Monet: The Restless Vision

Although close to starvation when he invented impressionism on the banks of the Seine in the 1860s-70s, in the following decades he emerged as the powerful leader of the new painting in Paris at one of its most exciting cultural moments. His symphonic series Haystacks, Poplars, & Rouen Cathedral brought wealth & renown. Then he withdrew to paint only the pond in his garden. The late Water Lilies, ignored during his lifetime, are now celebrated as pioneers of 20th century modernism. Behind this great & famous artist is a volatile, voracious, nervous yet reckless man, largely unknown.

Jackie Wullschläger's enthralling biography, based on thousands of never-before translated letters & unpublished sources, is the first account of Monet's turbulent private life & how it determined his expressive, sensuous, sensational painting. He was as obsessional in his love affairs as in his love of nature, & changed his art decisively three times when the woman at the centre of his life changed. Enduring devastating bereavements, he pushed the frontier of painting inward, to evoke memory & the passing of time.

His work also responded intensely to outside cataclysms - the Dreyfus Affair, the First World War. Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau was his closest friend. Rich intellectual currents connected him to writers from Zola to Proust; affection & rivalry to Renoir, Pissarro & Manet. Monet said he was driven 'wild with the need to put down what I experience'. This rich & moving biography immerses us in that passionate experience, transforming our understanding of the man, his paintings & the fullness of his achievement.