This book is organized chronologically. The “Introduction” explains that the author began this research project because she realized Monet’s private life had been un-researched, and had found a catalogue of Monet’s 3,000 letters that had mostly not been translated before. Then, the “Prologue” describes Monet’s dramatic sketching of his newly dead girlfriend in 1879. A curious explanation follows that Monet had drawn around “fifty pictures” of Camille during her lifetime… But after her death, he hardly depicted a figure again.” The changes in Monet’s art with the three leading women in his life, Camille Doncieux, Alice Raingo and Blanche Hoschede, suggest to me that these women were the artists, who drew in different styles under “Monet’s” byline. But the author seems to interpret these changes as emotional impacts that were sufficient to alter artistic choices of the single male artist. Most of the description is about the emotion evoked by these Impressionist paintings, as they are described as being the “opposite of restrained”. Analysis of the letters focuses on Monet feeling “always hungry, always greedy”, and otherwise emotional. None of this is practically useful to modern artists who want to read about the lives of artists to learn the tactics that create superior art. Monet is also presented as somebody who in his “youth” “built Impressionism on his confidence”, ignoring that this was a movement that is credited to numerous different artists, some of whom preceded Monet. If Monet was its sole inventor, was he ghost-painting under others’ bylines? Otherwise how can he be singled out for his exceptionalism without acknowledging that he used a style that was communally shared by many others?
The first chapter of the first part begins with just how little is known about Monet’s childhood, as, for example, he described himself merely as “a Parisian from Paris”. This refusal to share details suggests to me that there was a ghost-artist behind the Monet byline who did not care to learn who Monet was, and could only write letters etc. from “Monet’s” perspective after Monet had joined an artist Workshop and made his activities known. Most of the following biography of his childhood is imagined based on the history of the region where he lived, and sparse records. Then, finally, there is a description of Monet’s first “pair of sketchbooks from summer 1856” when he was 15. “Monet gives a glimpse of Ingouville’s bourgeois houses, set in parks with paths framed by yuccas and umbrella pines, suggesting already an appeal of gardens, of nature tamed, enclosed and decorative, as a counterpart to the attraction of the open sea”. What is missing here is just how Monet learned to draw, what his techniques were and how they changed. Instead, the interest is Monet’s interest in the sea, water, and other irrelevant abstractions (1-18).
A few pages later there is a note that Monet launched his artistic career as a “caricaturist”, by “circling the rue de Paris” and selling “caricatures of the town’s notables” in window displays. A few pages, there is a report that Monet was making “commissions” on portraits”, the number of patrons doubling in a month, together with his charge stabilizing at “20 francs”. From this childhood enterprise, the narrative leaps to when Monet was 30 in 1854, when he had grown tired of the repetition of caricature painting, and wanted to be famous. To solve this problem, Monet befriended Boudin, who was poor but connected to famous artists (19-30). Earlier, “he lived in Paris for four years, from the ages of sixteen to twenty, funded by an unlikely 2,000 franks earned from his caricatures”. Though the author reports that Monet claimed to have gone to Paris much earlier than when he actually went two years later (35). Immediately upon his arrival, Monet was greeted with help, as “Charles Monginot… offered Monet the use of his studio”. There is a report that Boudin was painting “for a free… Troyon’s skies for him”, or ghost-painting. Then, there are digressive comments about Monet’s friends, hints that he obtained some tutoring from artists, and his associations with folks like a “radical journalist” for whom Monet “copied Nadar’s caricature” (45). Monet’s strategy to be noticed was to chat in cafes to make connections and to draw paintings to be hung in the Salon, hoping they would be noticed, puffed, and purchased (47).
I found myself drawn into this narrative. Many paragraphs contain irrelevant information, but it is all well-researched as opposed to airy. An artist who is interested in how somebody practically becomes famous in art will find many useful lessons here. Thus, I recommend this book for aspiring and mature artists, and for libraries of all types where artists might seek inspiration and information.

This was a thorough analysis of Monet’s life and work. I found it difficult to get through though, it felt like a textbook, a bit dry and academic. I felt like the writing could have been a bit more colorful. I wish there had been more examples of his work along the way to give a visual perspective to the text.
Maybe I was not the intended audience. That happens sometimes.
Thank you for the eARC!