Claude Monet

Claude Monet (1840-1926) was the founder and one of the most consistently unwavering practitioners of the French Impressionist movement. He was known for his series of oil paintings, that often depicted the same subject (usually the French countryside) multiple times, from different perspectives and in different lighting. In 1899, he began painting the water lilies on his estate, first in vertical views with a Japanese bridge as a central feature, and later in a famous series of large-scale paintings that would continue for the next 20 years of his life.