man who had lost two wives, who had lost a son, Jean, in 1914, and who was, in his old age, increasingly alone, though he had his children, his stepchildren, his friends, and his garden, which became, more and more, his world, his subject, his reason to keep painting. He painted the garden, the pond, the water lilies, the bridge, again and again, in the 1900s, 1910s and 1920s, in paintings that are, in many ways, abstract, in which the water, the lilies, the reflections, the sky, become, not a picture of a pond, but a picture of light itself, of colour, of a world that is, in Monet’s hands, both real and dreamlike.
He was, in his later years, famous, rich, respected, and, in France, a national treasure, a man whose paintings were in museums, whose garden was visited by artists, by writers, by tourists, and who was, in 1922, asked by the French government to paint a series of large water lily paintings for the Orangerie in Paris, a series that would become his masterpiece, eight large panels, in two oval rooms, in which a visitor can sit, surrounded by water, by lilies, by light, and feel, as if, for a moment, they are in Monet’s garden, in his pond, in his world. He worked on those paintings, the Grandes Decorations, for the last ten years of his life, from 1916 to 1926, in his large studio at Giverny, painting, revising, struggling, because his eyes were failing, because he could barely see, and because he wanted, before he died, to give France, and the world, a gift, a room of water lilies, a room of light, a room where people could sit, and be quiet, and look.
Cataracts, the Water Lilies and Painting Almost Blind
In his seventies and eighties, Monet suffered from cataracts, a clouding of the lens of the eye, that made his vision blurry, that made colours look yellow, brown, muddy, and that made it hard for him to paint, to see what he was painting, to judge colour, to judge form. He had operations, in 1923, on his right eye, and then on his left, operations that, at the time, were risky, that left him, for a time, unable to see, and that, in the end, improved his vision, though not completely, and he continued to paint, even when he could barely see, because painting was, for him, life, and because he had, in his mind, a clear image of his garden, of his pond, of his lilies, an image that did not need perfect eyes to be painted, because it was, in his memory, in his heart, as clear as it had ever been.
The water lily paintings from his last years are, in many ways, his most moving, because they are painted by a man who is losing his sight, who is painting, not what he sees clearly, but what he remembers, what he feels, what he knows is there, even if he cannot see it. They are large, they are loose, they are, in places, almost abstract, with broad strokes, with colours that are, at times, strange, with a sense of a world dissolving into light, into water, into colour, and they are, for many people, the most beautiful paintings Monet ever made, because they show, not only a pond, but a man, an old man, painting, despite his failing eyes, painting, because he must, because it is who he is.
He died on 5 December 1926 at Giverny, at the age of eighty-six, after a period of illness, after a life that had taken him from Paris to Le Havre, to Algeria, to London, to Argenteuil, to Giverny, from poverty to fame, from rejection to respect, and he was buried in Giverny, in the churchyard, in a quiet, private ceremony, as he had wanted, without speeches, without fuss, a man who had painted light, and who had, in the end, become light himself, in the eyes of the world. The Orangerie water lilies were installed in 1927, a year after his death, and they are still there today, in Paris, in two oval rooms, where visitors sit, in silence, looking at water, at lilies, at light, and remembering a man who, for sixty years, painted, outdoors, in all weathers, the same pond, the same garden, the same light, and who, in doing so, changed art forever.
My Take:
I think Claude Monet is the painter who taught me to look, and I do not mean that in a vague, artistic way. I mean that when I look at a Monet painting, I notice, for days afterwards, the light on water, the colour of a shadow, the way a tree looks at dawn, the way a building looks in fog, and I see the world differently, more carefully, more slowly, than I did before. That is a gift, and it is a gift that Monet gave, not only to art, but to ordinary people, to anyone who has ever looked at a pond, at a garden, at a sky, and thought, that is beautiful, even if they could not say why. Monet could say why, in paint, and he spent sixty years saying it, again and again, in the same garden, in the same pond, because the light was always different, and always worth painting.
What I admire most about Monet is his patience, and his stubbornness. He painted the same haystack twenty-five times, he painted the same cathedral thirty times, he painted the same water lilies for thirty years, and he did it, not because he had run out of ideas, but because he believed that the subject was not the haystack, or the cathedral, or the lily, but the light, and that light, which changes every hour, deserves to be painted again and again. That is a deep idea, and it is a brave idea, because it says, in effect, that a painting is not finished when you have painted the thing, but when you have painted the moment, and a moment, by its nature, passes, and must be caught quickly, before it is gone. That is why Monet painted outdoors, quickly, in a few hours, with short, broken strokes, because he was trying to catch a moment, not to make a perfect picture, and that urgency, that sense that light is fleeting, is what makes his paintings feel alive, even today, a hundred years after they were painted.
