Oscar-Claude Monet

Claude Monet born on the 14th November 1840 and died on the 5th of december 1926. He was a founder of French impressionist paintings, and the most consistent practitioner of the movement especially applied to plein-air landscape painting. The term Impressionism is derived from the title of his painting Impression, Sunrise.

After several months following the death of his wife Camille  in September, 1879, a grief-stricken Monet began to create some of his best paintings of the 19th century. During the early 1880s, Monet painted several landscapes and seascapes in what he considered to be campaigns to document the French countryside. His extensive campaigns evolved into his series' paintings.




But what really interested me was his painting of the Thames below Westminster, because of the style of the painting. This is one of the works he produced when he moved to London during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 - 1871. He worked mainly in south London where I live so this interested me further and he painted the parks of central London and the River Thames. This painting has a misty atmosphere of the river with the houses of Parliament and Westminster bridge in the background, The background is painted differently to the foreground because he wanted to create a sense of depth to the painting, The foreground is darker and painted more with harsher bolder lines and more detailed because it was closest to him while painting, whereas the background is painted more softly because it was further away from him, this makes the painting seem more 3D and more realistically painted to me.