Impressionism
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Claude Monet
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| When: |
1840-1926 |
| Where: |
Work in Paris, London, Normandy and Rouen. |
| Who: |
'Influenced by Turner and Constable. |
| How: |
Light = Colour |
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Paint outdoors. - invention of paint that comes
in tubes - portable |
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Wanted to paint without preconception and truly
paint |
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Apply small dabs of pigment corresponding to his
immediate visual observations. |
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Instead of the conventional gradations of tone,
he placed dabs of colours together and when viewed from afar,
the eye mixed the colours together. |
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Shadow not black but placing complementary colours
next to one another or over one another. |
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Academic traditions of perspective, composition
and application of paint were not adhered to. |
| What: |
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Impression: Sunrise 1872
Oil on canvas 48 x 63 cm,
Musee Marmottan, Paris |
Showed at the 1st Impressionist exhibition in
1874 and title got stuck to the name of the group - the painting
looks unfinished and sketchy which is more like an impression
of the subject.
Critics commented: “what freedom, what ease of workmanship!
Wallpaper in its most embryonic state is more finished than
THAT marine.”
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Bathing At La Grenouillere
(The Frog Pond) 1869
Oil on canvas 73 x 92 cm |
“I am pursuing a dream - I want the impossible. Other
painters paint a bridge, a house, a boat. They paint the bridge,
the house or the boat, and they’re done… I should
like to paint the atmosphere enveloping the bridge, the house
or the boat. The beauty of the mood they are in, and that
is no less than impossible.”
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Saint-Lazare Station 1877
Oil on canvas 54.3 x 73.6 cm
National Gallery, London |
An attempt to capture the movement, noise and light at the
train station. Look at the treatment of the steam and the
people.
Compare with Turner's "Rain, Steam and Speed"
1844.
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| Working in Series |
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Haystacks, Poplars, Rouen Cathedral
and Houses of Parliament, London. |
Worked on each version only when the particular
effect returned “so as to get a true impression of a certain
aspect of nature and not a composite picture…” |
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Haystacks
1890-91
Oil on canvas |
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Poplars 1890-1
Oil on canvas |
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Rouen Cathedral
1892-94
Oil on canvas |
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| Total of 18 were exhibited between 1892-3 |
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Houses of Parliament, London
1904-5 |
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| What |
Later Style |
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- Eliminated outlines and contours. |
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- Vibrant colours melt into each other. |
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- No image is the central focus, perspective -
mist of colours. |
| What: |
- Water Lilies Series. |
| Where: |
Giverny |
| How: |
After Monet moved to Giverny, he bought the land
in front of his home and built a Japanese style garden. |
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He retired to this watery realm isolated from
the outside world to create his final series, "The Water
Lilies." |
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He created many paintings of the changing images
of the pond, its water lilies and the reflecting light at all
hours of morning, day and evening. |
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He filled the entire surface of this work with
an image of the pond. |
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| Water Lilies |
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Waterlilies - The Clouds 1903
Oil on canvas
74.6 x 105.3 cm
Private collection |
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Water Lilies
1906
Oil on canvas
87.6 x 92.7 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago
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The horizon is off the edge of the top of the
canvas. Only plants and reflections of the sky remains. The
sky is now at the bottom. Forms are suggested by dabs of colours.
The lack of focus of this series of paintings prompted the development
of the all-over paintings of the Abstract Expressionism in the
1950s. |
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