Claude Monet was the driving force for Impressionist painting in the 1800s, and a master at capturing emotions in water and shadow.

Cottage by Elle Smith
His rapid brush strokes apprehended color and light, with little emphasis on exactness. Monet painted the same scenes of flora as many as 200 times, his brush serving as a “time-lapse camera.”

Four Loons in the Morning by Elle Smith
Monet’s work contrasted with the photographic method of most painters, many of whom trashed his technique as “unsophisticated.” When an art reviewer used the term “impressionism” to disparage his style, Monet and his “radical” painting contemporaries appropriated this term to describe their new painting method. They became Impressionists.

Lone Deer by Elle Smith
The French public soon embraced Monet’s “perspective before nature” philosophy, and in the 1960s…my mother did too.
As a single mom, she had little time to attend college art classes, except occasionally. But in our home, Europe’s great painters crowded spare rooms and the bathroom—where she seized moments to study Monet and his technique without interruption.

Lilacs by Elle Smith