Claude Monet

Claude Monet, alongside his contemporaries Paul Cézanne, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley and Edgar Degas, played a defining role in the emergence of Impressionism. Frustration with the aesthetic rigidities and conservative standards of Paris’s L’Académie des Beaux‑Arts motivated these artists to defy the powerful traditions of the academy and to make art that asserted creative independence, reflected modern life and championed a new approach to painting outdoors, to enable the capture of the colour and light of nature.

In a concerted effort to depict the ever-changing atmospheric and climatic conditions in the landscape, Monet painted extensive series of his various subjects. One of his most radical and late innovations emerged following his move from Paris to Giverny in 1883, where he cultivated expansive gardens, including a large pond. Monet’s observations of seasonal changes on and around the pond, and especially on the flowering water lilies, eventually became the primary subject of approximately three hundred paintings – his series, Nymphéas – most of them produced in the last two decades of his life.

Monet’s earliest paintings in this series contain the pond and its surrounding garden within a standard compositional structure of foreground, middle ground and distance. The large format of many of the canvases served to immerse the viewer in the fathomless liquidity and verdant, floral beauty of the lily pond. Toledo’s Water Lilies underlines Monet’s ability to gradually dissolve the conventional pictorial space to the point where the pond becomes a lyrically abstract field of interacting cool colours. Water, pond plants, garden foliage and reflections of the sky coalesce in a single, immersive surface. Monet’s energised horizontal and vertical brushwork creates a pictorial space that is simultaneously dynamic and remarkably tranquil.

Text by Tansy Curtin, Assistant Director, Artistic and Collection Programs

Monet defied tradition by painting everyday nature in loose, expressive ways. Instead of telling stories or painting perfect details, he focused on light, colour, reflection, and feeling.

Impressionist painting of a garden pond by Claude Monet

Explore & Respond

  • ideas, practices, works and contexts for the arts in the lives of individuals and groups across cultures, times, places and communities 
  • the diversity of how, where and why people create, make, perform, present and respond across arts forms, and the roles that the arts play in lives, cultures and communities 
  • ways in which the arts communicate cultural and aesthetic knowledge, purpose, meaning and emotion  
  • ways in which the arts develop empathy and understanding of multiple perspectives, across personal, local, regional, national and global contexts. 

Developing practices and skills

  • creative skills for using and manipulating the elements, principles, conventions and/or processes of arts forms 
  • using available materials and technologies to develop and communicate ideas, perspectives and/or meaning 
  • critical skills in observing, reflecting, analysing, evaluating and/or documenting their own and others’ arts-making practices, using language and/or embodied practices. 

Creating and Making

  • individual and/or collaborative work using available resources/materials in diverse existing, emerging and innovative forms, styles and/or genres  
  • new work, which may be refined and realised, or may be presented as a work in progress  
  • interpretations of work created by others and interpretations of their own work as performers; interpreting involves informed observation, analysis, reflection and evaluation. 

Presenting and Performing

  • share their work using available spaces, materials, technologies and/or digital tools   
  • plan, select, design and rehearse their presentations and performances  

Composition

Composition is the placement or arrangement of objects or subject matter in a work of art, for example, figures, buildings, trees etc.

Composition can also relate to how an artist has organised visual elements and principles such as line, shape, colour, texture, pattern, rhythm etc. in a work of art.

Harmonious Colours

Harmonious or (analogous) colours are next to each other on the colour wheel. Complementary colours are those opposite each other on the colour wheel.

My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece
Claude Monet
  • Do Monet’s paintings look realistic?
  • How does Monet make water appear to move?
  • How does Monet use colour?
  • What colours has Monet used? How realistic are they?
  • Are the colours blended together?
  • What marks does Monet make with his paintbrush?
  • Are the shapes clear and defined?
  • Why do you think this represents Monet’s ‘Special Place’?
  • What would be the special place that you would paint?

When visiting AGSA you might take particular note of the subject matter, colour palette, and mark making used by Monet. Compare these observations to a work of art made by a different artist.

  • Why might artists want to break traditional rules? What do you think are traditional rules of art marking? Make a list as a class. Are there rules today regarding what makes art, or what artists should or shouldn't do? Who decides these rules?

Visit a local or national park near your school. Spend time sketching details of the natural world and taking reference photographs you might like to use in the classroom for a larger landscape project.

If you visit the Botanic Gardens be sure to visit the Amazon Waterlily Pavilion and sketch the waterlilies here. This visit could be the catalyst for a science and art to overlap as you learn about the roles of different plant species.

Classroom Preparation

In preparing for a unit of work looking at Monet, introduce students to colour theory, the colour wheel, colour mixing and harmonious colours.

Take a look at our 'Guide to using artists as a starting point' flowchart to see our approach to responding to Monet. Here we prioritised key themes and ideas rather than copying Monet's paintings.

Download Flowchart>>

Paint an outdoor place (garden, creek, park, beach, backyard) that is special to you, using impressionist techniques inspired by Monet.

  • In preparation, experiment with colour, colour mixing, and blending.
  • Practise mark-making techniques including those inspired by Monet - look closely at these marks.
  • Sketch out an image of your special place. You might like to use a photograph for reference.
  • Paint the scene using mark-making and colour palette influenced by Monet’s work.
Collaborative Class Installation
Activity in Focus

Recommended for Primary Students

Spend some time outside drawing in nature. Listen to the sounds. Notice the aromas you smell.

  • Draw basic shapes of leaves or flowers that pique your interest. If you get to visit the Botanic Gardens you may even like to draw a waterlily shape as we have done for this example, but you might choose fauna specific to your local environment.
  • Back in the classroom, decide on the shape you will all be using.
  • Draw the shape onto coloured paper (or use a template around A5 size). Carefully cut out the shape. Depending on the age of the children, these shapes may need to be pre-cut.
  • Use your chosen media, e.g., soft pastels, oil pastels, magazine collage, pencil crayon or paint to make overlapping marks in dabs and short strokes to cover the shape.
  • Choose your harmonious colour palette. Layer your colours including both light over dark and dark over light.
  • Try blending and aim for soft edges.
  • Display all works of art together as one class installation.
  • Experiment by working on green, blue or purple paper.
  • Don’t over blend the colours; let the colours sit next to each other.
  • Avoid scrubbing the colour together, blend gently using your finger.