A fine introductory text by a Curator of the Museum of Modern Art and a Professor at Princeton University offers both a biographical sketch as well as an evaluation of the work of the plein air painter who has been the unquestioned leader of the Impressionist School- although Monet during his lifetime had a "horror of theories" and avoided academic argument and doctrine. The formative influences; the cultural insularity of his youth; the new approaches of visualization and interpretation which, when successfully applied to his painting, established him as a master of the Impressionist technique; the spontaneity- and the effect of freedom, and as the years passed, the more and more luminous,- iridescent and weightless effects of his works, are given definition through the text- and in the 48 pages of full color illustration. (Kirkus Reviews) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.