I also think about his early life, and about how poor he was, and how often he was rejected, and I wonder how he kept going. He was rejected by the Salon, again and again, he was poor, he was hungry, he was in debt, his friend Bazille died in the war, his wife Camille died young, and he kept painting, because he believed, deeply, that he was right, that light mattered, that modern life mattered, and that a painting could be made outdoors, in a few hours, and still be true. That belief, that stubbornness, is, I think, the mark of a great artist, and it is a lesson for anyone who wants to make something new: the world will, at first, laugh at you, it will call your work unfinished, it will call it an impression, not a painting, and you must, in that moment, decide whether to listen to the laughter, or to keep going, and Monet kept going, and the laughter, in time, turned into respect, into fame, into a movement that changed art forever.
Impression, Sunrise is a painting I love, not because it is perfect, but because it is, in many ways, imperfect, a small painting of a harbour at dawn, with a sun that is an orange smudge, with boats that are dark shapes, with water that is a reflection, and with a critic who mocked it, calling it an impression, and giving, by accident, a name to a revolution. That is a wonderful story, because it shows how art changes: not by a grand plan, not by a manifesto, but by a small painting, a mocking critic, and a group of young painters who took an insult and made it a badge of honour. I think that is a lesson for all of us: that an insult can become a name, that a mockery can become a movement, and that the things people laugh at today may be the things they admire tomorrow.
His garden at Giverny is the part of his life I find most beautiful, because it is a garden that Monet made, not only to live in, but to paint, a garden with a pond, with water lilies, with a Japanese bridge, with willow trees, a garden that he designed, that he planted, that he tended, and that he painted, again and again, for thirty years. That is a remarkable idea: to make a garden, not for food, not for show, but for art, to create a place, in the real world, that you can then paint, a place that is, in itself, a work of art, and that becomes, in your paintings, another work of art. It is, in a way, the perfect image for Monet’s life: a man who made a world, a small world, in Normandy, and who painted it, until he could no longer see it clearly, and who painted it anyway, because it was his world, and it was beautiful.
His cataracts, and his painting almost blind, move me more than almost anything else in his story, because here was a man whose whole art was about seeing, about light, about colour, and who was losing his sight, who could barely see, who had operations, who was, at times, in pain, and who kept painting, because painting was who he was, because he had, in his mind, a clear image of his garden, an image that did not need perfect eyes. The water lily paintings from his last years are, in many ways, his most moving, because they are painted by a man who is losing his sight, who is painting from memory, from feeling, from love, and they are, in their looseness, in their strangeness, in their beauty, a testament to the power of art to survive the body, to survive failing eyes, to survive old age, and to remain, in the end, a way of seeing, even when seeing itself is hard.
I think about Camille, his first wife, and about the painting he made of her on her deathbed, and I feel a sadness that is hard to put into words, because it is a painting of a dead woman, by a husband who loved her, who had lost her, and who, even in grief, could not stop painting. That is, in many ways, the most honest painting Monet ever made, because it does not hide death, it does not make it beautiful in a simple way, it shows a woman, dead, in a bed, with flowers, and it shows, in the brushstrokes, a man who is trying, through paint, to hold on to a person who is gone. I think that painting deserves to be remembered, not only as a great work of art, but as a human document, a husband’s farewell to his wife, painted in the only language he knew, the language of light, of colour, of paint.
Alice Hoschede, his second wife, is the part of his life I think about when I think about the practical side of art, because Alice ran his household, raised his children and her own, managed his money, his garden, his life, and made it possible for Monet to paint, day after day, for forty years at Giverny. Without Alice, there would be no Giverny as we know it, no garden, no pond, no water lilies, because Monet, who was a great painter, was not, by all accounts, a great manager of daily life, and he needed someone who could take care of the world, so that he could take care of painting. That is a reminder that behind many great artists there is a person who does the daily work, who is not famous, who is not in museums, but who deserves to be remembered, as Alice deserves to be remembered, for making Monet’s art possible.
If I could see one Monet painting in person, I would go to the Orangerie in Paris, to the two oval rooms of water lilies, and I would sit, in silence, surrounded by water, by lilies, by light, and I would try, for a few minutes, to see the world as Monet saw it, as a place of light, of colour, of a pond that is, in a way, the whole world, a world that is always changing, and always beautiful, if you look carefully enough. That is, I think, Monet’s gift to the world: not a single painting, not a single garden, but a way of looking, a way of paying attention, a way of seeing light, and of knowing that light, which changes every hour, is worth painting, worth looking at, worth loving, for a lifetime.
