Monet, We Hardly Knew You: Traveling Art Exhibit Reveals the Truth About the Impressionist Painter

Claude Monet, Impressionist painter, fooled us all. He may even have fooled himself.

Monet is known for his atmospheric and impressionist paintings of gardens, water lilies, flowers, cathedrals and haystacks. Many love his paintings. Others think his works are a mess.

Even Alicia Silverstone's character in Clueless ridicules the Impressionist master inadvertently.

Cher: "No, she's a full on Monet."

Tai: "What's a monet?"

Cher: "It's like a painting, see? From far away, it's OK, but up close, it's a big old mess."

The one truth about Monet that had been well-established, even by the man himself, was that he did not pre-draw his paintings. In a true painterly fashion, his paintbrush did the drawing directly onto canvas, no pencil required.

Monet himself even said, "No one is an artist unless he carries his picture in his head before painting it, and is sure of his method and composition."

His paintings reflect a seemingly spontaneous, of the moment paintings. His famous paintings relay a momentary "impression."

But there was more behind these Impressionist paintings than we all knew.

Behind his vision, before he translated his impression to canvas in thick globs of oil paint, he may have done a lot more drawing and than anyone realized. He may have spent more time planning those wonderful paintings, and perhaps they were not so spontaneous after all.

Exhibit: Unknown Monet: Pastels and Drawings

The Unknown Monet: Pastels and Drawings will reveal the sketchbooks in which the painter rendered images using pastels, finished drawings, and sketchbooks. The exhibit sheds some light onto the true creative process of the painter.

The exhibit is, according to the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute , the first major exhibit to be devoted to the painter's works on papers. The exhibit features close to 100 objects drawn from both public and private art collections.

The Exhibit will be on public display at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts from June 24, 2007 until September 16, 2007.