CLAUDE MONET.

Otago Witness, Issue 2430, 10 October 1900, Page 64

CLAUDE MONET.

AYriting of Monet, in ihe June number of tlis Pall Mall Magazine, Mr Dewhurst says : — ■ The life history of Claude MqiiSt is bound, up and inseparably connected with the inception, cultivation, and fruition of Impressionism in France. As leadei of 'the van and originator of the title "Impressionist," as well as its most successful practitioner, he has every right to first consideration in any record of the subject. That a man of such, remarkable talent and great accomplishment should be still comparatively unknown and almost .wholly unappreciated in these isles is an enigma that passeth understanding. Our tiansatlantie cousins, ever quick to perceive and encourage the good and new, have for the past 20 years absorbed a large portion of the productions of the Impressionist Echool. 'Tis a very distinct loss, and one which in future will cost thp nation dear to remedy, that none of our public galleries or museums contain a single specimen of French Impressionist work. «=

No stirring adventures by flood and field have marked Monet's career. It has been that of a man of high purpose, prodigiously talented, excessively active and self-reliant, who has turned neither to the right nor to the left from the path of achievement of his ideals. He has nevertheless brayed more than, ordinarily the ills and risks incidental to his ju-ofession. His face bears traces of many a combat with a hidden, unscrupulous and vindictive enemy. He has, in the cause of art, run the gauntlet of the deadly marsh-bred microbe and the la&h of the north-east wind; has suffered fever and sunstroke unheedingly; the rheumatism following a rain-drenched skin or river ducking, work in the dew-damp gra3s, or snow, thigh deep ; the immense physical and mental strain of hours of immobile, yefc deadly earnest labour, brain and eye and hand anxiously busy at whiteheat ; all the'inglorious, unsung perils of a most peaceful occupation.