Claude Monet
Founder of Impressionism, Water Lilies
Most quoted
"Try to forget what objects you have before you – a tree, a house, a field, or whatever. Merely think, here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you."
— from Advice to Lilla Cabot Perry
"For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment; but the surrounding atmosphere brings it to life – the light and the air which vary continually."
— from Interview, 1890
"I am working at a furious pace. I am afraid of the sun, afraid of the wind, afraid of the clouds, afraid of the rain, afraid of the fog, afraid of the frost, afraid of the snow."
— from Monet's letters
All quotes by Claude Monet (341)
I want to paint the air in which the bridge, the house and the boat are to be found - the beauty of the air around them, and that is nothing less than the impossible.
People discuss my art and pretend to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.
Color is my day-long obsession, dream and delight.
The richness I achieve comes from Nature, the source of my inspiration.
I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.
Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand as if it were necessary to understand, when it's simply necessary to love.
I must dwell apart in the desert, I said, or I shall lose my temper.
It's on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly.
I am following Nature without being able to grasp her, I chase her always and continually.
I work as if possessed, without thinking of tomorrow.
The light constantly changes, and that alters the atmosphere and beauty of things every minute.
I am a prisoner of my dreams, but I am free in my art.
To see the effect of light on form, that's what interests me.
I have only tried to realize my own dreams.
Nature is but a name for an aggregate of phenomena.
One is not a born impressionist, one becomes one.
My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece.
I paint what I see, not what I know.
The world doesn't understand, and I am almost always alone.
Art is a harmony parallel with nature.
Contemporaries of Claude Monet
Other Visual Artss born within 50 years of Claude Monet (1840–1926).