Claude Monet Quotes

Here are some famous Claude Monet quotes by the French Impressionist painter.

Who was Claude Monet?

Claude Monet was a French Impressionist painter who was born on November 14, 1840, in Paris, France. He was the second son of Adolphe Monet and Louise-Justine Aubree. Monet’s family moved to Le Havre, Normandy when he was a child, and it was here that he discovered his love for painting. He began his artistic training at the Academie Suisse in Paris in 1859.

Monet’s early work was influenced by the Realism and Romanticism movements of the time. However, he is most well-known for his later works, which are characterized by their loose brushwork, bright colors, and emphasis on the play of light and shadow. His most famous works include his series of Water Lilies paintings, which he created in his later years.

Throughout his life, Monet struggled with financial difficulties and health problems, including cataracts, which affected his vision. However, he continued to paint until his death on December 5, 1926, in Giverny, France.

Claude Monet’s Contribution to Art History

Claude Monet’s contribution to art history is significant and far-reaching. He was a key figure in the development of the Impressionist movement, which rejected the strict academic style of painting in favor of capturing the momentary effects of light and color. Monet’s use of broken brushstrokes and vivid colors in his paintings helped to create a new visual language that emphasized the emotional response to the subject rather than the subject itself.

One of Monet’s most significant contributions to art history was his exploration of the relationship between light and color. He sought to capture the ever-changing effects of natural light on the landscape, and his paintings are characterized by their bright, saturated colors and the use of light to create a sense of atmosphere and mood. His innovations in this area influenced countless artists who followed him and helped to pave the way for modern art.

Monet’s later works, including his series of Water Lilies paintings, were also groundbreaking in their abstraction and emphasis on the interplay of color and form. His work helped to push the boundaries of what was considered acceptable in art, and paved the way for the development of abstract art in the 20th century.

Famous Claude Monet Quotes

• “I would like to paint the way a bird sings”
• “Now I really feel the landscape. I can be bold and include every tone of pink and blue: it’s enchanting, it’s delicious”
• “Most people think I paint fast. I paint very slowly”
• “Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand as if it were necessary to understand when it is simply necessary to love
• “My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece”
• “Every day I discover even more beautiful things. It is intoxicating me, and I want to paint it all, my head is bursting”
• “I am very depressed and deeply disgusted with painting. It is really a continual torture atmosphere which gives subjects their true value”
• “I can only draw what I see”
• “No, I’m not a great painter. Neither am I a great poet”
• “I must have flowers, always, and always”
• “It’s on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly”
• “I’m hard at it, working stubbornly on a series of different effects, but at this time of the year the sun sets so fast that it’s impossible to keep up with it”
• “I don’t believe I shall ever leave Giverny”
• “I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers”
• “I have such a desire to do everything, my head is bursting with it”
• “No one is an artist unless he carries his picture in his head before painting it, and is sure of his method and composition”
• “Color is my daylong obsession, joy, and torment”
• “For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment”
• “Zaandam is wonderful. There is enough to paint here for a lifetime”
• “I’m never finished with my paintings. The further I get, the more I seek the impossible, and the more powerless I feel”
• “My work is always better when I am alone and follow my own impressions”
• “It took me time to understand my water lilies. I had planted them for the pleasure of it; I grew them without ever thinking of painting them”
• “I am following Nature without being able to grasp her… I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers”
• “One can do something if one can see and understand it”
• “More than ever despite my poor sight, I need to paint and paint unceasingly. It’s enough to drive one mad”
• “The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding”
• “I am only good at two things, and those are: gardening and painting”
• “Impression. I was certain of it. I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some impression in it. And what freedom, what ease of workmanship! Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished than that seascape”
• “The light constantly changes, and that alters the atmosphere and beauty of things every minute”
• “Every day I discover more and more beautiful things”
• “The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration”
• “The further I get, the more I regret how little I know”
• “Never, even as a child, would I bend to a rule”
• “Aside from painting and gardening, I am good for nothing”
• “People discuss my art and pretend to understand as if it were necessary to understand when it’s simply necessary to love”
• “No one but myself knows the anxiety I go through and the trouble I give myself to finish paintings which do not satisfy me and seem to please so very few others”
• “If the world really looks like that I will paint no more!”
• “When you go out to paint, 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”
• “I despise the opinion of the press and the so-called critics”
• “If I became a painter, it is to Eugène Boudin that I owe that fact”
• “I want to paint the way a bird sings”
• “My wish is to stay always like this, living quietly in a corner of nature”
• “What I like most of all in London is the fog”
• “Eventually, my eyes were opened, and I really understood nature. I learned to love at the same time”
• “What keeps my heart awake is the colorful silence”
• “These palm trees are driving me crazy and also the motifs are extremely difficult to render, to put down on canvas. Everywhere is so lush”
• “I don’t think I’m made for any earthly kind of pleasure”
• “Water Lilies’ is an extension of my life. Without water, the lilies cannot live, as I am without art”
• “City life doesn’t really suit me”
• “I’m not performing miracles, I’m using up and wasting a lot of paint”
• “I get madder and madder on giving back what I feel”
• “The more I live, the more I regret how little I know”
• “Everything I have earned has gone into these gardens”
• “Étretat is becoming more and more amazing…it’s superb and I rage at my inability to express it all better. You’d need to use both hands and cover hundreds of canvases”
• “Colors pursue me like a constant worry. They even worry me in my sleep”
• “The essence of the motif is the mirror of water, whose appearance alters at every moment”
• “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. For me, it is only the surrounding”