When I toured the Detroit Institute of Arts recently I found many interesting works of art. What I most enjoyed was watching my 4-year-old daughter’s reactions to the different sculptures and ancient artifacts. It was fascinating to see how she personalized pieces like Leisure Hours by John Everett Millais by noting that the girls in the painting were “kids like me and have fish like me!” But what always catches my eye is French Impressionism and Claude Monet is my favorite artist. I enjoy looking at an Impressionist painting up close to see the thick textured brushstrokes then slowly backing up and watching it all come into focus.
Gladioli is a beautiful impressionistic painting done by Claude Monet in 1876 that now hangs in the Detroit Institute of Arts. The impressionistic style is an interesting one; up close this painting is a blur, but standing at a distance it comes into focus. This oil on canvas features tall, elegant gladioli with tiny pale yellow butterflies dancing above them in a garden in Argenteuil with Monet’s first wife, Camille, in the background. Camille, in her lovely blue gown and parasol, seems to be leisurely strolling through the garden on a bright summer day. Monet makes use of the entire color spectrum with the warm reds, yellows, oranges and greens of the flowers in the foreground and blues and darker shades in the background. One thing that makes this painting unique is that Camille is not the focal point of the picture; rather she is used as a reference for size and space in the picture (Henshaw, 1995). The eye is drawn to the gladioli themselves, up to their tops where the actual flowers and color are. Initially the butterflies are almost lost in the gladioli; they may go unnoticed if they are not mentioned to the viewer.
In the same year this painting was done, 1876, Monet exhibited 18 paintings in an Impressionist show in Durand-Ruel’s gallery. He also met the department store director, Ernest Hoschedé who commissioned Monet to do panels for his château. This is also the year he began the Gare Saint Lazare paintings (Heinrich, 2001).
Monet, himself, began his artistic career drawing caricatures of prominent figures in his hometown of Le Havre. While Monet was living in Le Havre, he began studying with Johan Barthold Jongkind. His family, however, did not like Jongkind’s drinking so they tried to send Monet to the Académie. But, Monet did not like the tone of the Académie and had no intention of attending. Instead Monet joined Charles Gleyre’s independent tuition studio. While Gleyre’s style was idealistic and very much in line with the Salon’s, he encouraged freedom of style and independent thought in his students. Surprisingly though, Monet mostly rejected Gleyre’s teaching and mainly used the classes as an opportunity to study nudes and network with other contemporaries. This is where he and Camille Pissarro met Frédéric Bazille, Alfred Sisley, and Auguste Renoir. This quintet was the heart of the Impressionist movement.
He also studied with Eugène Bourdin, who introduced him to the new technique called plein-airisme, which literally translates as plain airism and simply means to paint out doors. While Monet did study with other artists, Bourdin seems to have made the biggest impression upon him. Monet said of Bourdin, “If I became a painter it was thanks to Bourdin. He was a man of infinite kindness and took it upon himself to teach me. Gradually my eyes were opened, I really understood nature, and at the same time I began to love it.” The pieces Monet painted that featured people were a reflection of the modern era and everyday life of his time. However, Monet’s garden paintings did not have political or social motivations; they were works of beauty reflecting nature’s most splendid colors and moods. Monet was among the first to utilize plein-airisme and he certainly made full use of it. He made several series of paintings that contained the same subject matter at different times of day and seasons in different lighting conditions. Of his own work Monet said, "The subject is of secondary importance to me; what I want to reproduce is what exists between the subject and me". Monet’s fascination was the light and that’s something not easily captured indoors, particularly in that time period when you would not have found electricity in every home.
The painting for which Impressionism was named is Monet’s Impression, soleil levant for this and other reasons most people consider Monet to be the father of Impressionism. He was a pioneer in this style of painting; while most artists of his time were using techniques such as pointillism, fauvism and cubism, Monet was making his way with his own style (Foundation Claude Monet à Giverny, 2005). He began with realism that gradually morphed into Impressionism, as we know it today. Christoph Heinrich explained Impressionism very well.
An impression was the visual impact made by a landscape or other motif in a single moment. The eye does not consciously register all the available detail in a moment; it is only by gazing at buildings, passers-by or other things for longer that we see individual windows, decorative features on façades, a fashionable hat or dignified face, and in the course of this longer scrutiny the brain catches up with the eye, erasing the first impression and substituting the sum of experience, conventional perception, or imaginative projection.
Impressionism was not accepted right away, Monet and his fellows were considered radicals and were often ridiculed. However, this did nothing to deter them from their work; when the Salon would not accept their work, they created their own exhibition. Their Société anonyme des artistes, peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs, etc. was not nearly as successful as the famous Salon, but at least it gave the artists a chance to show their work. Monet not only set trends, but he followed them too. Many painters, in order to gain prominence and attention among the many paintings in the Salon, began creating huge pieces that often took up an entire wall. When Monet was finally accepted into the Salon, he began the practice of creating these huge works called grandes machines (Heinrich, 2001).
It was later in life when Monet became an established artist that he was able to do some of his best work. Monet’s art was not limited to oil on canvas; Monet was also a gardener and he designed his man-made pond with the Japanese bridge in Giverny. In this way he created the subjects of his paintings. His pond contained every species of water lily known and he made full use of that in his Water Lily series. I had the great fortune of seeing the entire Water Lily series in person at the Chicago Art Institute when the exhibit containing the most Monet paintings ever to be together at one time toured the world about ten years ago. Much of his Water Lily paintings were the aforementioned grandes machines. The beautiful pond and gardens Monet designed can still be seen today at his home in Giverny, France.
The development of his career was very important to the development of the Impressionist style. He reflected well middle class Parisian culture and society in his works. His fascination with light and bold use of color compared with the other painters of his time made him a brilliant artist indeed. Monet was a very prominent artist and still influences other artists to this day.

References
Foundation Claude Monet à Giverny, 2005. Claude Monet. http://www.fondation-monet.com/uk/biographie/index.html Retrieved April 1, 2007.
Heinrich, Christoph, 2001. Monet. Barnes and Noble Books. New York, NY.
Henshaw, Julia P., 1995. The Detroit Institute of Arts: A Visitor’s Guide. Wayne State University Press. Detroit, MI.