ca. 1865 - Portrait of Claude Monet (French, Paris, 1840-1926) ), photo by Etienne Carjat (French, Ain, 1828-1906). Claude Monet: 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. The term Impressionism is derived from the title of his painting Impression, Sunrise