Editing Claude Monet (section)

=== Death of Camille and Vétheuil ===
[[File:Claude Monet - Camille Monet sur son lit de mort.JPG|thumb|upright=0.7|left|Claude Monet, ''Camille Monet On Her Deathbed'', 1879, [[Musée d'Orsay]], Paris]]
In 1875, Monet returned to figure painting with ''[[Woman with a Parasol - Madame Monet and Her Son]],'' after effectively abandoning it with ''The Luncheon''. His interest in the figure continued for the next four years—reaching its crest in 1877 and concluding altogether in 1890.<ref name=":2" />{{Sfn|Bailey|Rishel|Rosenthal|1989|pp=54}} In an "unusually revealing" letter to [[Théodore Duret]], Monet discussed his revitalised interest: "I am working like never before on a new endeavour figures in plein air, as I understand them. This is an old dream, one that has always obsessed me and that I would like to master once and for all. But it is all so difficult! I am working very hard, almost to the point of making myself ill".

In 1876, Camille Monet became seriously ill.<ref name="Milner_16">Milner, Frank (1991) ''Monet''. New York: Mallard Press. p. 16. {{ISBN|9780792455066}}.</ref> Their second son, [[Michel Monet|Michel]], was born in 1878, after which Camille's health deteriorated further.<ref name="Milner_16"/> In the autumn of that year, they moved to the village of [[Vétheuil]] where they shared a house with the family of [[Ernest Hoschedé]], a wealthy department store owner and patron of the arts who had commissioned four paintings from Monet.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":11" /> In 1878, Camille was diagnosed with [[uterine cancer]].<ref>Jiminez, Jill Berk (2013). ''Dictionary of Artists' Models''. Routledge. p. 165. {{ISBN|1-135-95914-5}}.</ref> She died the next year.<ref name=":11" /> Her death, alongside financial difficulties—once having to leave his house to avoid creditors—afflicted Monet's career; Hoschedé had recently purchased several paintings but soon went bankrupt, leaving for Paris in hopes of regaining his fortune, as interest in the Impressionists dwindled.{{sfn|Brettell|Hayes Tucker|Henderson Lee|2009|pp=63}}<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":11" />

[[File:Auguste Renoir - Claude Monet - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|[[Pierre-Auguste Renoir]], ''[[Portrait of the Painter Claude Monet]]'', 1875, [[Musée d'Orsay]]]]
[[File:Alice Hoschedé, 1878.jpg|thumb|[[Carolus-Duran]], ''Alice Hoschedé'', second wife of Claude Monet and mother of [[Blanche Hoschedé Monet]], 1878]] [[File:Monet and Hoschede families - 1880.jpg|thumb|The Monet and Hoschedé families {{circa|1880}} from left to right: Claude Monet, Alice Hoschedé, Jean-Pierre Hoschedé, Jacques Hoschedé, [[Blanche Hoschedé Monet]], [[Jean Monet (son of Claude Monet)|Jean Monet]], Michel Monet, Martha Hoschedé, Germaine Hoschedé, [[Suzanne Hoschedé]]]]
Monet made a study in oils of his dead wife. Many years later, he confessed to his friend [[Georges Clemenceau]] that his need to analyse colours was both a joy and a torment to him. He explained: "I one day found myself looking at my beloved wife's dead face and just systematically noting the colours according to an automatic reflex".<ref>Berger (1985), p. 194</ref> [[John Berger]] describes the work as "a blizzard of white, grey, purplish paint&nbsp;... a terrible blizzard of loss which will forever efface her features. In fact there can be very few death-bed paintings which have been so intensely felt or subjectively expressive."<ref>{{cite book|last=Berger|first=John|title=The Eyes of Claude Monet from Sense of Sight|year=1985|publisher=Pantheon Books|location=New York|isbn=978-0-679-73722-3|pages=194–195}}</ref>

Monet's study of the Seine continued. He submitted two paintings to the Salon in 1880, one of which was accepted.<ref name=":4" /> He began to abandon Impressionist techniques as his paintings utilised darker tones and displayed environments, such as the Seine River, in harsh weather. For the rest of the decade, he focused on the elemental aspect of nature.<ref name=":63"/>{{Sfn|Januszczak|1985|p=258}} The major event of the winter of 1881 was without any doubt that he again sold his paintings to Durand-Ruel.<ref name=":4" /> Because of Monet's continual difficulty in paying his rent, the landlady at Vétheuil refused to extend his tenancy, and in December 1881 Monet moved with Alice and her children to Poissy. In addition to the debts he had accumulated, there was also the problem of finding a suitable school for his son Jean.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wildenstein |first=Daniel |title=Monet. The triumph of impressionism |date=2015 |publisher=TASCHEN |isbn=9783836551014 |location=Germany |pages=215–218 |language=English}}</ref> The stay in Poissy would not last very long. In December 1882 the Seine had overflowed its banks and there was a danger of flooding the Monet residence.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wildenstein |first=Daniel |title=Monet. The triumph of impressionism. |date=2015 |publisher=TASCHEN |isbn=9783836551014 |location=Germany |pages=229 |language=English}}</ref>

His personal life influenced his distancing from the Impressionists.<ref name=":11" /> In January 1883 he returned to Étretat and expressed in letters to [[Alice Hoschedé]]—who he would marry in 1892, following her husband's death the preceding year—a desire to die.{{sfn|Levine|1986|pp=65–75}}<ref name=":11" />{{Sfn|Bailey|Rishel|Rosenthal|1989|pp=54}} At this time Monet was afraid of losing Alice to her husband, who was suddenly speaking of taking her back. On February 21, Monet and Alice Hoschedé finally met again at Poissy, and there was no more doubt that she would now stay by his side.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wildenstein |first=Daniel |title=The triumph of impressionism |date=2015 |publisher=TASCHEN |isbn=9783836551014 |location=Germany |pages=233 |language=English}}</ref> Alice's third daughter, [[Suzanne Hoschedé|Suzanne]], would become Monet's "preferred model", after Camille.{{Sfn|Bailey|Rishel|Rosenthal|1989|pp=54}}

In April 1883 Monet informed Durand-Ruel that he was searching for a house around Vernon, a city he had frequently passed through while traveling between Paris and Normandy. On April 29 he moved into a rented house in Giverny near Vernon with some of his children, followed by Alice Hoschedé the day after. This house subsequently became the permanent home of the Monet family.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wildenstein |first=Daniel |title=Monet. The triumph of impressionism. |date=2015 |publisher=TASCHEN |isbn=9783836551014 |location=Germany |pages=237–240 |language=English}}</ref> That same year his first major retrospective show was held.{{Sfn|Januszczak|1985|p=258}}