The US continues its tradition of acute individualism. In the 1970s, a small group of oilmen decided it was better for their individual fortunes to let the earth slip into climate degradation. What could be a more powerful example of individualism gone awry than the possible destruction of our planet in favor of the personal gain of a few persons? What if we had tackled climate change back then?

Let us examine American individualism before considering possible ways out of the wilderness. We are born into separate bodies, and the survival of ourselves as individuals is essential. However, we tend to extrapolate this principle of survival into other fields, usually at the expense of the social dimension.

Let us count the ways. I loved riding my motorcycle across the Texas hill country. The wind blew against my body, and I could take any road I wanted. I felt free to go anywhere, forgetting that the urban structure and the layout of the streets were the result of past social and political decisions. This freedom of movement felt like I was free to do anything within legal bounds.

Individual development implies that one must fully discover oneself. I must find myself, my talent, my genius, waiting to be revealed and explored. Each individual is unique. My education, and particularly my career progress, must be optimal and possibly unconstrained by others. For a male with relatively easy sex, marriage can be delayed. The average age of the first marriage has increased from 23 to 30 years for males over the last fifty years.

Driven by the individual spirit, one becomes primarily concerned and psychologically fit with oneself. As Slater pointed out years ago, this ultimately leads to loneliness (Slater, 1970).

Within this context, meritocracy is interpreted as justifying the individual. My deeds and achievements are merit-worthy. Those below me are less worthy, and those below them deserve their low-class jobs and lives. The social order is just. I adore successful superstars and even rebels such as Elon Musk. Social influencers have found a new way to be super individuals and have their place.

Consumerism, a pillar of capitalism, is compatible with the most exclusive forms of individualism. The more successful individuals can indulge themselves in luxury. They purchase mansion homes, executive airplanes, mega-yachts, and vacation resorts, all to be shown off (discretely).

I love to stride, to insult, to put myself first. However, if I did that with everyone, I would have few friends and isolate myself. So, one can use groups—the bigger, the better—to be within the clan and find the opposition to malign. Call them political parties: Democrats and Republicans. Inside the party, I am accepted, with a target outside. The political agreement becomes difficult, and the legislature may become dysfunctional. The political differences can turn into violence. Office holders of extreme individualism can become authoritarian.

In this context of extreme individualism, practiced predominantly by males, two significant socio-economic trends have emerged: disregard for the environment and the continued spread of armed conflict. The highlight of environmental indifference is climate warming, followed by air pollution, water pollution, litter, noise pollution, plastic pollution, soil contamination, radioactive contamination, thermal pollution, light pollution, and visual pollution. Instead, at least 150 ongoing armed conflicts have been recorded each year, up from previous decades, but even then, it rarely fell below 100. The ability or willingness to use diplomacy appears to be limited.

Recognizing this form of severe American individualism, what might be the ways of reform? First, we must observe that reform may not be possible. Second, it will be difficult. My idea is to use the inevitable phenomenon of climate warming as an opportunity to tame individualism.

Environmental adaptation after weather and climate-related disasters is obligatory.

Storms, floods, and wildfires damage Republican and Democrat properties alike; we can agree on this. Preventive adaptation also helps both. The difficult measures involve mitigation; however, continued investment in R&D is realizing the most cost-effective solutions in technologies that utilize renewable energy, such as photovoltaics, wind turbines, and heat pumps. Fossil fuel technologies often cost more, and the energy transition needs to be accelerated.

Working locally on environmental issues is also promising. Green spaces offer widespread health benefits. We can create more space by working with local authorities and contributing to tree planting, for example. Participation in planning our cities and neighborhoods is required if you want to be heard.

In general, bipartisanship should be encouraged; we achieve more. Party differences need to be toned down.

We need new spaces and organizations where different kinds of citizens can mingle, peacefully discuss, and enjoy themselves. Italy is attempting to create community centers for this. What can they be in America? Can labor unions play a role?

Youth should be given more space in politics and education. Teaching individualistic career development should be balanced with social participation. Younger political candidates will help revive their interest in politics. Listen to youth. Greta Thunberg is still correct: we individualistic adults must do much more.

The Impressionists were among those pioneering artists who stepped out of their studios and painted en plein air, outdoors. They claimed to have discovered the eternal beauty in the streets of Paris and its suburbs, in the authenticity of light and landscape. Many Impressionists were avid travelers, exploring the coast of Normandy, like Monet, or venturing into the South of France, like Cézanne. Both made these regions legendary through their paintings.

Indeed, Normandy holds a special place in the history of Impressionism, being a source of inspiration to the artists at various points in their careers. The harbour of Dieppe was painted by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Eva Gonzales, one of the few women among the Impressionists. The coasts of the Cotentin were frequented by Jean-François Millet, one of the founders of the Barbizon school, who liked to associate with the group. Le Havre was also the subject of many paintings by Camille Pissarro and Raoul Dufy.

