Monet

Claude Monet

Claude Monet was born on the 14^th of November 1840 and he died on the 5^th of December 1926. Monet was a French painter of the impressionist movement. This new style of painting called Impressionism rejected the academic art in France during the 19^th century. The rejection of perspective and the new changes in the colour of paint brought the new movement. Impressionism challenged the traditional subjects in art; staged sets became much more natural scenes. The avoidance of dark colours and black was important to the look of impressionist paintings. When Monet uses colour we see how he uses the weather, time of day to affect his paintings. He uses the sunset in one of his 6 paintings of Rouen Cathedral, using the lighting correctly. Monet uses this in his paintings not trying to make his paintings overly realistic, instead in his later paintings we can see uses his paint thickly to capture a moment; his painting of Rouen Cathedral at different times of the days shows this perfectly. Monet Uses the outdoors in his paintings rather than in his studio and has been credited for doing this. Monet had the ability to capture the light and see colours in that process. For this reason Monet was described as the "the driving force behind Impressionism". My favourite of the series of paintings at Rouen Cathedral is the one during dull weather; the reason for this is because I think he gives the medieval building a haunted and dark feel which truly captures the essence of the building. He focuses on the building straight on at its lowest, change the mood of the person looking at the painting.

In this painting I found by Monet it shows his inspiration in Japanese styles in his paintings. The Japanese style was popular among many artists of Impressionism. Monet uses oil on canvas and the panting is called Madame Monet in a Japanese kimono (1875). Monet uses like in many of his paintings uses a female model who wears the kimono and a fan. Monet uses his bright Cadmium red to draw your attention to the detail; the details of the kimono are have been done to draw your eye to the centre with the contrasting colours such as blue for the figure on the kimono. I like this painting because of its use of colour and detail as well as the Japanese theme.