1840 – birth of Claude Monet, French painter. Oscar-Claude Monet (14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionism painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During his long career, he was the most consistent and prolific practitioner of impressionism's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions of nature, especially as applied to
plein air (outdoor) landscape painting. The term "impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting
Impression, soleil levant, which was first exhibited in the so-called "exhibition of rejects" of 1874–an exhibition initiated by Monet and like-minded artists as an alternative to the Salon. From 1883, Monet lived in Giverny, also in northern France, where he purchased a house and property and began a vast landscaping project, including a water-lily pond. Monet's ambition to document the French countryside led to a method of painting the same scene many times so as to capture the changing of light and the passing of the seasons. Frequently exhibited and successful during his lifetime, Monet's fame and popularity soared in the second half of the 20th century when he became one of the world's most famous painters and a source of inspiration for a burgeoning group of artists.