WATER LILIES
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Claude Monet (CLAWD maw NEH) was born in Paris, France. Even as a young teenager it became apparent that he had artistic ability. He would draw caricatures of his teachers on his schoolwork. A caricature is a drawing that represents the person, but certain features will be exaggerated, or made larger than they actually are. He began to charge people to draw their caricatures and was able to have a steady income and even save some money.
He served two years in the military in Algeria on the continent of Africa, but he became ill with typhoid fever and was sent home to recover.
Monet had a small houseboat made. He would go out in the houseboat and paint scenes he saw from that view. He enjoyed painting outdoors observing how the light would change as the day progressed. He painted some scenes over and over again, and each would be different from the others because it was painted at a different time of day when the sun was at a different position in the sky. Monet was fascinated by light; the way it reflected off objects and the water in a pond. In his paintings he tried to capture this effect of light.
The Bouquet of Sunflowers was painted in 1881 and is a large painting, 39 by 32 inches. You can see it at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Monet made several paintings of Poplars. Each of them is quite different from the others in composition and color. He also created more than one painting of the Woman with the Parasol. In some of them the woman is the main subject of the painting and in others she is secondary to the landscape.
Bouquet of Sunflowers
Enlarged view
Poplars
Enlarged view
The Walk, Woman with the Parasol
Enlarged view
Monet and several other artists experimented with a method of putting paint on the canvas without blending the colors. He would get the paint directly from the tube without mixing it on his palette first. Brush strokes and dabs of color would be placed side by side. Monet called it the "division of colours". When you stepped back from the canvas, your eyes would blend the colors together. This was not the traditional method of painting, and many people rejected their works.
In 1874 the artists decided to have their own art show at the studio of a photographer, G.F.T. Nadar who lived in Paris. More than 3,000 visitors came to the exhibit. The artists became known as "Impressionists" because Monet had titled one of his paintings " Impression - Sunrise ". Also some said the paintings looked unfinished and were just first "impressions". The artists who presented the show called themselves "Independents".
He married and he and Camille had two sons. Unfortunately Camille died a year after their second son Michael was born. In 1872 he made a painting of his wife reading a book. The painting is titled The Reader and is sometimes called Springtime. The light filtering through the trees looks like white flowers on her skirt.
The Reader
Enlarged view
In 1883 Monet rented a house in Giverny, a village outside Paris. Several years later he bought the house and made his famous garden with the pond and Japanese bridge which are featured in more than 200 of his paintings. The latter part of his life was devoted to paintings made in his water garden.
Toward the end of his life his eyesight became poor, but he continued to paint until his death. In fact, when he died, he was working on a huge water lily painting that today hangs unfinished in the Orangerie of the Tuileries (tweel REE) Gardens in France.
Portrait of Claude Monet by Nadar
References:
Kostner, Thomas, and Lars Roper.50 Artists You Should Know. New York: Prestel, 2006.
Order
Cunningham, Antonia. Impressionists, Bath: Parragon Publishing Book, 2000.
Order
Wilder, Jesse Bryant. Art History for Dummies. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Publishing Inc, 2007.
Order
RESEARCH LINKS
Biography of Monet
My History
Autobiography by Monet
Biography of Monet
photograph
Biography of Monet
Monet's Paintings in the Netherlands
Parasols
The Japanese Bridge
Boats
Information about Monet
at Humanities Web
Art Project
Claude Monet's Pizza Day
Monet's Garden by the Sea
art lesson for grades 6-8 (can be modified for other age groups)
Monet and Impressionism
art lesson for grades 4-6
Monet's Garden
art lesson - tempera/chalk painting
Art History
online interactive art lesson - elementary
Monet Biography and Prints
interactive art (Spanish version)
Music: Debussy Clair de Lune
Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists: Monet
By Grolier Publishing Company
Introduce your young students to the fabulous and fun world of art with the World's Greatest Artists Series. Full-color reproductions and kid-friendly overviews of the artists' life are presented alongside cartoon-characters of the artist, bringing a clever dimension to the series. Fun and educational, these light yet realistic books make an easy and exciting transition into studying the fine arts. 32 pages, ages 4-8.
A LIBRARY OF
ONLINE BOOKS and BOOK PREVIEWS
Early Childhood Themes Using Art Masterpieces
by Sandra E. Fisher (selected pages)Order
Color Your Own Monet Paintings
by Michelle Barnett (no preview) Order here
A Work of Art
by Joan Chambers, Molly Hood, Michael Peake (selected pages) Order here
Pictures That Every Child Should Know
by Mary Schell Hoke Bacon 1908 (full view) Order here
Preview these Amazon books using the links below.
The Magical Garden of Claude Monet
by Laurence Anholt (selected pages)
Claude Monet
by Sean Connolly, Claude Monet (selected pages)
Claude Monet
by Adam G. Klein, Claude Monet (selected pages)
Six Monet Cards
by Claude Monet (selected pages)
Twelve Monet Bookmarks
(selected pages)
Once Upon a Lily Pad: Froggy Love in Monet's Garden
by Joan Sweeney, Kathleen Fain (selected pages)
Theme Pockets, Claude Monet
by Michelle Barnett (selected pages)
Page Comments
Most Recent Comments ( See more comments on this page ) 2012-01-27
umm whos the originator of this site
Patsy Stevens, who is a retired teacher in Texas is the originator of the material on the Garden of Praise website. The site was started in 1999 as a resource of free educational material.
2011-03-07
This is an absolutely wonderful resource for homeschoolers!! Thank you!
HM2009-10-22
this page is the most weardess page i have ever seen
maria
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Famous Artists in this Series
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Work a Jigsaw Puzzle
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Color Picture Online
Online Multiple-Choice Test
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