He copied from paintings at the Louvre and benefited from the advice of the Barbizon School painter Constant Troyon, as well as from Édouard Manet’s teacher Thomas Couture. All the same he received no systematic education and disappointed his benefactors with his steadfast attachment to landscapes, and his revulsion at painting in the traditional genres adopted by the schools. He returned to Le Havre to work in direct contact with nature. He was the decisive factor for Monet’s future. Indeed, it was Boudin who passed on his conviction of the importance of working in the open air to Monet, a practice which Monet would in turn transmit to his Impressionist friends.

      Monet’s further development took place in Paris, and then again in Normandy, but this time in the company of artists. His artistic formation was in many ways identical to that of other painters of his generation, and yet at the same time his development as an artist had profoundly distinctive individual features. Almost every young artist to arrive in the capital from the provinces was dazzled by the magnificence of the Louvre’s collection of paintings. It was the Louvre that had subdued Jean-François Millet’s desire to head back to Normandy from the city that was so alien to him. Gustave Courbet, arriving in Paris from Franche-Comté in Burgundy, ostentatiously rejected the idea of being influenced by museums, but was himself strongly affected by the Louvre’s collection of Spanish painting. And although Manet and Degas, both born in Paris, knew the Louvre from an early age, they never tired of making studies of the Old Masters and always displayed great reverence towards the classics; indeed, during their travels abroad, their first priority was always to visit museums, not as tourists, but as attentive students eager to encounter the creations of great teachers. Monet, however, preferred current exhibitions and meetings with contemporary artists to visiting museums. A study of his letters provides convincing evidence that contact with the Old Masters excited him far less than the life around him and the beauties of nature.

      What was it that struck Monet during his first trip to Paris in 1859? An exhaustive reply is given by his letters from Paris to Boudin after his first visit to the Salon. The young provincial passed indifferently by the historical and religious paintings of Gustave Boulanger, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry and Jean Francois Gigoux; the battle-scenes depicting the Crimean campaign attract him not at all; even Delacroix, represented by such works as The Ascent to Calvary, St. Sebastian, Ovid, The Abduction of Rebecca and other similar historical paintings, seems to him unworthy of interest. Camille Corot’s work on the other hand is “nice”, Theodore Rousseau’s is “very good”, Charles-François Daubigny’s is “truly beautiful”, and Troyon is simply “superb”. In Paris, Monet called on Troyon, an animal and landscape painter whose advice Boudin had earlier found valuable. Troyon made recommendations which Monet relayed in his letters to Boudin – he should learn to draw figures, make copies in the Louvre, and should enter a reputable studio, for instance that of Thomas Couture.

      The Salon of 1859 included no paintings by the leading Realist Courbet, and the jury rejected Millet’s Death and the Woodcutter. Monet saw this latter work in 1860 and estimated it as “fine”, while at the same time viewing several canvases by Courbet which he considered to be “brilliant”. In this same year he discovered the seascapes of the Dutchman Johan Barthold Jongkind and declared him to be “the only good painter of marines.”

      The Café “La Grenouillère”, 1869.

      Oil on canvas, 74.6 × 99.7 cm.

      The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

      Entrance to the Port of Trouville, 1870.

      Oil on canvas, 54 × 65.7 cm.

      Magyar Szépmuvészeti Mùseum, Budapest.

      Seascape: Storm, c. 1866–1867.

      Oil on canvas, 48.7 × 64.7 cm.

      Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts.

      The Wooden Bridge, 1872.

      Oil on canvas, 54 × 73 cm.

      Dr. Rau Collection, Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio.

      Mill in Zaandaam, 1871.

      Oil on canvas, 48 × 73.5 cm.

      Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen.

      Monet thus immediately identified the figures who would provide the artistic framework with which he would aspire to innovate. These were the landscapists of the Barbizon School, who had pointed French landscape painting towards its own native countryside; Millet and Courbet, who had turned to depicting the work and way of life of simple people; and, finally, Boudin and Jongkind, who had brought to landscape a freshness and immediacy lacking in works by the older generation of Barbizon painters. Monet was to paint alongside several of these masters – Boudin, Jongkind, Courbet (and Whistler, too) – and by watching them at work would receive much practical instruction.

      Although Monet did not regard his immediate teacher Charles Gleyre, whose studio he joined in 1862, with great favour, his stay there was by no means wasted, for he acquired valuable professional skills during this time. Charles Gleyre was the only teacher who, in Monet’s eyes, truly personified neoclassical painting. Gleyre had just turned sixty when he met the future Impressionists. Born in Switzerland on the banks of Lake Geneva, he had lived in France since childhood. After graduating from the École des Beaux-Arts, Gleyre spent six years in Italy. Success in the Paris Salon made him famous and he taught in the studio established by the celebrated Salon painter, Hippolyte Delaroche.

      The Thames and the Houses of Parliament, 1871.

      Oil on canvas, 47 × 73 cm.

      The National Gallery, London.

      Taking themes from the Bible and antique mythology, Gleyre painted large-scale canvases composed with the clarity and clean lines commonly associated with classical art. The formal qualities of his female nudes can only be compared to the work of the great Dominique Ingres. In Gleyre’s independent studio, pupils received traditional training in neoclassical painting, but were free from the official requirements of the École des Beaux-Arts.

      Moreover Gleyre, although an advocate of the academic system of teaching, nonetheless allowed his pupils a certain amount of freedom and did not attempt to dampen any enthusiasm they might have for landscape painting. Most important to Monet in Gleyre’s studio, however, were his incipient friendships with Frédéric Bazille, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley. We know that he had already become acquainted with Pissarro, and thus it can be said that from the earliest stage of his career fate brought Monet together with those who were to be his colleagues and allies

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