Claude Monet

Founding figure of French Impressionism, devoted to capturing light, atmosphere, and the changing seasons. The movement itself takes its name from one of his canvases — Impression, Sunrise, exhibited in 1874 — which a hostile critic mocked as a mere 'impression.' Monet spent his long career proving the insult right and turning it into a method, working outdoors in series so he could record the same haystack, cathedral or river view across hours and weather. From 1883 he lived at Giverny, where he designed the water garden that would dominate the last thirty years of his work. Cataracts blurred his vision in old age, and the late Water Lilies — vast, almost abstract panels — were painted by a near-blind man who had decided that what the eye guessed was as truthful as what it saw.