Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
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Art & Leisure  IF THE 1870S HAD ENDED BADLY FOR CLAUDE MONET (1840-1926), the 1880s promised better. The early years of the 1870s had been happy enough: Impressionism had been born and Monet was its acknowledged leader. He, Camille, and their son Jean were living in Argenteuil. Just 20 min-utes by rail from the Gare St-Lazare in Paris, the town was close enough to the stimulation of the city, yet far enough away for the tranquility of the countryside. Monet's col-leagues and former fellow-students?among them Renoir, Sisley, Pissarro, Caillebotte, even Manet?visited fre-quently to exchange views and to paint. They left a visual record of the town recognized today as the "cradle of Im-pressionism." But in the midst of these images of a halcyon time, Camille's health had begun to decline; she died in 1879 after a lengthy illness, toward the end of which she had de-livered the couple's second child (JAMA cover, August 28, 2002). But even before Camille's death, misfortune had visited the couple. Never one to plan for a "rainy day," Monet found himself in urgent financial difficulties when income from his pictures dropped off sharply. They were somewhat eased when he, Camille, and their two children moved farther away from Paris, to Vetheuil. There they set up a joint house-hold with Ernest Hoschede, a formerly wealthy banker and collector (now bankrupt), his wife Alice, and their six children. The arrangement was unconventional, to say the least, as Hoschede was frequently away on business and Camille had in the meantime died. In 1883, after three years in Vetheuil, Monet, Alice, and the children moved to Giverny; though Monet would make frequent trips outside of Giverny principally to the Normandy coast?in search of new inspiration, Monet made Giverny his home for the remaining 53 years of his life. The move to Giverny marked more than a departure from Vetheuil, however. It also marked a change in Monet's style, a noticeable turn from the Impressionism he had fathered (which had all but ended anyway) into a style that concen-trated more on forms, as well as on light and color. He added mauves and oranges to his palette. The forms became more solid; the strokes themselves were used to represent the ob-ject's structure rather than only the momentary movement Claude Monet (1840-1926), The Cliff, Etretat, Sunset, 1883, French. Oil on canvas. 55.3 x 80.7 cm. of a light beam from its surface. Earlier works had sug-gested the briefest of moments, like snatches of laughter heard among the leafy trees on a summer's day. Now he turned to the ocean and to rocks. Time remained evanescent: as be-fore, it came and went with the light, but now it also had eternal aspects, like the earth. The Cliff, Etretat, Sunset (cover), which dates from 1883 and thus must be one of the earliest works from Etretat, displays many of these features: the or-ange sun, the hint of mauve in the evening sky, the care-fully placed blues and greens of the water, the solidly built cliff with its graceful and distinctive arch carved from thou-sands of years, the wind-swept sky hinting at the morrow while reflecting the day just ending. In Giverny, Monet became prosperous enough to be able to purchase the property in 1890 and to add to it in later years. He was also able to marry Alice after the death of Ernest. Whereas Monet had always insisted that painting be done outside the studio, en plein air, at Giverny he now began to turn the outdoors into his studio. Over the succeeding years he built his world-famous and enduring flower gardens, watergardens, even a Japanese-style bridge; Giverny itself became a plein air studio where he could study natural light and its effects on color and form to his heart's content. It was there that he created the 48 canvasses that have become his masterpiece, the famed Waterlily series. M. Therese Southgate, MD Courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh (http://ncartmuseum .org); purchased with funds from the State of North Carolina. The Cover Section Editor: M. Therese Southgate, MD, Senior Contributing Editor. 2370 JAMA, November 20, 2002?Vol 288, No. 19 Art & Leisure  Art & Leisure  Art & Leisure  Art & Leisure 
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