Discovering Monet and his online exhibition
Oscar-Claude Monet (1840 - 1926) was a french painter born in Paris, who founded the Impressionist movement, and established the bases of contemporary art.
Monet was a rebel, he started believing in the beauty of the moment, the instant and the nature, and he was rejected for that.
During his period of time the Académie des Beaux-Arts was supporting the traditional and classic Art with mythology and religious themes and realistic illustrations.
Monet fought against this, and brought a new concept to art: painting outside.
He liked to paint nature, and captured light. He painted with quick brushstrokes and barely suggested shapes which were absolutely ridiculous to the society's eyes.
Monet was strongly criticized for his way of doing things totally different to the traditional established rules of Art.
For this reason he organized an Art exhibition with all the painters that were rejected by the Academy. It was after this exhibition when one of the critics joking and laughing about it, commented how negatively impressive was one of Monet’s paintings that was called: Impression, sunrise. The critic was very negative, but it surprisingly created the name of the movement: Impressionism.
Sadly during his life, Monet was very poor, his art was not valued, but still he was all his life painting. He did beautiful series about the effect of light on the same scenario, at different times of the day, like the Rouen Cathedral series.
He was obsessed with light, nature and landscapes. He created blurry images, without shapes, without clear figures, but which can perfectly transmit the moment, an instant, a landscape.
His painting was about the feeling, about the impression, about the beauty of the instant. This was a pure and unique way of perceiving reality, which was totally breaking up with classical art. He really thought that Art didn't have rules, and that changed art history forever.
At the end of his life, Monet was very influenced by Japanese art. He grew his own garden of lily pads, on his pond with a Japanese bridge in his house’s garden. He did several series of this scene at the end of his life.
His Art was more valued then, and during his last years of life, the prime minister Clemenceau, ordered him a series of enormous paintings. Monet suffered from cataracs and he couldn't see very well. Still he could finish these paintings that were exhibited on the Muséee de l’Orangerie, creating what is named as “the Sistine Chapel of Impressionism”.
Now you can discover this room at Monet's best online exhibition “Monet was here” created by Google Arts, where all his masterpieces are explained, step by step including zooming.
You can discover his secrets, his garden, his techniques, reading his story perfectly explained, while google street view and the high quality images immerse you into Monet's world. Considering his passion about every little moment, every instant, the value of the day-to-day, the beauty of small things, of nature, all his thoughts resemble our feelings these days, when we are all valuing more the daily life and beauty of simple things.
For this reason we find quarantine as the perfect time to discover his Art, enjoy all his masterpieces, and take a moment to stop and think how life is beautiful in every small detail, and how beautiful it can be painted, and expressed, in all creative ways.
