Study of a Figure Outdoors (Facing Right) Monet

Study of a Figure Outdoors (Facing Right) - After settling in Giverny, Monet moored his studio-boat beside Ile aux Orties near his house. He also built a shed on the riverbank to house his equipment, at the end of a meadow which was bordered by a bank to prevent flooding. He then did his work sessions close to this site. It was on returning from one of these sessions that he spotted his step-daughter, Suzanne HoschedÈ, standing out against the sky on this mound. So he decided to do some decorative studies around this image, returning to the portrayal of figures he had done early in his career, notably in Argenteuil. The insertion of the human figure into the landscape in this work, and especially the recurring motif of the woman with the parasol, demonstrates his particular interest in the luminous ëenvelopeí that surrounds the figure. 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).