"This biography of Monet is a revised version of the first volume of the four-volume catalogue also published by TASCHEN." -- T.p. verso.

This volume is a biography of the founder of French impressionist painting, Claude Monet (1840-1926). It could be said that Monet reinvented the possibilities of color, and whether it was through his early interest in Japanese prints, his time in the dazzling light of Algeria as a conscript, or his personal acquaintance with the major painters of the late 1800s, what Monet produced throughout his long life would change forever the way we perceive both the natural world and its attendant phenomena. The high point of his explorations were the late series of waterlilies, painted in his own garden at Giverny, that, in their moves towards almost total formlessness, are really the origin of abstract art.