Claude Monet was the founder of the French impressionist painting. In his paintings, he expressed his perceptions before nature. The term impressionism is actually derived from one of this paintings; the ”Impression, Sunrise”.
Claude Monet was born in the ninth arrondissement of Paris in 1840. When he was 11 years old he was enrolled in the Le Havre secondary school of the arts. At this age, he began making charcoal caricatures and sell them locally for 10-20 francs. Another part of his education consisted of getting drawing lessons from Jacques-François Ochard who in turn had studied for Jacques-Louis David.
When Claude Monet was 16 years old he left school, because his mother died and he was sent to live with his widowed childless aunt, Marie-Jeanne Lecadre. He eventually began visiting The Louvre, but instead of copying the old masters as the other painters did he preferred to sit by the window and paint what he could see.
By the age of 21, Claude Monet joined the First Regiment of African Light Cavalry in Algeria. He signed up for seven years, but contracted typhoid. Marie-Jeanne Lecadre intervened and got him out of the army. In 1862, Monet became a student of Charles Gleyre.
