The Death of Camille

Camille died on September 5, 1879, at the age of thirty-two. Her death devastated Monet, who had watched helplessly as the woman who had shared his struggles and believed in his vision slowly faded away. In a letter to his friend Georges de Bellio, he wrote: "My poor wife succumbed this morning... I am finding myself terrifyingly alone with my poor children."

One of the most poignant documents of their relationship is Monet's painting "Camille on Her Deathbed." Created in the hours after her death, it shows Camille's face emerging from a haze of blue, purple, and white brushstrokes. Years later, Monet recalled with horror how even in his grief, he found himself analyzing the color changes in her face: "I caught myself watching her tragic temples, almost mechanically searching for the succession of color gradations that death was imposing on her rigid face... Even before the idea came to me to record those features I knew so well, my organism was already reacting to the color sensations."

This confession reveals the terrible duality of the artist's existence—the inability to stop seeing even in moments of deepest personal anguish. It also demonstrates how completely Monet's way of perceiving the world had been transformed by his artistic practice. He could not stop being an artist any more than he could stop breathing.