Claude Monet Capturing light in landscape 1840–1926

Master French painter Claude Monet a key figure in and credited with inspiring the name of the Impressionist movement. The most prolific and consistent of the Impressionist artists, his extensive body of work followed the “Plein air” philosophy of landscape painting, the act of painting outdoors.

Monet’s ambition to document the French countryside led to a method of iteration to capture the changing of light and passing of the seasons in the same scene many times. This sense of movement and life is evident throughout many works in his career. His unique quest to depict nature exactly how he saw it saw a rejection of European conventions regarding composition and colour.

Heavily influenced by Japanese Woodblock prints, Monet’s works feature asymmetrical compositions, blocks of colour and stylised subject matters. Working with unmediated colours and swiftness in applying colour accentuating the moving air and changing light, his signature style was born.

Moving from the typical portraits and landscapes at the beginning of his career, he found his niche in the subject matter he quickly became obsessed with; his waterlilies and pond paintings. This era of Monet’s work would later become his most well-known artwork.

The artist, however, would consider his garden to be the most beautiful masterpiece he has ever created. “I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers,” he would say. Or: “The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration.” His dreamy, light-filled landscapes attempted to capture the magic of nature as he perceived it.