e sides of nineteenth century industrial progress, the recovery of the nation from its recent devastating war, and the emergence of the new industry of tourism.
Monet had left his parents' home in 1862 and in the nest nine years had lived in nine different places. He was extremely poor for much of the 1860s and when he married and his wife gave birth to a son in 1867 his family deeply disapproved. The move to Argenteuil was doubly important for Monet because it represented the first permanent home he had as an adult and "marked a turning point in his success at selling his work and being a provider." 1 Despite the impression of poverty that was given by his letters to friends asking to borrow money, Monet actually made an average of 14,000 francs per year while living there. This, considering that an average "professional man" in Paris earned about 10,000 francs, meant that they did quite well.
In addition to providing a somewhat inexpensive place to live, Argenteuil was also an inexpensive place to work in some respects. The great drawback of landscape painting was that it involved "unprecedented logistical problems" and indeed the "costs in time and money of transportation and lodgings were overheads that nearly brought Monet to ruin during the 1860s."
The living and working conditions were clearly important since in the six years at Argenteuil Monet painted almost as many pictures as he had in the preceding thirteen. Monet's enthusiasm for the town eventually waned and the family moved again. But in the time that he was content he made great strides. At Argenteuil Monet (and a number of the other Impressionists) achieved a consolidation of the goals Impressionism had been striving for. It was in the summers of the 1870s at Argenteuil that Monet, Renoir, and others gathered to paint in "pure unmixed colors applied to the canvas in distinct strokes," and in this technique achieved "a fresh and natural vivacity ...