IMPRESSIONISM: • IMPRESSIONISM: How the Impressionists Began... History of Photography: • PHOTOGRAPHY: A Brief History. Photographer... Criticism of the Impressionists: • IMPRESSIONISM: The Beginning. The Critics' Reaction... #art #impressionism #cloudmone #painting No one has done as much for the art world as Claude Monet. This artist changed the very paradigm of art; without him, art would be completely different. Today I will tell you the amazing and most complete story of a man who lived for art and believed in his destiny. As usual, I will not embellish and you will get to know not only Monet the genius, but also Monet the rebel, Monet the boor, the beggar, the inventor, the Monet who tried to do away with wallpaper, who stole someone else's wife, and the Monet endlessly in love with painting. Oscar Claude Monet was born on November 14, 1840 in Paris, into a family of a wealthy grocer. His father, of course, wanted him to grow up and take over the family business, to follow in his footsteps, but it was not to be. From childhood, Monet showed no desire to study or the family business, and was, in general, a careless and naughty boy, preferring to climb the mountains and the coast. At school, dying of boredom in class, he amused himself by coloring his notebooks with intricate patterns, and a little later he began to draw extremely disrespectful, almost hooligan caricatures of teachers. Over time, he honed the skill of these caricatures so much that the residents of Le Havre, a small town in Normandy, where they moved with their family, began to order their portraits from him. He charged from 10 to 20 francs for them (this is about 50-100 dollars in today's money). By the age of 15, he had become a local celebrity and had managed to save up as much as 2,000 francs (approximately 10,000 modern dollars), which he gave to his aunt for safekeeping. Monet later recalled that if he had continued this business, he would have been a millionaire by the age of 60. However, he would become a millionaire anyway. His caricatures were so popular that the owner of a local art shop agreed to put them up for sale, and they stood next to landscapes by a certain Eugène Boudin, whose work Monet spoke extremely unflatteringly about. He believed that Boudin's landscapes were boring and dull, that this was the art of the last century, and the very proximity of Boudin's paintings to Monet's caricatures does them credit. As you can see, Monet was not short of impudence and effrontery in his youth. This is how Monet recalls his initial attitude towards Boudin, who would later play a key role in his fate: “I must say, however, that there was a flaw in this otherwise ideal situation. Often, in this same window, directly above my own works, there hung several sea scenes which I, like most of the inhabitants of Le Havre, found disgusting. I was so irritated by having to endure this forced contact that I did not slander this idiot who, considering himself an artist, dared to sign his works “Boudin”. For me, accustomed to Gudin’s seascapes – with their arbitrary colors, false strokes and imaginary perspectives, which were so often used by fashionable artists of the time – Boudin’s sincere little compositions with his correctly outlined little figures, his pleasant boats, his absolutely ideal sky and water, drawn and painted only from life, had no artistic value for me. His loyalty seemed suspicious. Therefore, his paintings inspired in me a terrible disgust, and even without meeting this man, I felt a strong dislike for him." However, it was this man who would become a lifelong friend, a teacher and mentor who changed the life of young Claude. Pay attention to Monet's words, in them he emphasizes Boudin's absurd manner of painting only from life, but it was this approach that would eventually become the principle that would lead Monet to the idea that we now call "impressionism."