The Impressionists now stand as the ultimate in artistic comfort food for the mainstream public. The billowy softness of their images graces office walls in framed reproductions and countless calendars. Of all the Impressionists, perhaps none recalls warm mashed potatoes as much as Claude Monet. In contrast to the thundering tempest of Vincent Van Gogh’s well-publicized life, Monet’s existence, or what little the general public knows of it, breezes easily past, like the gentle clouds that populate his landscapes’ skies. Stephanie Cowell’s Claude and Camille: A Novel of Monet injects blood and breathes new life into Monet and allows us to see him and his contemporaries as the radical experimenters they were (and were derided for being). Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Novel Lives."
[Many thanks to Random House for providing me with a review copy of Stephanie Cowell’s Claude and Camille: A Novel of Monet.]
