Dialogue by Mark:

M is for manatee, protecting the ocean! M is also for Monet, the famous artist who painted this picture of the ocean in the north of France in 1886. The painting is titled The Point de Roches at Port-Goulphar, Belle-Ile, Brittany and it comes to Imagination Station from the Cincinnati Art Museum.

Claude Monet was a French painter who was one of the main leaders of the Impressionists, a group of painters who made a big impression on the world of art. The Impressionists believed in painting things the way they felt to the artist looking at them...sometimes very different than how they looked in reality. Their pictures didn't look like painted photographs at all.

Monet was known for painting with short brush strokes and sopts of brilliant color. See how in this painting he's used lots of pink on the ocean rocks. They were probably just big grey rocks without any real pink in them, but the sunset made them feel pink to Monet.

Monet's paintings were beautiful, but he wasn't often very happy with them. He thought he should do better. Sometiems he even burned them in the fireplace when he was most dissatisfied. It's a good thing most of his great paintings survived, because today he's one of the best known and most admired of the French Impressionists.