Claude Monet
Monet was born to Adolphe and Louise-Justine Monet of 45 Rue Laffitte, in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, but his family moved in 1845 to Le Havre in Normandy when he was five. He was christened as Oscar-Claude at the church of Nortre-Dame-de-Lorette. His father wanted him to go into the family (grocery store) business, but Claude Monet wanted to become an artist. His mother was a singer, both parents were second-generation Parisians.

On the first of April 1851 Monet entered the Le Havre secondary school. He first became known locally for his charcoal caricatures, which he would sell for ten to twenty francs. Monet also undertook his first drawing lessons from Jean-Francois Ochard, a former student of Jacques-Louis David (1748 - 1825). On the beaches of Normandy, he met fellow artist Eugène Boudin, who became his mentor and taught him to use oil paints. Boudin taught Monet en plein air (outdoor) techniques for painting.

On 28 January, 1857 his mother died. Now 16 years old, he left school and his widowed, childless aunt Marie-Jeanne took him into her home.

When Monet traveled to Paris to visit The Louvre, he would see many painters imitating famous artists' work. Monet, having brought his paints and other tools with him, would instead go and sit by a window and paint what he saw.

In June of 1861 Monet joined the First Regiment of African Light Cavalry in Algeria for two years of a seven-year commitment, but upon his contracting typhoid his aunt Madame Lecadre intervened to get him out of the army if he agreed to complete an art course at a university. It is also possible that the Dutch painter Johan Barthold Jongkind (whom Monet knew) may have prompted his aunt on this matter. Disillusioned with the traditional art taught at universities, in 1862 Monet joined the studio of Charles Gleyre in Paris, where he met Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Frederic Bazille, and Alfred Sisley. Together they shared new approaches to art, painting the effects of light en plein air with broken color and rapid brushstrokes, in what later came to be known as Impressionism.

Monet's 1866 Camille or The Woman in the Green Dress (La Femme à la Robe Verte), which brought him recognition, was one of many works featuring his future wife, Camille Doncieux. Shortly thereafter Doncieux became pregnant and bore their first child, Jean. In 1868, Monet attempted suicide.

During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), Monet took refuge in England to avoid the conflict. While there he studied the works of John Constable and J. M. W. Turner, both of whose landscapes would serve to inspire Monet's innovations in the study of color.

From 1871 to 1878 Monet lived at Argenteuil, a village on the Seine near Paris, and here were painted some of his best known works.

Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant), 1872-1873

Upon returning to France, in 1872 (or 1873) he painted Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant) depicting a Le Havre landscape. It hung in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874 and is now displayed in the Musée Marmottan-Monet, Paris. From the painting's title, art critic Louis Leroy coined the term "Impressionism", which he intended to be derogatory.

In 1870, Monet and Doncieux married and in 1873 moved into a house in Argenteuil near the Seine River. They had another son, Michel, on March 17, 1878. Madame Monet died of tuberculosis in 1879.

Alice Hoschedé decided to help Monet by bringing up his two children together with her own. They lived in Poissy. In April 1883 they moved to a house in Giverny, Eure, in Haute-Normandie, where he planted a large garden which he painted for the rest of his life. Monet and Hoschedé married in 1892.

In the 1880s and 1890s, Monet began "series" painting: paintings of one subject in varying light and viewpoints. His first series is of Rouen Cathedral from different points of view and at different times of the day. Twenty views of the cathedral were exhibited at the Durand-Ruel in 1895. He also made a series of paintings of haystacks at different times of day.

Water Lily Pond (Le bassin aux Nympheas), 1889

Monet was exceptionally fond of painting controlled nature: his own garden in Giverny, with its water lilies, pond and bridge. He also painted up and down the banks of the Seine.

Between 1883 and 1908, Monet travelled to the Mediterranean and painted many landscapes and seascapes such as Bordighera. Landmarks were another subject for Monet in the Mediterranean. His wife Alice died in 1911 and his son Jean died in 1914. Cataracts formed on his eyes for which he underwent two surgeries in 1923. It is interesting to note that the paintings done while the cataracts affected his vision have a general reddish tone, which is a characteristic of the vision of cataract victims. It may also be that after his surgery, he was now able to see certain ultraviolet wavelengths of light that are normally excluded by the lens of the eye [1]; this may have had an effect on the colors he perceived. After his operations he even repainted some of these paintings. Monet died December 5, 1926 at the age of 86 and is buried in the Giverny church cemetery. His famous home and garden with its waterlily pond and bridge at Giverny are a popular drawcard for tourists. In the house there are many examples of Japanese woodcut prints on the walls.

In 2004, London, the Parliament, Effects of Sun in the Fog (Le Parlement, Effet de Brouillard) (1904), sold for over U.S. $20 million.

Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet (23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French painter. His early masterworks The Luncheon on the Grass and Olympia engendered great controversy, and served as rallying points for the young painters who would create Impressionism. One of the first 19th century artists to approach modern-life subjects, his art bridged the gap between Realism and Impressionism.

Édouard Manet was born in Paris. His mother, Eugénie-Desirée Fournier, was the goddaughter of the Swedish crown prince, Charles Bernadotte from whom the current Swedish monarchs are descended, and his father, Auguste Manet, was a French judge. His father wanted him to also pursue a career in law, but he wanted a career in the arts. His uncle, Charles Fournier, encouraged him to pursue painting and often took young Manet to the Louvre.[1]

From 1850 to 1856, after failing the examination to join the navy, Manet studied under academic painter Thomas Couture. In his spare time he copied the old masters in the Louvre. He visited Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, during which time he absorbed the influences of the Dutch painter Frans Hals, and the Spanish artists Diego Velázquez and Francisco José de Goya.

Manet adopted the then current style of realism initiated by Gustave Courbet, painting everyday subjects like beggars, cafés, bullfights, and other events and scenery. He produced few religious, mythological, or historical paintings, and these mostly in his youth. A noteworthy exception is his "Christ with Angels" in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Music in the Tuilieries, 1862

Music in the Tuileries was a painting of the lifestyle he enjoyed. While the picture was not regarded as finished by some, the suggested atmosphere imparts a sense of what it was like in the Tuileries gardens at the time; one can imagine the music, conversation, and the sound of glasses clinking. The work evokes a sensual response. Here Manet has included his friends: Artists, authors and musicians take part; fittingly, there is even a self-portrait.

The Luncheon on the Grass (Le déjeuner sur l'herbe). 1863.

One of Manet's best known early paintings is The Luncheon on the Grass (Le déjeuner sur l'herbe). The Paris Salon rejected it for exhibition in 1863 but he exhibited it at the Salon des Refusés (Salon of the rejected) later in the year. (Emperor Napoleon III initiated The Salon des Refusés, after the Paris Salon rejected more than 4,000 paintings in 1863.) The painting's juxtaposition of dressed men and a nude woman was controversial, as was its abbreviated sketch-like style — an innovation that distinguished Manet from Courbet. However, Manet's composition is derived from Marcantonio Raimondi's engraving The Judgment of Paris (c. 1510) after a drawing by Raphael.

Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas (19 July 1834 – 27 September 1917) was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, and drawing. His early study of classical art prefaced a body of mature works which convincingly placed the human figure in contemporary environments. He is regarded as one of the founders of impressionism.

Degas was born on 19 July 1834 in Paris, France to Celestine Musson de Gas, and Augustin de Gas, a banker. The de Gas family was moderately wealthy (Mannering 5). At age 11, Degas began his schooling, and started down the road of art with enrollment in the Lycee Louis Grand (Canaday 930).

Degas began to paint seriously early in life; by eighteen he had turned a room in his home into an artist's studio, but he was expected to go to law school, as were most aristocratic young men. Degas, however, had other plans and left his formal education at age 20. He then studied drawing with Louis Lamothe, under whose guidance he flourished, following the style of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (Canaday 930-931). In 1855 Degas met Ingres (Benedek "Chronology.") and was advised by him to "draw lines, young man, many lines" (Canaday 931). In that same year, Degas received admission to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (Benedek "Chronology."). The next year, Degas traveled to Italy, where he saw the paintings of Michelangelo, Raphael, and other artists of the Renaissance (Canaday 931-932).

Artistic career

After returning from Italy, Degas copied paintings at the Louvre. In 1865 some of his works were accepted in the Salon. During the next five years, Degas had additional works accepted in the Salon, and gradually gained respect in the world of conventional art (Benedek "Chronology."). In 1870, Degas's life was changed by the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. During the war, Degas served in the National Guard to defend Paris (Mannering 6), allowing little time for painting.

Following the war, Degas visited his brother, Rene, in New Orleans and produced a number of works, many of family members, before returning to Paris in 1873 (Mannering 6). Soon after his return, in 1874, Degas helped to organize the first Impressionist Exhibition (Benedek "Chronology."). The Impressionists subsequently held seven additional shows, the last in 1886, and Degas showed his work in all but one (Mannering 6-7). Also showing works in these exhibitions was Degas's "friend and rival" (Mannering 5), Édouard Manet, whose interest in the contemporary life of Paris influenced and paralleled Degas' own (Mannering 5). At around the same time, Degas also became an amateur photographer, both for pleasure, and in order to accurately capture action for painting (Hartt 365).