In 1860, Eugène Boudin, a native of Honfleur, invited his painter friends to join him at the Ferme Saint-Siméon on the hill just outside Honfleur. From there, they would paint the Seine estuary. Monet, Johan Jongkind, and Gustave Courbet belonged to this circle of Boudin’s group.

In May 1864, Monet, while still a student, travelled to Normandy in search of fresh motifs together with his fellow artist Frederic Bazille. Monet spent a long time painting the sea views of Saint-Adresse, a coastal suburb northwest of Le Havre. Having spent his childhood years in Le Havre region, he had frequently visited the beach at Sainte- Adresse before, as it stood just to the west of his father’s summer home. Monet’s most famous work of that period was The Garden at Sainte-Adresse, painted in 1867, in the garden of his family home, with a view of Honfleur on the horizon.

Monet’s views of the Normandy coast, such as The Beach at Trouville, made in the summer of 1870, featured the members of the fashionable crowd relaxing by the seaside. By coincidence, his colleague and friend Eugène Boudin also stayed in Trouville that summer, and the two men occasionally painted side by side in the open air.

Between 1873 and 1874, Monet turned his attention to the busy commercial port of Le Havre that became the main French point of entry for cargo and passengers traveling between France, northern Europe, and the Americas. Monet, who had spent his childhood years and early youth (his family moved there when he was just five years old) in that part of France, kept coming back to Le Havre, even when he was living in the Parisian suburb of Argenteuil. In fact, it was in Le Havre, that Monet painted his scandalous and seminal work Impression, Sunrise that shocked Leroy in 1872. Another work, The Port of Le Havre, Night Effect, was completed in the same year (1872) and followed his Impression, Sunrise as a pendant.

Paintings La Pointe de la Hève at Low Tide (Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth) and its companion piece Mouth of the Seine at Honfleur (Norton Simon Museum, Passadena) were shown by Monet at the Paris Salon in 1865, thus, launching his artistic career. They were well received, with one critic writing that the representation of the breeze in the painting “penetrates as in the open sea, and the treatment is naive and young.” Furthermore, at the Salon, some viewers confused Monet's signature with that of Édouard Manet. When the latter got praised for the painting he had not produced, he sought out and befriended Monet. Manet owned and intervened in the sale of several of Monet's seascapes, actively and generously supporting his younger colleague during the difficult years of 1870s. According to Antonin Proust, he admired Monet's seascapes, calling him “the Raphael of water.” La Pointe de la Hève later featured in the first one-man show devoted to Monet held by the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel in 1883.

The painting was eventually bought by the famous baritone singer Jean-Baptiste Faure, who owned a villa called "Les Roches" in Étretat. The villa was a treasure trove holding his collection of paintings by Degas, Sisley, Pissarro, Ingres, and Prud'hon. Faure also sat for multiple portraits by Édouard Manet and had a considerable collection of his paintings, including the scandalous Le déjeuner sur l'herbe and The Fifer. Faure was a great admirer of the northern French coast and is known to commissioned Claude Monet to paint the famous cliffs of Étretat at least forty times.

During the winter of 1868–69, Monet stayed in Étretat for the first time, accompanied by his wife Camille and their son Jean. He became a regular visitor, and between 1883 and 1885, Monet stayed for long periods of time in this small seaside town. In February 1883, he painted twenty views of the beach and three extraordinary rock formations in the area: the Porte d'Aval, the Porte d'Amont, and the Manneporte. Between October and December 1885, Monet made nearly fifty paintings of the Normandy coast. It was at that time that he made his famous painting of the Porte d'Aval, a naturally formed arch, and a freestanding needle-like rock that attracted tourists and artists alike to the town of Étretat. A sunset over the majestic cliffs of Étretat is inseparable from Claude Monet’s canvases and his romantic love for Alice Hoschedé. In 1883, his paintings were shown at the Durand-Ruel gallery on Boulevard de la Madeleine in Paris.

In 1886, the article entitled "La vie d’un paysagiste," written by Guy de Maupassant, introduced Monet to readers of the periodical Gil Blas. Maupassant described how a year earlier he had met the artist on the cliffs of Étretat. According to him, Monet captured "in a few brush strokes, the falling sunbeams or the passing cloud.” The writer admired the artist as he “saw him catching a glittering fall of light on the white cliff and painting it with a flow of yellow tones that were strangely giving an amazing and fleeting impression of that elusive and blinding dazzle." (Guy de Maupassant, "La vie d’un paysagiste," in Gil Blas, September 28, 1886, p. 1).

