Stealing Away with Monet

It sounds like a scene from a heist movie. Five armed thieves dressed in jumpsuits raided an art museum in Nice, France, last weekend. They snatched "four paintings of inestimable value," stuffed them into bags, and fled, by car and motorcycle. The take? Two 17th-century Jan Bruegels, a 19th-century Alfred Sisley, and the work reproduced above: Cliffs Near Dieppe, by Claude Monet.

You've surely heard of Monet. Born in Paris in 1840, he was a key player in the French impressionist movement, along with Alfred Sisley and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The revolutionary rule-breakers of their artistic time, the impressionists sought their subjects in everyday life, not history. They painted outside, not in studios. They defied convention by using choppy brushstrokes and bright, often unmixed, colors.

Critics called them crazy. Art historians now call them geniuses. And none more so than Monet, the son of a grocer who began his art career sketching caricatures for a few francs at the beach. His masterpieces now fetch millions. Of his own work, Monet said, "The only merit I have is to have painted directly from nature with the aim of conveying my impressions in front of the most fugitive effects."

Fugitive effects? "For me," Monet said, "a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment. But the surrounding atmosphere brings it to life--the light and the air which vary continually. For me, it is only the surrounding atmosphere which gives subjects their true value." For Monet, in other words, a little atmosphere can make a big impression. To form your own impressions of Monet, just click to launch our slideshow.