The art of Claude Monet (1840-1926) is the epitome of impressionism. He was tirelessly looking for possibilities to represent the variability of light and colours in many atmospheric variations to different times of the day.

He was born in Paris on the coast of Normandy in Le Havre, where his father ran a small general store. His first artist made in the field of caricature Monet, but then turned to the plain-air painting. The pastel shades were feeding on his canvases. His paintings have been repeatedly rejected by the official Paris Salon, but Monet and his friends, Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley were undaunted. So they created wonderful images that increasingly left behind the strict rules of academic.

But met severe financial crises of Monet and his pregnant mistress Camille. During the Franco-German war Monet with the young family fled to London. After the war they settled in Argenteuil. This small town of Paris picturesquely situated on the Seine located then became a magnet for a number of impressionist painters: Edouard Manet, Gustave Caillebotte, Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley met them there, to exorcise their impressions on canvas. In a first independent exhibition of the grouping was given a picture of Monet "impression Sunrise” her name.

After the death of Camille, Monet moved with his second wife Alice to Giverny. There he attained the life, which dream of own gardens even designed by him: The flowering garden with Japanese bridges and ponds full of water lilies inspired Monet that show the changing flora as stunning decorative harmony of nature.

The estate by Monet's son 1966 of the French Academy of Beaux Art bequeathed, and since 1980 the "Claude Monet Foundation” was an inexhaustible source of inspiration. Today the garden at Giverny is the goal of many art lovers and who visited it, feels transported directly in the image world of the artist. In the spring all in colourful flower and given the real, which painted by Monet, one is amazed how exactly he at all artistic self-will has captured the scenery. "In my garden I work continuously and with love, the most I need flowers. My heart is always in Giverny.

Separation of Giverny catch me hard... never would I find such a beautiful place ", was Monet’s firm conviction, Monet died on 5th of December 1926 in his beloved Giverny. Monet has been called the inventor of coloured dreams. But he was much more, he sought to achieve always his idea of a painting in the open air. For his painting was always crucial as he sees, not what he sees.

The style of Impressionism that emerged in French painting in 1870 owes its name to the Claude Monet's landscape 'Impression, Soleil Levant'. After initial refusal it began a true triumphant advance.

Such painters as Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Auguste Renoir and others created motifs from everyday life, urban and landscape scenes in a bright, natural light.

Impressionism can be seen as a reaction to the academic painting. The emphasis was not on content with its strict rules of painting structure, but on the object as it appears at any given moment, in an often random cut out. The reality was seen in its whole color variety in natural lighting. The studio painting was replaced by the open-air painting.

The brightening of the palette and the dissolution of firm contours was accompanied by a new way of handling with color. Often, the colors were no longer mixed on the palette but side by side on the canvas so that the final impression lies in the eye of the beholder with a certain distance. In "Pointillism", (with such painters as Georges Seurat or Paul Signac) this principle was carried to the extreme.

Outside France, Impressionism was taken up by such painters as Max Slevogt, Max Liebermann and Lovis Corinth in Germany, and by James A. M. Whistler in the United States.

In sculpture, the impressionism expressed itself only conditionally. In the works of Auguste Rodin, who is considered one of the main representatives, you can see a resolution of the surfaces in which the play of light and shadow is included in the artistic expression. Degas and Renoir created sculptures as well.