Everyone loves the great Impressionist painter Claude Monet! And it's not difficult to understand why, with his paintings of magnificent landscapes that make you dream, the peaceful reflections in the water, the shimmering light ... Looking at an artwork like “Impression rising sun", which coincidentally inspired the name of the Impressionist movement, you can easily get lost in the morning atmosphere that seems so palpable. In fact, this is the magical side of Monet's paintings, they capture in two-dimensions the atmosphere the scene he is depicting.
His works are love letters to nature. He watches it carefully, admiringly, noting the changes that happen as the hours pass, the light shifts and the seasons come and go ... more importantly he watches nature without ever getting tired of it. It was very rare for Monet to be satisfied by painting a subject once. Instead, he wanted to represent in painting the effect of the light and atmosphere on his subject as he claims it was thanks to this that the subject was truly born. He painted series of trains, the British Parliament, haystacks, water-lilies and snow. He depicted his subjects at sunrise, at noon, at dusk, with mist, in the summer, in the winter… the list goes on.
Monet is the undisputed master of Impressionism and he changed the course of history of art forever. He sought to reproduce light and colours as he saw them. In order to achieve his goal he began to paint outdoors, rather than in the studio, as painters had done for centuries. This allowed him take full notice of his subject as it was before his eyes rather than trust his memory which could be misleading. Other French painters of the Impressionist movement such as Pierre Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley also painted en plein air.
Discover our selection of contemporary artists and painters whose own depictions of beautiful landscapes and shimmering reflections were inspired by Monet's artworks.