My charcoal caricatures are becoming wide-known! I’ve been making good business already selling them for 10-20 francs apiece! I’m going to be a millionaire in no time!
1851---My Journey to Becoming an Artist
Finally told Dad that I don’t want to follow in his footsteps as a grocery businessman, and that I want to become an artist! I think Mom understands…she is after all a singer. I’m going to a secondary school for art in Normandy!
1857
My mom died :( I had to quit school and move in with my Auntie Marie-Jeanne. She at least understands my need for art. I'll never forget my mentor Eugene Boudin who introduced and taught me the techniques for using oil paints and to paint outdoors (or as he likes to call "en plein air") I’m going to be traveling to Paris soon. It is the center for the arts! I can’t wait to visit the Louvre and maybe meet other artists like me.
PARIS!!!
I met another artist today named Eduard Manet! He is so talented!
PARIS!!!
I met another artist today named Eduard Manet! He is so talented!
1862
Just got back from the army! Signed up for the 1st regiment of African light cavalry in Algeria for a 7-year period, but came down with typhoid fever. My aunt made a deal with me. She would pay to get me out of active duty if I agreed to complete an art course at an art school. Talk about a good deal!!!! :D
1863---Breaking the Rules
School is great! Made some new friends: Pierre-August Renoir, Alfred Sisley, and a dude that’s in the medical field named Frederic Bazille. It’s fun painting together. We started a new painting style since we’re tired of the Academies’ themes, dark color, and lack of expression. Common characteristics of our radical painting include: visible brush strokes, open-composition, light and its changing qualities, movement, ordinary subjects, and the play of different perspectives. We’re breaking all the rules. The Academy even looks down on painting outdoors. We meet regularly at a Café afterwards. Manet shows up too! He just showed me the other day his painting that he submitted for the Academy’s Salon artshow. The jury better approve it!
WHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTT???????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Luncheon at the Grass is a fantastic painting! I can’t believe that the jury denied it!!! What’s so wrong about a naked chick having a picnic with two clothed guys? They enter paintings with naked people ALL of the time at the Salon. Who cares that this isn’t historical or allegorical! The style is exquisite! I’m so sick and tired of all their standards! If I see another historical or religious painting I’m just going to go jump off a bridge.
I guess they’ve been getting a lot of complaints. Emperor Napeleon III decreed that the public be allowed to judge the works. Ha! Take that jury!
WHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTT???????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Luncheon at the Grass is a fantastic painting! I can’t believe that the jury denied it!!! What’s so wrong about a naked chick having a picnic with two clothed guys? They enter paintings with naked people ALL of the time at the Salon. Who cares that this isn’t historical or allegorical! The style is exquisite! I’m so sick and tired of all their standards! If I see another historical or religious painting I’m just going to go jump off a bridge.
I guess they’ve been getting a lot of complaints. Emperor Napeleon III decreed that the public be allowed to judge the works. Ha! Take that jury!
1866---Camille
Finally gained some recognition for my paintings! Thank you, my lovely model Camille <3. The Woman in the Green Dress was sold for 800 francs! I am so tired of being poor.
1868---Depression
What I did today....minus the applause.
I did it. I finally did it. Well, I tried to do it. I jumped off the bridge into the Seine River hoping to drown. Didn’t quite work out. Camille is pregnant with my child. How am I to support them when I’m so poor that I can barely support myself? I still can’t get my paintings into the Paris Salon. I can't keep loaning money from Bazille...
Meet Jean!
1870---War
Franco-Prussian War--- I lost my close friend Bazille to this war. I take Camille and Jean and take refuge to England. Camille and I finally wed this year before the 1870 war.
Here is a painting I did of my wife Camille and my dear friend Bazille.
1873---Wallpaper?!
We’ve been living in a small village outside Paris since 1871. Our painting group created the Cooperative and Anonymous Association of Painters, Sculptures, and Engravers with Manet as our leader (he never participates though ???). We showcase our work independently from the Salon. We gained a lot of new artists and we have 30 members total. Our first showing took a rather large hit from the critics. I took the brunt of it. I received this on my Sunrise Impression 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”
Wallpaper!!!! I’m so going to use Louis Leroy and his newspaper for toilet paper. I’ll show you… The group decided to change our name to the Impressionists. Funny, guys.
1876--Failing health
Camille is sick. It’s going to be hard paying for medicine and paint supplies. My paintings aren’t selling either. I don’t know what to do. I have to borrow money from my friends again.
1879--Camille on her Deathbed
I still can’t believe it. She was 32. What about Michel? Our son that was born just last year? I refuse to live in poverty for another second! We had to move in with our friends Ernest and Alice Hoschede. I owe my well-to-do artist friends money. Manet has been trying to convince us all to submit our paintings to the Salon because that’s where the commissions, prizes, and prestige is!
Ernest became bankrupt last year and fled to Holland, leaving Alice and their kids. Alice is a great woman. She offered to help raise Jean and Michel. They’re leaving me the house so I can work and she is taking the kids to her apartment in Paris for awhile.
I’m thinking about working on a series documenting the French countryside and how the light and weather affect the subject. I’m thinking…let me look out the window-------haystacks!
1893 Giverny---Hard Work Pays Off!!
Alice and I married last year. My series paintings are a great success. The work of Monet is famous! Impressionism is now widely accepted thanks to our revolutionary group! We have enough money to purchase my dream home, the surrounding buildings, and lands. I have so many plans, I can’t wait to start! I’m going to need at least 7 gardeners for what I have in mind…
Bird's Eye View of my land in Giverny
1915 Old Age
Alice died in 1911. My son Jean died in 1914. His wife Blanche has been taking care of me in my old age. Blanche is actually Alice’s daughter. Always been my favorite. Doctor says I have cataracts.
1925
The operation on my eyes in 1923 worked great! Had to re-do some paintings—you wouldn’t believe how many I added too much red and ultraviolet color to because of that terrible condition! End one problem another arises. Turns out I have lung cancer and I have about a year to live. I’m almost 86. It doesn’t get me down anymore. I have my lovely garden to sit and paint in. Just give me a simple funeral and I'll be happy.
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