Claude Monet

Monet, Claude (1840–1926), French painter, leading exponent of impressionism, a term coined after his picture Impression, Sunrise (1872). He painted his landscapes outside, in natural light, applying paint in a multitude of variously colored strokes and swatches, thus conveying the appearance of a subject in a particular light, in a particular season, and at a particular time of day. His last pictures of water lilies are virtually abstract patterns of color.