Eventually Degas relinquished some of his financial security. This occurred after the death of his father, when various debts forced him to sell his collection of art, live more modestly, and depend on his artwork for income (Canaday 936-937). As the years passed, Degas became isolated, due, in part, to his belief "that a painter could have no personal life."(Canaday 929). He never married and spent the last years of his life "aimlessly wandering the streets of Paris" (Mannering 7) before dying in 1917.

Degas is often identified as an Impressionist, an understandable but insufficient description. (Mannering 7). Technically Degas differed from the impressionists in that he "never adopted the Impressionist color fleck" (Hartt 365). and "disapproved of their work" (Mannering 7). Degas is, however, described more accurately as an impressionist than as a member of any other movement. Impressionism was a short, varied movement during the 1860s and 70s that grew, in part, out of realism and the ideas of two painters, Courbet and Corot. The movement used bright, "dazzling" colors, while still concentrating primarily on the effects of light (Hartt 357-358).

Degas had his own distinct style, one developed from two very different influences, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, and Japanese prints (Dorra, 208). Degas, though famous for horses and dancers, began with conventional historical paintings such as The Young Spartans. During his early career, Degas also painted portraits of individuals and groups; an example of the latter is The Bellelli Family, (1859) a brilliantly composed and psychologically poignant portrayal of his aunt, her husband and children. In these early paintings, Degas already evidenced the mature style that he would later develop more fully by cropping subjects awkwardly and portraying historical subjects in a less idealized manner (Mannering 11-13). Also during this early period, Degas was drawn to the tensions present between men and women (Benedek "Style.").

By the late 1860s, Degas had shifted from his intitial forays into history painting to an original observation of contemporary life. He began to paint women at work, milliners, laundresses, opera performers, and dancers. Degas began to paint café life as well. He urged other artists to paint 'real life' instead of traditional mythological or historical paintings (Benedek "Style."). As his subject matter changed, so, too, did Degas' technique. The dark palette which bore the influence of Dutch painting gave way to the use of "vibrant strokes" (Dorra 208) and "vivid colors" (Benedek "Style.").

Place de la Concorde, 1875, Edgar Degas, Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

Paintings such as Place de la Concorde read like "snapshots," (Hartt 365) freezing moments of time to show them accurately, imparting a sense of movement (Hartt 365). His paintings also showed subjects from unusual angles. All of these techniques were used with Degas's self-expressed goal of "'bewitching the truth'"(Hartt, 365). Degas used devices in his paintings which underscored his personal connection to the subjects: Portraits of friends were included in his genre pieces, such as in 'The Musicians of the Opera'. Literary scenes were modern, but of highly ambiguous content; for example, 'Interior', which was probably based on a scene from Therese Raquin (Mannering 22, 25).

By the later 1870s Degas had mastered not only the traditional medium of oil on canvas (Mannering 8-49), but pastel as well. The dry medium, which he applied in complex layers and textures, enabled him to more easily reconcile his facility for line with a growing interest in expressive color. He also ceased to paint individual portraits and began instead to paint generalized personalities based on their social stature or form of employment (Benedek "Style."). In 1879's Portraits, At the Stock Exchange, he portrayed a group of Jewish businessmen with a hint of the misanthropy which would increase with age.

At the Races, 1877 - 1880, Edgar Degas, Musée d'Orsay, Paris

These changes engendered the paintings that Degas would produce in later life. Degas began to draw and paint women drying themselves with towels, combing their hair, and bathing (see: "After the Bath). His strokes also became "long" and "slashing" (Mannering 75). The meticulous naturalism of his youth gave way to an increasing abstraction of form. But for the brilliant draftsmanship and obsession with the figure, the pictures created in this late period of his life bear little superficial resemblance to his early paintings (Mannering 77). Ironically, it is these paintings, created late in Degas's life, and after the end of the Impressionist Movement, that use the techniques of Impressionism (Mannering 70-77).

For all the stylistic evolution, certain features of Degas's work remained the same throughout his life. He always worked in his studio, painting either from memory or models. (Benedek "Style."). Also, Degas often repeated a subject many times (Sellier and Peugeot 39). Finally, Degas painted and drew, with few exceptions, indoor scenes.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir 
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (February 25, 1841–December 3, 1919) was a French artist who was a leading figure in the development of the Impressionist style.

Renoir's paintings are notable for their vibrant light and color. Unlike many Impressionists who focused on landscapes, he painted not only landscapes, but people in intimate and candid compositions, and made the female nude one of his primary subjects. In characteristic Impressionist style, Renoir suggested the details of a scene through freely brushed touches of color, so that his figures softly fuse with one another and their surroundings.

