Description
No other artist, apart from J.M.W. Turner, worked as hard as Claude Monet (1840-1926) to capture his own light on canvas. Of all the Impressionists, it was the man whom Cezanne called “only one eye, but my God what an eye!” who remained faithful to the principle of absolute fidelity to the visual sensation, painting directly from the object. It could be said that Monet reinvented the possibilities of color. Whether it was through his early interest in Japanese prints, his time as a conscript in the dazzling light of Algeria or his personal knowledge of the leading painters of the late 19th century, the work Monet produced throughout his long life would forever change the way we perceive the natural world and the phenomena that accompany it. The high point of his explorations was the late series of water lilies, painted in his own garden in Giverny, which, in their approach to the almost total absence of form, are really the origin of abstract art. This biography does full justice to this remarkable and profoundly influential artist, and offers numerous reproductions and archive photographs, along with a detailed and insightful commentary.