The ancient medieval city of Rouen, the capital of Normandy, was also among the favourite Monet’s haunts. In addition to renting his studio across the street from the Rouen cathedral, the artist made his famous series of thirty canvases capturing the imposing Gothic structure at different times of day and in different light conditions. In 1895, he selected what he considered to be the twenty best paintings from the series for display at his Paris dealer's gallery and sold eight of them before the exhibition was over. Some of these views of Rouen can now be seen in the Rouen Musée des Beaux-Arts.

Another important place for Monet was, obviously, Giverny. In fact, his many sketches of Rouen were finished in the artist’s Giverny studio. He settled there with his second wife Alice Hoschedé and their children and stayed there until his death in 1926. Being an experienced gardener, Monet designed several gardens in Giverny. The most striking of them was his famous Japanese garden with water lilies. He seemed never tired of their beauty and produced approximately 250 versions of his water lilies.

Monet was not a recluse, though, and continued to explore the landscapes around Giverny. In the spring of 1891, he completed Poplars on the Epte, now in the National Gallery in London. This painting was part of the series of twenty-three paintings depicting the poplars which lined the left bank of the river Epte, near Limetz, south of Giverny. In June of the same year, the town decided to auction off the trees, but Monet persuaded a wood merchant to buy them jointly with him, on condition that they were left standing for a few more months to enable the painter to finish his series. Then he borrowed a boat from fellow artist Gustave Caillebotte and painted the view of the poplars from the river.

This is, perhaps, only a few examples of Monet’s love of Normandy, which always remained his source of inspiration. Whether this year you are in Paris, Normandy, London, or elsewhere, 2024 provides plenty of opportunities to explore the history of Impressionism and the personal biographies of the artists associated with it. The programme of this year offers a variety of experiences and insights into the rich history and enduring influence of Impressionist art.

Where to see the Impressionist art in France in 2024

Certainly, if you wish to see one of the best collections of the Impressionists, you should visit the Musée d'Orsay, which houses the world’s most important collection of Impressionist paintings, including works by Monet, Renoir, Degas, Pissarro, and others. From October 8, 2024, to January 19, 2025, the Museum will also hold the exhibition entitled Gustave Caillebotte. Peindre les Hommes.

The Musée d'Orangerie presents the panoramic display of Monet’s Water Lilies in a monumental setting. The Musée Marmottan Monet unfolds a treasury of works by Claude Monet and Berthe Morisot.

The Normandy Impressionist Festival takes place in Normandy every two years between March and September. Since its first edition in 2010, the Festival Normandie Impressioniste has acted as the major point of attraction across the region. This year, it offers an exciting programme of over 150 cultural events (50% contemporary and 50% classical), highlighting the links between Impressionism and the region. Expect to see stunning landscapes and works by such artists as Claude Monet, Eugène Boudin, David Hockney, Laurent Grasso, and many others.

The MuMa in Le Havre and the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rouen boast France’s largest collections of Impressionist paintings outside Paris. This summer, MuMa in Le Havre is hosting until September 22, 2024, an intriguing exhibition called “Photographing in Normandy (1840-1890): A Pioneering Dialogue between the Arts.”

Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen is running an exhibition focusing on the French and European connections of the American revolutionary artist and dandy James Whistler. “James Abbott McNeil Whistler, the Butterfly Effect” will run until September 22, 2024.

The Musée des Impressionismes in Giverny presents annual exhibitions focusing on the Impressionist movement and its influences. Until November 3, 2024, it will run the exhibition called Hiramatsu Reiji. Water Lilies Symphony, apparently an hommage to Monet’s Japanese garden.

In Honfleur, you can visit the exhibition entitled “In the Company of Eugène Boudin, 1824–1898," which will tell of the early stages of the Impressionist movement through the eyes of Eugène Boudin.

The Vincent van Gogh Foundation in Arles will host an exhibition Van Gogh and the Stars exploring Van Gogh's works in academic and literary context, including the exceptional loan of "Starry Night over the Rhône" that will be on show until September 8, 2024. Meanwhile, the exhibition “Van Gogh. The Final Journeys” will run at Chateau d’Auvers in Auvers-sur-Oise until September 29, 2024.

Finally, if you are in London this autumn, you should visit the National Gallery and the Courtauld Gallery, with their collection of Impressionist paintings. Both museums are also almost simultaneously running two new exhibitions from September onwards:

Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers at the National Gallery will bring together Van Gogh’s paintings from across the globe, some of which are rarely seen in public. They will be paired together with his extraordinary drawings. This means that his ‘Starry Night over the Rhône’ (1888, Musée d’Orsay) and ‘The Yellow House’ (1888, Van Gogh Museum) will be displayed alongside the National Gallery, London version of ‘Sunflowers’ (1888) and ‘Van Gogh's Chair’ (1889). It promises to become a blockbuster show!

Monet and London: Views of the Thames at The Courtauld Gallery in London will bring together Claude Monet's paintings of London for the first time in 120 years. The series, depicting the Thames and other London landmarks, was created over three stays between 1899 and 1901.