my idol
monet, claude (b. nov. 14, 1840, paris, fr.--d. dec. 5, 1926, giverny) french painter, initiator, leader, and unswerving advocate of the impressionist style. he is regarded as the archetypal impressionist in that his devotion to the ideals of the movement was unwavering throughout his long career, and it is fitting that one of his pictures--impression: sunrise (musée marmottan, paris; 1872)--gave the group his name. his youth was spent in le havre, where he first excelled as a caricaturist but was then converted to landscape painting by his early mentor boudin, from whom he derived his firm predilection for painting out of doors. in 1859 he studied in paris at the atelier suisse and formed a friendship with pissarro. after two years' military service in algiers, he returned to le havre and met jongkind, to whom he said he owed `the definitive education of my eye'. he then, in 1862, entered the studio of gleyre in paris and there met renoir,