Born on 14th of November, 1840 in Paris, France, Oscar-Claude Monet was an impeccable painter, drawer, and the Father of Impressionism. His career comprised of creating the most beautifully rendered portraits of water lilies, his best work. His other pieces featured landscapes, seascapes, and his wife and great love, Camille Doncieux. His painting “Impression, Sunrise” had started a movement that will soon have changed the art world forever.
Here’s everything you need to know about Claude Monet:

Fact 1: The great artist’s first name isn’t actually Claude! He was born with the name Oscar, instead of the better known and iconic ‘Claude’. He was baptized as Oscar-Claude Monet, and his family name had a lot of weight in the Catholic world, being pretty much responsible for implementing the doctrine in Monet. His father was also named Claude.

Fact 2: Ironically enough, he and his family couldn’t be any more different. While his family revolved around the beauty and holiness of Catholic life, Claude Monet was a self-certified, full blown atheist. His father hated anything and everything that had to do with creativity, whilst Claude was passionate about it and rose to fame because of it. Claude became famous for his drawings and other masterpieces early on, and his father hated them because he aspired for his son to continue the grocery business. His mother, however, was in full support of his artistic career.

Fact 3: The artist had buckled down and married a woman named Camille Doncieux back in 1870. They were a happy family of four, with Camille giving Monet two children before she unfortunately contracted tuberculosis and passed away at the young age of 32.

Fact 4: His wife Camille had served as his inspiration and muse for several of his great pieces, including the first portrait of her he created, entitled “La femme à la robe verte” or “The Woman In The Green Dress”, where the two first became smitten with one another. Several other works with Camille in them were “Jardin à Sainte-Adresse”, “Women in the Garden”, “On the Bank of the Seine”, as well as“Woman with a Parasol”, or “Camille and Jean Monet”.

Fact 5: His most well loved and critically acclaimed masterpiece is his water Lilies Series, for which his paintings were said to be “The Sixtine Chapel of Impressionism”. The series is comprised of 250 masterfully crafted oil paintings depicting soft lilies in cool hues, and were created during the last 30 years of his life.

Fact 6: The great artist was deeply fascinated about the concept of Death-most especially his own! Wait, what?! A common theme within Monet’s paintings was his attempt at exploring death. It was said that Monet had thought about flinging himself into the Seine River to drown because he couldn’t afford to pay all of his bills! He even painted his beloved first wife Camille Doncieux on her deathbed, and the portrait had since been dubbed as his most moving and heartfelt piece.

Fact 7: Aside from being a sublime painter, Monet had also served the army, but was discharged a little while later due to typhoid fever. His mother had passed away from the disease when he was just 17 years old.
Fact 8: Claude Monet was a man of many talents, and enjoyed the beauty nature had to offer. He was fond of flowers, and he even designed his own gardens!

Fact 8: He abhorred modern art and thought it lacked meaning, form, and substance.
Fact 9: His painting, entitles “Impression, Sunrise”, was the namesake of the Impressionist Movement.
Fact 10: The great artist was finally put to rest on the 5th of December, 1926 in the Giverny Cemetery, He had battled painful cataracts and lung cancer, and had passed away at the age of 86.