His initial paintings show the influence of the colorism of Eugène Delacroix and the luminosity of Camille Corot. He also admired the realism of Gustave Courbet and Édouard Manet and his early work resembles theirs in Renoir's use of black as a color. Another painter Renoir greatly admired was the 18th century master François Boucher.

In the 1860s, through the practice of painting light and water en plein air (in the open air), he and his friend Claude Monet discovered that the color of shadows is not brown or black, but the reflected color of the objects surrounding them. Several pairs of paintings exist in which Renoir and Monet, working side-by-side, depicted the same scenes.

One of the best known Impressionist works is Renoir's 1876 Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (Le Bal au Moulin de la Galette), which depicts an open-air scene, jammed with people, in a popular dance garden on the Butte Montmartre close to where he lived.

A trip to Italy in 1881, where he saw works by Raphael and other Renaissance masters, convinced him that he was on the wrong path, and for the next several years he painted in a more severe style. This is sometimes called his "Ingres period", as he concentrated on his drawing and emphasized the outlines of figures. But after 1890 he again changed direction, returning to the use of thinly brushed color which dissolved outlines as in his earlier work. Starting from this period he concentrated especially on monumental nudes, and on domestic scenes.

A prolific painter, he made several thousand paintings. The warm sensuality of Renoir's style made his paintings some of the most well known and frequently reproduced works in the history of art. His early works were typically Impressionist snapshots of real life, full of sparkling colour and light. By the mid-1880s, however, he had broken with the movement to apply a more disciplined, formal technique to portraits and figure paintings, particularly of women (e.g., Bathers, 1884-87).

Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (Le Bal au Moulin de la Galette), 1876

Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born in Limoges, Haute-Vienne, France, the child of a working class family. As a boy, he worked in a porcelain factory where his drawing talent led to him painting designs on china. He worked painting hangings for overseas missionaries, and painting on fans before he enrolled in art school. During those years, he often visited the Louvre to study the French master painters.

In 1862 he began studying art under Charles Gleyre in Paris. There he met Alfred Sisley, Frederic Bazille and Claude Monet. At times during the 1860s, he did not have enough money to buy paint. Although Renoir first exhibited paintings in 1864, recognition did not come for another 10 years due, in part, to the turmoil of the Franco-Prussian War.

During the Paris Commune in 1871, while he painted by the Seine River, a Commune group thought he was spying and they were about to throw him in the river when a Commune leader, Raoul Rigault, recognized Renoir as the man who protected him on an earlier occasion.

The Swing (La Balançoire). 1876

In the mid-1870s, he experienced his first acclaim when his work hung in the first Impressionist exhibition (1874).

While living and working in Montmartre, Renoir engaged in an affair with his model, Suzanne Valadon, who became one of the leading female artists of the day. Later, he married Aline Victorine Charigot, and they had three sons, one of whom, Jean Renoir, became a filmmaker. After his marriage he was to paint many scenes of his children and their nurse.

In 1881 he traveled to Algeria, a country he associated with Eugène Delacroix, then to Madrid, Spain to see the work of Diego Velázquez, also to Italy to see Titian's masterpieces in Florence, and the paintings of Raphael in Rome. On January 15, 1882 Renoir met composer Richard Wagner at his home in Palermo, Sicily. Renoir painted Wagner's portrait in just 35 minutes.

In 1883, he spent the summer in Guernsey, painting 15 paintings in little over a month. Most of these feature Moulin Huet, a bay in St Martin's, Guernsey (These were the subject of a set of commemorative postage stamps, issued by the Bailiwick of Guernsey in 1983).

In 1887, a year when Queen Victoria celebrated her Golden Jubilee, and upon the request of the queen's associate, Phillip Richbourg, he donated several paintings to the "French Impressionist Paintings" catalog as a gift of his loyalty.

Around 1892, Renoir developed rheumatoid arthritis. In 1907, he moved to the warmer climate of "Les Collettes," a farm at Cagnes-sur-Mer, close to the Mediterranean coast. Renoir painted even during the last 20 years of his life when arthritis severely hampered his movement, and he was wheelchair-bound. He developed progressive deformities in his hands and ankylosis of his right shoulder, requiring him to adapt his painting technique. It is often said that in the advanced stages of his arthritis, he painted by strapping a brush to his arm, but other sources say that this is not true. During this period he created sculptures by directing an assistant who worked the clay. Renoir also utilized a moving canvas or picture roll to facilitate painting large works with his limited joint mobility.

In 1919, Renoir visited the Louvre to see his paintings hanging with the old masters.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir died in the village of Cagnes-sur-Mer, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, on December 3, 1919.

On the Terrace, 1881

Two of Renoir's paintings have sold for more than $70 million. Bal au moulin de la Galette, Montmartre sold for $78.1 million in 1990.

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