The Life and Works Of MONET

There’s a Scholastic edition by Hodge (“Claude Monet”) offered up as an alternative to Hodge’s comprehensive book “Monet: His Life and Works in 500 images”. I assumed it was just an alternative cover and not a completely different book intended for preteens. My bad for not double checking the details.

The Artists in Their Time series explores some of the most influential artist of the 20th century. The goal is to discuss the work of each artist in relation to not only their life but also what was happening in the world around them at the time. Here Susie Hodge looks at Claude Monet, one of the greatest artists of all time whose work is so popular it adorns thousands of items from cookie tins and mouse pads to tablecloths. I have also seen some of his famous paintings of water lilies reproduced as wall murals that you can use to decorate your home (and do not think that I have not thought of decorating a master bedroom suite around such a mural, other paintings of Monet, and as close to his particular shade of blue as I can get for painting the walls). Hodge breaks down Monet's life into a series of distinct periods (e.g, First Success, Monte's Garden), within which she highlights key elements (e.g., money problems, portable paints). Sidebars are devoted to other key points (e.g., Monet's Eyesight, The Influence of Japan). Usually on the bottom left of each two-page spread you will find a Timeline that traces key events in Monet's life (the entire Timeline is repeated in the back of the book). In addition to covering the biographical details of Monet's life, the emphasis is on the evolution of his art and the birth of Impressionism. Since the name of the movement was coined by the critic Louis Leroy in his insulting article "Exhibition of Impressionists" after seeing Monet's "Impression, Sunrise," Monet was going to be an important figure in the history of the Impressionists on that basis alone. But then the rest of his paintings would help make him the paradigmatic Impressionist artist. Certainly he holds that position for me. The book is amply illustrated and you have to get to the final pages on Monet's life before you will not find three illustrations on each two-page spread. A dozen of Monet's paintings, including "Impression, Sunrise" and "Interior of the Gare Saint-Lazare," are reproduced on right-hand pages, along with comments on the paintings and often a quote from Monet. Two other Monet paintings are reproduced in smaller fashion and Hodge makes an effort to show the works of artists from whom Monet learned to paint (e.g., Eugene Boudin's "Evening, Le Havre"), those of his friends (e.g., "Self-portrait" by Camille Pissarro), and those who came after him that were inspired by Monet's art (e.g., Vincent van Gogh's "Irises"). Other paintings reflect such events as the Franco-Prussian War and Exposition Universelle of 1889. There are also photographs reflecting the times, although the ones that I found most interesting attempted to show what some of the thing Monet painted in his Impressionist works "really" looked like. One of the interesting aspects of the book are the various paintings of Monet himself done by other artists, from Charles-Maire Lhuillier and Edouard Manet to Auguste Renoir, Gustave Caillebotte and Joh