"'Impressionism is female': we understand this when we consider Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Eva Gonzalès and Marie Bracquemond, four outstanding artists who developed distinct impressionist subjects and manners of painting. All four knew each other, were regulars in the contemporary artist circles of Paris and above all, shared a common fate: they were talented women in a world ruled by men"--Container.

Using letters and other private writings I, Claude Monet reveals new insight into the man who painted Impression, Sunrise, the picture that gave birth to impressionism, and who became perhaps the most influential artist of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Monet's life is a gripping tale about a man who, behind his sun-dazzled canvases, suffered from feelings of depression, loneliness, even suicide. Subsequently, his flourishing art and his love...