Allan Petithomme
Art History III
Prof: Shapiro 2-13-14

Monet’s work after 1880

Claude Monet was born in Le Have in Normandy, France in 1940, and died in 1926. He was the leader in developing impressionism, Monet studied under many teachers or painters as we may say, such as: August Renoir, Charles Gleyre and Eugene Boudin. He started his painting career as an outdoor painter and then we to study in Paris and some other countries in Europe. Monet was a brilliant student, he worked with various different artists: Corot and the Barbizon artists. He painted directly from nature, his style was his own imaginary or visionary. His work after 1880, was marvelous, more mature, more admirable. Especially for other painters that used to criticize his works. Before that period, we could see his paintings were different, paintings as: “On the bank of the Seine” and Sunrise”. He used light color, or mixed 2 different colors in order to give us a very good look as it becomes one color. He did not use a lot of oil and the way he used his brush was gentle and very light. After 1880, in a typical impressionist style, the vanishing color was light and very intense. Even it was not very appreciated by majority of viewers. Charles Bigot criticized him by saying” Everything that Monet does should be hung at a certain height or barrier should prevent one from getting too close”. In Monet’s work we see no more than a formless ensemble: unpleasant blues, crude blotches, pinks and ochres that was his style. Few artists succumbed to the critics, even Renoir said: there was sort of break in my work. I had reached the end of impressionism and I reached the conclusion that I did not know how to paint or draw: Monet confessed. By looking at some of his works after 1880, we can say Monet was different compared to his earlier works. When we compare both earliest works and works after 1880, we see that Monet was bringing more life to his paintings, he used more oil, style was different, and more presenting and more to tell about the work details. As example of works after 1880, we include painting such as: 1) Fisherman’s cottage on the cliffs at Varengeville in 1882 2) Rough weather at Etretat in 1883, Cap D’antibes 1888, The Seine at chateau in 1881, all these paintings were brighter than his early works, there were more details and better settings. Compare to the ones before 1880 as 1) On the bank of the Seine, Sunrise in 1872, we could barely see the images and it was a little sloppy on the paint brush job. In conclusion, Monet’s work after 1880 was marvelous. He travelled and he used more imagination and used different styles. He was the true leader of impressionism cause the way he showed his style of works after that period. We could finally also say Monet was and still one of the greatest painters in that period. He restored the way of paintings and made the paths for a lot other painters in order to use their own style.