The Japanese Bridge - Monet produced a series of easel paintings that were conceived independently from any decorative project. Their creation extended over several years, during the summer and early autumn on days when the heat became unbearable in the new studio after lunch. To varying degrees these works bear the mark of eyesight distorted by cataracts: the colours are sometimes dark or garish, sometimes matching or contrasting. The artist began the series in 1918 though it was interrupted by his operation in 1923 and he then returned to it the following year when some sharpness of vision had been restored. As Durand-Ruel observed about some of these paintings, It is clear that he can't make things out any more and is no longer aware of colours. Claude Monet (1840 – 1926) was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. The term Impressionism is derived from the title of his painting Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant).