Rouen-+Claude+Monet



=//**Rouen**//=

Population 494,382 (2010) Located in the center and is the capitol of Haute Normandie, along the Seine river. Attractions include, but are not limited to: Notre Dame Cathedral,Gros Horloge, Gothic church of St. Maclou, Palais de Justice, and Musee des Beaux-Arts de rouen. //__**Claude Monet-**__// Born: November 14, 1840 Paris, France Died: December 5, 1926 Giverny, France //French painter//

//Monet and impressionism//
As William Seitz wrote, "The landscapes Monet painted at Argenteuil between 1872 and 1877 are his best-known, most popular works, and it was during these years that impressionism most closely approached a group style." Monet exhibited regularly in the impressionist group shows, the first of which took place in 1874. On that occasion his painting //Impression: Sunrise// (1872) inspired a newspaper critic to call all the artists "impressionists," and the name stuck. Monet and the impressionists discovered that even the darkest shadows and the gloomiest days contain a wide variety of colors. However, Monet learned that he had to paint quickly and to use short brushstrokes loaded with individual colors.During the 1880s the impressionists began to drift apart, although individual members continued to see one another and occasionally work together. Monet gradually gained critica and financial (relating to money) success during the late 1880s and the 1890s. This was due mainly to the efforts of Durand-Ruel, who sponsored one-man exhibitions of Monet's work as early as 1883 and who, in 1886, also organized the first large-scale impressionist group show to take place in the United States. . // **Late work** // Monet's wife died in 1879; in 1892 he married Alice Hoschedé. During the 1890s he devoted his energy to paintings of haystacks (1891) and the facade (front) of Rouen Cathedral (1892–94). In these works Monet painted his subjects from the same physical position, allowing only the light and weather conditions to vary from picture to picture. By 1899 he began work on his famous paintings of the many water lilies in his gardens at Giverny, France. To complete them, he fought against his own failing eyesight and the fact that he had no experience in creating large-scale mural art. In effect, the task required him to learn a new kind of painting at the age of eighty. The paintings are characterized by a broad, sweeping style and depend almost entirely on color. Monet worked on the water lily paintings until his death on December 5, 1926. His health declined rapidly, and by the 1920s he was almost blind. In addition to Monet's physical ailments, he struggled with the problems of his art. In 1920 he began work on twelve large canvases (each fourteen feet wide) of water lilies. ([]) //**Monet and the Rouen Cathedral**// In 1892 Claude Monet began to paint in Rouen Normandy, he painted thirty paintings in the Rouen Cathedral. These paintings were painted between 1892 and 1893. Monet was extremely interested in the light on the subject of which he was painting. He felt the lighting was as important as the subject himself. The paintings in the cathedral were not his first series of paintings but one of his most famous. He had a very hard time painting the cathedral. He had nightmares about finishing the cathedral, at one point he said “In the end, I am trying to do the impossible.” Monet had many problems with the light. When he painted the light constantly was changing infuriating him. In the end Monet painted one of the best creations of art that the world has ever seen.

//**Works Cited**// [] [] http://www.claude-monet-paintings.com/rouen-cathedral.html