The Museum of Modern Art in New York City is a place that stimulates creativity, incites minds, and provides inspiration. The MOMA consists of extraordinary exhibitions and the world’s finest collection of modern and contemporary art but the pieces which stuck out most to me were Claude Monet’s oil on canvas Water Lilies (1914-26).
Claude Monet was one of the founding fathers of French Impressionism. Monet’s concern was to reflect the influence of light on a subject. Monet painted simple landscapes and scenes of the contemporary middle-class society. Monet violated one traditional artistic convention after another in the interest of direct artistic expression. His experiments in representing outdoor sunlight with a direct, sketch-like application of bright color became more and more daring, and he seemed to cut himself off from the possibility of a successful career as a conventional painter supported by the art establishment.
When I took a first glance at the Water Lilies, I was so astonished. I was finally in the same room with the great work of my favorite painter. I love Monet’s broken brush stroke technique and I adore that fact that he used such a big scale to create the lilies. When I step back from the mural I could imagine myself present at the Japanese style pond with the lilies admiring them and breathtaking nature surrounding them.
I think he wouldn’t have made such a proper message across had he painted the lilies on a small canvas. I also like how depending on the distance you stand from the piece it appears as though it is out of focus because you just see a stream of colors or it is a symmetrical landscape when your eyes are focused at a farther distance. I tend to follow along his lines of color and value the many different brush strokes.
Ever since I have started painting myself I have took Monet’s impressionist style into my own works. I love blending different tints and shades of a color in order to complete one portion of the piece. Then when I am finished the color balance and different hues tie together to form a beautiful and unusual composition from the ordinary fashion that the brain thinks things appear. Monet’s essence to his art philosophy was that he wanted the unobtainable. He felt that when other artists painted objects such as a boat or a house they simply painted that subject and then they were finished. Monet however would paint the air which surrounded the boat or house and the beauty of the air in which the objects were located to reach the meaning that nothing was short of impossible.
I feel that this ethereal image features soft reflections of clouds among a relaxing surface which is weaken by the pink lilies. I love how the panels of the mural have been installed on the wall on a slight angle; the caption stated that it was installed at such a slight angle because of Monet’s wish for the painting to embrace the viewer. Monet’s Water Lily paintings are based on direct observation of nature. Monet had endless inspiration from the outdoors which is demonstrated in the many years that he based his work off of nature.
The aim of his large Water Lilies paintings, Monet said was to supply “the illusion of an endless whole, of water without horizon or bank.” His garden in Giverny has his water-lily pond where the sky above is the subject of this monumental work of art, his representation of them can be seen to border abstraction. In the attempt to capture the constantly changing qualities of natural light and color above and below, near and far, water and sky all merge.
He couldn’t paint the lilies looking flat down at the water he had to paint the lilies at a view where there was always attention between the illusion through the surface and the surface itself, he worked with his right through his life because the paintings were worked on over such a long period of time. Monet reduced detail in his paintings to include only the essence of the seen.
I also find myself looking at the detail of the color of the subject I’m painting rather than the actual detail of the object. I wish I was able to ask Monet what made him think to place two brush strokes of different colors next to one another so when the viewer stepped away from the piece their eyes would blend the colors together make an illusion of the correct color choice.
In February 1926, at the age of 83, Monet finished the last great challenge of his life a commission by the French government for 22 mural paintings of water lilies. On December 5, 1926 Monet died from lung cancer. I would like to see his last mural that he painted in his lifetime. I think he truly made a difference in fine art and in the work of his fellow impressionists because he wasn’t afraid to express the overlooked details of life through his works.
Claude Monet was one of the founding fathers of French Impressionism. Monet’s concern was to reflect the influence of light on a subject. Monet painted simple landscapes and scenes of the contemporary middle-class society. Monet violated one traditional artistic convention after another in the interest of direct artistic expression. His experiments in representing outdoor sunlight with a direct, sketch-like application of bright color became more and more daring, and he seemed to cut himself off from the possibility of a successful career as a conventional painter supported by the art establishment.
When I took a first glance at the Water Lilies, I was so astonished. I was finally in the same room with the great work of my favorite painter. I love Monet’s broken brush stroke technique and I adore that fact that he used such a big scale to create the lilies. When I step back from the mural I could imagine myself present at the Japanese style pond with the lilies admiring them and breathtaking nature surrounding them.
I think he wouldn’t have made such a proper message across had he painted the lilies on a small canvas. I also like how depending on the distance you stand from the piece it appears as though it is out of focus because you just see a stream of colors or it is a symmetrical landscape when your eyes are focused at a farther distance. I tend to follow along his lines of color and value the many different brush strokes.
Ever since I have started painting myself I have took Monet’s impressionist style into my own works. I love blending different tints and shades of a color in order to complete one portion of the piece. Then when I am finished the color balance and different hues tie together to form a beautiful and unusual composition from the ordinary fashion that the brain thinks things appear. Monet’s essence to his art philosophy was that he wanted the unobtainable. He felt that when other artists painted objects such as a boat or a house they simply painted that subject and then they were finished. Monet however would paint the air which surrounded the boat or house and the beauty of the air in which the objects were located to reach the meaning that nothing was short of impossible.
I feel that this ethereal image features soft reflections of clouds among a relaxing surface which is weaken by the pink lilies. I love how the panels of the mural have been installed on the wall on a slight angle; the caption stated that it was installed at such a slight angle because of Monet’s wish for the painting to embrace the viewer. Monet’s Water Lily paintings are based on direct observation of nature. Monet had endless inspiration from the outdoors which is demonstrated in the many years that he based his work off of nature.
The aim of his large Water Lilies paintings, Monet said was to supply “the illusion of an endless whole, of water without horizon or bank.” His garden in Giverny has his water-lily pond where the sky above is the subject of this monumental work of art, his representation of them can be seen to border abstraction. In the attempt to capture the constantly changing qualities of natural light and color above and below, near and far, water and sky all merge.
He couldn’t paint the lilies looking flat down at the water he had to paint the lilies at a view where there was always attention between the illusion through the surface and the surface itself, he worked with his right through his life because the paintings were worked on over such a long period of time. Monet reduced detail in his paintings to include only the essence of the seen.
I also find myself looking at the detail of the color of the subject I’m painting rather than the actual detail of the object. I wish I was able to ask Monet what made him think to place two brush strokes of different colors next to one another so when the viewer stepped away from the piece their eyes would blend the colors together make an illusion of the correct color choice.
In February 1926, at the age of 83, Monet finished the last great challenge of his life a commission by the French government for 22 mural paintings of water lilies. On December 5, 1926 Monet died from lung cancer. I would like to see his last mural that he painted in his lifetime. I think he truly made a difference in fine art and in the work of his fellow impressionists because he wasn’t afraid to express the overlooked details of life through his works.
Nice, Amanda...you approach this in the spirit I am encouraging in this class... direct personal observation of the work in its physical form. The scale and dimensionality of these works can only be appreciated in person.
ReplyDeleteI am related to Monet by marriage... my grandfather was a nephew of Monet's aunt . Madame Lecadre... She is sitting with his father on the terrace in this famous painting:
http://store.metmuseum.org/Posters/Claude-Monet-Garden-at-Sainte-Adresse-Poster/invt/02019297
There was great interest in color theory and science among Monet's peers in France at the end of the 19th century... ideas about optical mixing of color were current... Seurat's work is a good example of that....
wow that is so cool, I love all of Monets pieces. Wish I could have met him.
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