Claude Oscar Monet was a French impressionist painter who brought the study of the transient effects of natural light to its most refined expression.

Monet was born on November 14, 1840, in Paris, but he spent most of his childhood in Le Havre. There, in his teens, he studied drawing; he also painted seascapes and landscapes outside with the French painter Eugene Louis Boudin. By 1859 Monet had committed himself to a career as an artist and began to spend as much time in Paris as possible. During the 1860s he was associated with the pre-impressionist painter Edouard Manet, and with other aspiring French painters destined to form the impressionist school�Camille Pissarro, Pierre Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley.

Working outside, Monet painted simple landscapes and scenes of contemporary middle-class society, and he began to have some success at official exhibitions. As his style developed, however, Monet violated one traditional artistic convention after another in the interest of direct artistic expression. His experiments in rendering outdoor sunlight with a direct, sketch-like application of bright color became more and more daring, and he seemed to cut himself off from the possibility of a successful career as a conventional painter supported by the art establishment.