Oscar-Claude Monet was a French painter and founder of impressionism painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During his long career, he was the most consistent and prolific practitioner of impressionism's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions of nature, especially as applied to
plein air (outdoor) landscape painting. The term "impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting
Impression, soleil levant, which was first exhibited in the so-called "exhibition of rejects" of 1874–an exhibition initiated by Monet and like-minded artists as an alternative to the Salon.