water lilies

Claude Monet's water lilies are loved around the world, a radiant example of French Impressionism and the glory found in nature. But his path from the artist's courtyard to the walls of museums was paved with obstacles, perfectionism and a lot of gardening. The title Water Lilies refers to a series by the father of French Impressionism. Throughout the series, Monet painted countless individual water lilies in around 250 oil paintings.

The beauty of the French village Giverny struck Monet as he passed by on a train. The artist was so inspired that in 1883 he rented a house there; would become his home in 1890. When he was not painting the plant life on his property, Monet was remodeling his landscapes and gardens to better inspire his work, or as he put it, “I'm not good at anything except painting and gardening.” Basically, he created the perfect place for quiet reflection, then spent the rest of his days capturing it in oils.

The ambitious painter imported water lilies for his Giverny garden from Egypt and South America, incurring the ire of local authorities.

For 20 years after Monet's death in 1926, his Water Lilies series was largely ignored, with many paintings forgotten in his Giverny studio. But in the 1950s, curators rediscovered Monet, crediting him with paving the way for the fashionable art of the time. By 1955, the Museum of Modern Art had purchased its first Monet from this series, and it quickly became one of the museum's most famous possessions.

Claude Monet was born on November 14, 1840 in Paris, France. He enrolled in the Swiss academy. After an art exhibition in 1874, a critic insultingly called Monet's painting style "Impression" as he was more concerned with form and light than realism, and the term stuck. Monet struggled with depression, poverty, and illness throughout his life. He died in 1926.

Monet sometimes became frustrated with his work. According to some reports, he destroyed a number of paintings; Estimates vary up to 500 works. Monet would simply burn, cut or kick the offending piece. In addition to these outbursts, he was known to suffer from bouts of depression and self-doubt.