Claude Monet produced a number of beautiful works late in life under very difficult conditions. His eyesight was beginning to fail, and he painted a number of pictures from memory rather than from life, notably pictures set in London and Venice. Monet had traveled extensively in Venice, and clearly this period in his life made an impression and influenced him so that when he needed a subject, he returned to this time and recalled images from his visit. A consideration of the development of Monet's style and how it was manifested during this period when his eyesight was failing can be illustrated with reference to the work "Grand Canal, Venice."
Impressionism is described by Arnold Hauser as the last universally valid European style, or the latest trend based on a general consensus of taste. He writes: "Since its dissolution it has been impossible to classify stylistically either the various arts or the various nations and cultures." In part, Hauser finds that the rise of Impressionism was related to the antagonism of the public to this style, and in part this was because the Impressionists did not make it easy for the public to understand their artistic ideas.
Paris in the nineteenth century was the center of the art world, and a large number of brilliant artists collected in the same region and worked at the same time in this city. They endured years of rebuff and suffering, but together they completely changed the course of Western art. They lived in Montmartre, a little village on a steep cliff overlooking Paris, and by 1860 this village had become a part of the city itself. It still had a village atmosphere, however, and it was quaint and picturesque and cheap. The little village was the center of Bohemian life, and this life took place in the cafes of the area where the artists would congregate and discuss their art.
This was also a city of wealth at the time, and this contributed to the support of the a...