Oscar-Claude Monet (14 November 1840 ââ¬â 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist 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 before nature, especially as applied to plein air (outdoor) landscape painting. The term "Impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant, exhibited in 1874 in the first Salon des Refusés ("exhibition of rejects") initiated by Monet and his associates as an alternative to the Salon.
