Hey! I'm back with another Important People article! I'm very sorry, once again, for my article last week, but I'm over it enough to be able to do a back to normal article. I chose France this week, simply because I had a friend's parents visit there recently, and I thought it would be cool to learn about the famous people that were born there. So, I hope you find this article okay, or at least better than my last one. Once again, sorry about that one. Anyway, here's your important people!

Claude Monet

Claude was born on November 14, 1840, in Paris, France. Monet was a leader of the French group of impressionists. Monet's family moved to the town of Le Havre in 1848. He, then, took art lessons from the painter Eugene Boudin. Boudin worked outside and told Monet to do the same. Monet got the hang of working outside and began exploring the effects of light on outdoor scenes for the next 60 years. He became the first artist to let his initial impressions stand as completed work.

Later, Monet moved to Paris in 1859, where he met and befriended Pissarro and Edouard Manet. He married in 1870, and in 1871, settled in Argenteuil. He fixed up a boat with an easel and painted all around the Seine River, capturing his impressions of light, water and atmosphere.

In 1974, Monet and a group of painters banded together to be a society of artists. They gave public exhibitions of their work in a studio. Monet made a painting called "Impression: Sunrise", which gave the group its name. Even though they had financial failure, they continued to exhibit their work until 1886.

Monet slowly achieved recognition in the years as the group separated. In 1883, he moved to Giverny, France, and continued to paint and explore light until his death in 1926.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Renoir was born in 1849, in Limoges, France. He was originally in the Impressionist movement. His early works were impressionist snapshots of real life, color, and light. By the mid 1880s, however, he had broken with the movement to apply a more disciplined, technique to figure painting, particularly of women.

In 1854, he became work as a painter in a porcelain factory in Paris, gaining experience with light, fresh colors that were to distinguish his Impressionist work and also learn the importance of good craftsmanship.

In 1882, he entered the studio of Gleyre and he formed a friendship with Monet, Sisley, and Bazille. He painted with them in the Barbizon Cafe Guerboise. His relationship with Monet was particularly close at this time, and their paintings of the beauty spot called La Grenouillere done in 1869 are regarded as the classic early statements of the Impressionist style. Like Monet, Renoir endured much hardship early in his career, but he began to get success as a portraitist in the late 1870s and was freed from financial worries after the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel began buying his work in 1881.

In the 1890s, Renoir began to suffer from rheumatism, and from 1903 he moved and lived in south France. The rheumatism eventually crippled him, but he continued to paint until the end of his life, in 1919.

Frederic Bazille

Bazille was born in 1841 in France. He was one of the members of the Impressionist group, as a French painter. As a student in Gleyre's studio in Paris he made friends with other Impressionists, including Monet, Renoir, and Sisley, with whom he painted outside at Fontainebleau and in Normandy. He, however, was mainly a figure painter rather than a landscapist. His best known work was the large Family Reunion.

Bazille was killed in action during the France-Prussian War, cutting short a promising career. He came from a wealthy family and had given generous financial support to Monet and Renoir.

That's this week's important people! I hope you all enjoyed this article on France, I've always thought France was a very interesting country, and, not only are you learning about all these important people from other countries, I am, too. I hope this article was just as interesting (if not more) as my other articles. I'm running out of interesting countries to do, so I'd love your opinions on which country to do next, just post it in the BBS! Thanks! ;)

Peace,
Spinner45 xD