Impressions of Monet

Claude Monet?s painting "Impression, Sunrise", first exhibited in 1874, established him as the leader of the Impressionist movement in France. The innovative style of Monet and the other Impressionist painters (including Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne, and Camille Pissarro) broke from past traditions of figurative painting. Impressionists used short brushstrokes and juxtaposed color and light in new ways that captured fleeting moments, or impressions, of a scene. "Impressions of Monet" introduces young readers to the everyday details of the painter?s life and family, and follows his artistic development to the culmination of his career, the water-lily series he painted during his final years at Giverny. Monet not only created great beauty, he laid the foundations of modern art.