11 Things You Didn’t Know About Claude Monet

Abhishek Kumar

Knowledge can be gained at any age. After having a detailed study on topics there are things unknown to us. So, we at Abirpothi present before you the lesser-known facts about artists around the world.

Claude Monet

When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before you, a tree, a house, a field, or whatever. Merely think, here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow.

 Claude Monet

Claude Monet in 1860

Claude Monet was a French impressionist painter who revolutionised modern painting by emphasising light brushstrokes, vivid colours, and uncomplicated nature. Monet is hailed as one of the best and most influential artists of all time. He is famous for his landscape paintings and works depicting the same scene in several instantaneous atmospheric circumstances. Known as the \”Father of Impressionism,\” Claude Monet launched one of the most significant artistic movements in history. His revolutionary work continues to influence contemporary artists and aesthetic trends. The term Impressionism is derived from the title of his painting Impression, Sunrise.

Camille Monet in Japanese Costume

Monet had a terrible temper and was not well-liked in his hometown of Giverny.  His purpose in life was to paint and he surrounded himself only with his art and so-called friends who were apparently as awful to be around as he was himself! Claude Monet married and had two children with his wife Camille, however, he had an affair with Alice Hoschede. After the deaths of their spouses, Claude and Alice married and raised all of their children altogether. One of Claude’s sons, Jean, later married one of Alice’s daughters, Blanche. Towards the end of Claude’s life after the deaths of both Alice and his son, he went on to have a relationship with his step-daughter/in-law Blanche. The largest collection of Monet paintings is housed in the Marmottan Monet Museum in Paris, which includes the famous Impression, Sunrise.

Monet\’s Japanese Footbridge when his eyesight was at its worst

Despite being born into a Catholic family, Monet found himself not believing in God at all. Later on in life, he officially renounced the church and decided to become an atheist. Many of the canvasses that Monet used actually had a different painting on them. When he wasn’t satisfied with how a painting was turning out, he would simply paint over the existing canvas. While painting women in gardens, he discovered his love for nature and light and for the instable and fragile nature of landscapes and colors.

11 lesser-known facts about Claude Monet

1. At the end of his life, Monet suffered from cataracts. You can easily spot the paintings he created in that period as they have a reddish tone due to his change in color perception and are quite blurry.
2. Monet painted his wife while she was on her deathbed.
3. Monet wrote designs and layouts for plantings for his gardener. Even though Monet eventually hired seven gardeners, he still remained the architect. Impression, Sunrise
4. Monet built a studio boat, or bateau-atelier, that allowed him to get close to the water he loved, and he often painted on the boat.
5. Monet had someone clean his lily pads each day.
6. Monet painted his water lilies around 250 times. Water Lilies
7. When Monet was young (15) he was well-known around his town as a caricaturist and drew portraits of his teachers and friends.
8. Monet features more than 120 artworks from 65 different cities across 5 continents.
9. Monet and Renoir spent an entire year surviving on potatoes. Caricature of Jules Didier
10. Monet wanted to become an artist, but his father wanted him to go into the family grocery business.
11. He kept diaries of his food recipes which were transformed into cookbooks. His book is called Farmers Carrots. Camille Monet on her Deathbed

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