Early Life

He began drawing as a boy when his family moved to Normandy. After becoming known for making caricatures of his teachers and people living in town, Monet met landscape artist Eugene Bodin, who taught him how to paint outside. This led to Monet moving back to Paris, where he became a student at the Academie Suisse. Here, he immersed himself in the Barbizon school, which emphasized making preliminary sketches outside and then bringing the canvas back indoors to paint the natural world in a controlled environment.

Impressionism

The term "Impressionism" now refers to a major art movement, but it was originally applied by critics of Monet to express derision for his painting style. Monet exhibited his painting Impression: Sunrise in 1874 with a group of fellow artists who were using the new techniques of painting quickly with vibrant colors and completing the work outside instead of interrupting the process and finishing the paintings in a building. Critics said these works were "mere impressions" and showed that the artists were poorly trained and unable to finish paintings according to contemporary ideas of composition.

Major Paintings

At times, the light Monet achieved in his paintings was almost the subject itself. The light enhanced the works and gave Monet's paintings a photographic quality, despite the "impression" of the subject of the piece. It was these impressions - rather than the subjects or themes - that established Monet as a revolutionary artist. Monet became increasingly interested in how our eyes truly perceive the natural world. To that end, he would create multiple paintings to record and reveal the process of perception as the natural scene's appearance changed throughout the day. Examples of these efforts include his paintings of Haystacks (1891), Waterloo Bridge (1903).