Claude Monet (1840-1926) wasn't born in Upper Normandy. He was born on the fifth floor of 45 Rue Laffitte, Paris. A year later, Claude's mum went into labour in the lift, and his brother Zoot was born on the second, third and fourth floors. Claude's dad was a greengrocer and his mum was a singer, who would lull the boys to sleep with "Oui, nous n'avons pas de bananes" and "J'ai un luverly bunch de noix de coco." The Monets moved to Le Harvre, Upper Normandy in 1845.
When Claude was 16, he met the painter Eugène Boudin on the beach at Le Harvre. Boudin picked up his hat, returned Claude's frisbee and explained that he was painting "en plein air" - outdoors! Apparently, before the invention of toothpaste-tube-style oil paint around this time, everyone painted indoors (painters had to mix their own paint with linseed oil and pigment powder, which would blow everywhere if you tried to mix it outdoors. So why didn't they mix it indoors and then run outside with it and paint really quickly? I dunno, ask them). Boudin explained other techniques for outdoor painting to young Claude, such as wrapping up warm, taking a thermos and some sandwiches, and practising saying "Oh really, it's nothing" for when people come and look.
Claude took to plein-air painting like an impressionist to lilies, and was soon to be seen out-and-about with his hi-tech French Easel (Easel, incidentally, comes fro the German 'Esel' (donkey) because it carries things, or possibly because it squeaks). In 1861, Claude was sent to Algeria for a seven-year tour with the First Regiment of African Light Cavalry. He found the landscape uninspiring and produced only three canvasses (all lost): "Sand dunes with distant sand", "The same sand dunes later that day" and "Anyone know where I can find some lilies?" When Claude contracted typhoid, his auntie Marie-Jeanne Lecadre offered to get him out of the army, on condition he study art at university and learn to paint properly. Indoors.
À suivre...
La Résidence - THE French Property People
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