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 am chasing chimeras, but I am happy.
Light is the most important person in the picture.
I want the unobtainable. Other artists can do the possible.
My wish is to stay always like this, living quietly in a corner of nature.
Every day I study nature, and I try to understand her.
I am not a realist, I am an impressionist.
The sun! The god of painters!
I have no other wish than to live in harmony with nature.
Painting from nature is not copying the object, it is realizing one's sensations.
I am lost in the beauty of the moment.
The essence of a landscape is the air that surrounds it.
I paint the fleeting moment.
Life is a dream, and painting is my way to capture it.
I seek the impossible in every stroke.
Nature's beauty is infinite, and so is my inspiration.
I live for the light that changes everything.
Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.
In my garden, I find peace and endless subjects.
The true painter must be able to merge with nature.
I am always dissatisfied with what I do.
Contemporaries of Claude Monet
Other Visual Artss born within 50 years of Claude Monet (1840–1926).