The quintessential Impressionist Claude Monet created more than 2,500 paintings, drawings, and pastels that radically altered the way art was made and understood. This beautiful book is a comprehensive - and accessible - study of Monet's achievement which sets his rich legacy into the context of his life and times. Instead of reading Monet's work as engaged only with the beauties of nature, Paul Hayes Tucker offers strikingly new perspectives based on a close examination of individual paintings, Monet's biography, and the multiple forces that shaped his aesthetic. Tucker sees the artist's oeuvre as an evolving enterprise that was intricately linked to such cataclysmic events as the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune insurrection of 1870-71, the Dreyfus Affair of 1898, and the First World War. Tucker also explores the demands that Monet placed upon himself, his responses to market pressures, and his steadfast belief in the power of art to express ideas. Combining documentary material with a thorough analysis of the public's reaction to his work, Tucker convincingly demonstrates how Monet was able to achieve enormous success during his lifetime.