Claude Monet's Creative Genius: Father of Impressionism
Claude Monet, known as the father of Impressionism, changed art by painting brief moments and showing how light plus air look at a single instant. He started in Le Havre, later moved to Paris and loved nature but also early ways of painting. He left old rules behind and used strong, untested brush moves to show light as well as shadow as they shifted.
Monet's shift to Impressionism became a turning point for modern art. He turned away from stiff academic rules and offered a view that welcomed sudden action, motion or feeling. He chose bright color and laid on thick, free brush marks - a riverbank or a haystack looked as if it sat in front of the viewer at that exact second. That method gave Impressionism its heart also changed how painters set to work.
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One clear set of works is the “Old Palace of Paris” group. With quick marks and loud color, Monet painted stone façades while sunlight moved across them. The set proves his rare skill at holding on to beauty that lasts only minutes turning old city walls into pictures that carry mood.
Monet's mark on art runs deep. Early critics mocked him - yet his break from habit next to his control of light gave art a new path. As a leader of the Impressionist group, he pushed dozens of painters - both peers and those who came later - to study trees, water plus sky with fresh eyes and to let color act in odd ways.
His reach crossed the ocean - Georgia O’Keeffe besides Jackson Pollock took parts of his method but also built their own new styles. Monet's way of thinking set the stage for post-Impressionists and for abstract painters telling each new wave to look at art from a different angle. Claude Monet still is a signal of creative force as well as his Impressionist canvases keep viewers stirred across the world.