I do not think Monet is a perfect painter, and I do not think he wanted to be one. His paintings are, at times, loose, they are, at times, unfinished in the traditional sense, they do not have the detail, the drawing, the precision of the old masters, and some critics, even today, find them too vague, too soft, too much about feeling and not enough about form. I think those criticisms miss the point, because Monet was not trying to paint a perfect haystack, or a perfect cathedral. He was trying to paint light, and light, by its nature, is vague, is soft, is always changing, and a painting that captures light must, in some ways, be vague, must be soft, must be, in the traditional sense, unfinished, because light itself is never finished, it is always moving, always changing, always becoming something else.
In the end, I think Monet’s life teaches a lesson about looking, about patience, and about making a world. He looked, for sixty years, at the same pond, at the same garden, at the same light, and he found, in that looking, something new every day, something worth painting, something worth sharing. He made a garden, he painted it, he gave it to the world, in the Orangerie, in museums, in books, and that garden, that pond, that light, are still, today, with us, still beautiful, still changing, still worth looking at, if we take the time to look. That is not a small legacy. It is, in fact, one of the largest a painter can leave, and it was built, not in a hurry, not for fame, but slowly, patiently, with love, over a lifetime, by a man who believed that light matters, and that a painting, if it is true to light, will last forever.
I also think about Monet’s friendship with Renoir, and about how important friendship is for an artist, because Renoir and Monet painted together, in the forest, by the river, in Argenteuil, they shared ideas, they shared paints, they shared poverty, and they encouraged each other, when the world was laughing at them, when the Salon was rejecting them, when they were hungry. That friendship, that mutual support, is, I think, one of the reasons Impressionism survived, because it was not one man alone, it was a group, a community, a set of friends who believed in each other, who painted together, and who, in time, changed art, together. That is a lesson for anyone who wants to make something new: find friends who believe in you, paint with them, work with them, and, together, you may change the world, or at least, you may survive the laughter, and keep going, until the world catches up.
There is a final thought about Monet and about old age, because he painted until he was eighty-six, he painted when his eyes were failing, he painted when his wives had died, he painted when his son had died, and he painted, in the end, because painting was who he was, because it was, in his words, the only thing he knew how to do, and because, even when he could barely see, he could still feel light, still remember his garden, still know, in his heart, what a water lily looks like, what a pond looks like, what a bridge looks like. That is a beautiful, sad, inspiring image, an old man, almost blind, painting light, and it is, I think, the perfect image for Monet’s life: a man who loved light so much that he painted it, even when he could no longer see it clearly, because light, for him, was not only something you see, it was something you remember, something you feel, something you love.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Claude Monet best known for painting?
He is best known for Impression, Sunrise from 1872, which gave Impressionism its name, and for his Water Lilies series, painted in his garden at Giverny over the last thirty years of his life, including the large panels in the Orangerie in Paris.
What is Impressionism in simple words?
Impressionism is a style of painting outdoors, quickly, with short, bright brushstrokes, capturing a moment of light and colour rather than precise detail, named after Monet’s Impression, Sunrise after a critic mocked it as only an impression.
Where was Claude Monet’s garden?
His garden was at Giverny, a village in Normandy about fifty miles from Paris, where he bought a house in 1890, created a flower garden and a water-lily pond with a Japanese bridge, and lived and painted for the last forty years of his life.
Why did Claude Monet paint the same subject many times?
He painted series of haystacks, Rouen Cathedral, the Houses of Parliament and water lilies at different times of day and in different weather, because he believed light changes everything, and painting the same thing many times was the only way to show that truth.
Did Claude Monet have problems with his eyes?
Yes, in his seventies and eighties he developed cataracts, which made his vision blurry and colours look yellow and muddy, he had operations in 1923, and he continued painting his water lilies even when he could barely see, working largely from memory and feeling.
When did Claude Monet die?
He died on 5 December 1926 at Giverny, at the age of eighty-six, and he was buried there in the churchyard, a year before his large Water Lilies panels were installed in the Orangerie in Paris in 1927.
Who were Claude Monet’s wives?
His first wife was Camille Doncieux, his model and the mother of his sons Jean and Michel, who died in 1879 at thirty-two, and his second wife was Alice Hoschede, whom he married in 1892 and who managed his household at Giverny until her death in 1911.
