Passage Five

Claude-Oscar Monet ( 1840 -- 1926 ) was a French

artist and a leading member of the Impressionist group of painters. Born in Paris, Monet spent his childhood in Le Havre. There he met a local artist, Eugene Boudin. Who encouraged him to become a landscape painter.

In 1859, Monet went to Paris to study at the

Academie Suisse. Between 1860 and 1862, Monet served in the army in Algeria ( 阿尔及利亚 ). He returned to Paris where he met most of the major artists of the era. In 1870, Monet married Camille Doncieux. To escape the Franco-Prnssian war,they moved to London Back to

France, they settled at Argenteuil, a boating centre on the Seine (塞纳河 ) which drew many other Impressionist painters. Working from nature was a particular symbol of the Impressionist movement, and one that Monet valued, reflecting in his paintings the ever-changing impact of light and weather conditions.

In 1872,he visited Le Havre where he painted "An Impression,Sunrise". When exhibited in 1874, part of its title was used by a critic to label the whole movement "Impressionism".

Monet's wife died in 1879,and he set up home with

Alice Hoschede, the wife of one of his most important

sponsors. During the 1880s, Monet traveled through France painting a variety of landscapes. He gradually

became better known and for the last 30 years of his life he was regarded as the greatest of the Impressionists.

From 1890 he began to paint a series (系列 ) of

pictures of one subject, including "Haystacks" "Rouen

Cathedral" and "Waterlilies". The latter were painted in the fine garden Monet created at his house at Giverny, where he lived from 1883 on. He painted them over and

over again,most significantly in a series especially for a museum in Paris.