Claude Monet standing in a garden in Giverny, France. The painter lived in Giverny for 43 years and painted the gardens for which he is famous. Monet, photographed by Nadar in 1901. Claude Monet (1840-1926) was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. En plein air is a French expression which means "in the open air", and is particularly used to describe the act of painting outdoors. The term Impressionism is derived from the title of his painting Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant).