Impressionism monet

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ART HISTORY 4450 Impressionism: Monet

Claude Monet (1840-1926) • •

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significance: regarded as Impressionist par excellance training: disillusioned w/ traditional atelier – 1862: studio of Charles Gleyre • met Renoir, Bazille and Sisley • new approaches to art – effects of light – en plein air – broken color – rapid brushstrokes oeuvre: transformation – early work: • directly seen objects (e.g., streets/, harbors, beaches, roads, and resorts) • usually filled w/ human beings or traces of human play/activity – mature/late work: • excludes human figure • gives up still-life genre •

increasingly silent & solitary world

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(Left) HOKUSAI’s Turban-shell Hall of the Five Hundred Rakan Temple (c. 1830-35) vs. (right) MONET’s Garden at Sainte-Adresse (1868)

MONET’s On the Banks of the Seine (1868)

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Monet •

Woman with Parasol (1875) – –

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narrative: "glance” or snapshot theme: fleeting effects of nature • sunlight and wind – contributes to movement – creates swirling vortex – difficult to tell where clouds end and windblown scarf begins – spiral folds of dress embody breeze composition: subtle dynamism vantage point: strong upward perspective • silhouettes figures against sky • intensifies dynamic effect of sun and light brushwork: painterly  spontaneity color: unifies composition

Monet’s Impression: Sunrise (1872)

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Monet

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Boulevard of the Capucines (1874) – – – – – – – –

setting: boulevard of Nadar’s studio subject: winterscape perspective: linear & aerial composition: dynamic color: muted; pastels light/shadow: even distribution figures: abbreviated, implied forms brushwork: painterly • fluid & intuitive • forms built up by paint, rather than by line/contour

Monet’s The Railway (1877)

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(Left) Turner’s Romantic Rain, Steam and Speed (c. 1845) vs. (right) Monet’s Impressionist The Railway (c. 1875)

(Left) Monet’s Saint-Lazare Station (1877); and (right) Manet’s The Railway (1872-73)

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(Left) Monet’s French Impressionist Still Life with Pheasants (1879) vs. (right) Steenwijck’s Dutch Baroque Still-Life (1640)

HIROSHIGE’s Futami Bay in Ise province (1858) vs. (right) MONET’s Rock Points at Port-Goulphar (1886)

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Monet: c. 1890s •

late 1880s and the 1890s: gained critical and financial success – primarily due to efforts of Durand-Ruel • sponsored one-man exhibitions of Monet’s work • organized first large-scale Impressionist group show in United States

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aesthetic: more expansive and expressive style – strictly illusionistic aspect began to disappear – three-dimensional space evaporated – purely optical surface atmosphere

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“serial” paintings: – “fixes” the subject matter • paints subjects from more or less same physical position • treats subject like an experimental constant • changing effects of could be measured and recorded – allows only natural light and atmospheric conditions of varying climatic and seasonal conditions to vary from picture to picture – color scheme: contrived and artificially heightened

MONET’s (Left) Wheatstacks: End of Summer (1890-91) and (right) Grain Stacks: Snow Effect (1890-91)

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(Left) HOKUSAI’s “South Wind, Clear Dawn” from Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (c.1830-35) vs. (right) MONET’s Haystack: Sunset (1891)

(Left) Monet’s Poplars on the Epte, Summer (1891) and (right) Monet’s Poplars along the River Epte, Winter (1891)

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(Left) HOKUSAI’s Hodogaya on the Tokaido Road (c.1830-35) vs. (right) MONET’s Poplars in the Sun (1891)

MONET’s Rouen Cathedral in Dull Weather (1892) vs.

MONET’s Rouen Cathedral in Full Sunlight: Harmony in Blue & Gold (1893)

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Monet: mature phase (c. 1900) •

financial security: secured by 1899

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health: during his last two decades, suffered from poor health – double cataracts – by the 1920s, virtually blind

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aesthetic: monumental scale – in 1920, he began work on 12 large canvases (each measuring 14 feet in width) of water lilies – his own past had hardly prepared him for demands of a large-scale mural art – characterized by broad, sweeping style – vast, encompassing spaces generated almost exclusively by color – virtually devoid of subject matter

Monet

Water Lilies (1900) • •

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financial security by 1899 site: artist's exotic gardens at Giverny – painted them tirelessly until his death composition: dynamic perspective: innovative – linear  implicit – aerial  implied by reflections of clouds upon water surface color: warm & vibrant – subtle complimentary accents – influence of Rococo brushwork: painterly finesse

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(Left) HIROSHIGE’s Inside Kameido Tenjin Shrine (1856-58) vs. (right) MONET’s Japanese Bridge (c. 1900)

Monet’s (left) The Thames at Westminster (1871) vs. (right) Houses of Parliament, Sunlight Breaking through the Fog (1904)

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(Left) Houses of Parliament, Sunlight Breaking through Fog (1904) and (right) Houses of Parliament, London (1905)

Monet: late work (c. 1915-25) •

Grandes Décorations – – –

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scale: extra large-format new top-lit studio built (from July to October 1915) @ Giverny had to leave daily drama of garden, since monumental format made it impossible to paint outdoors perspective: panoramic format: frieze-like statement: • “As in a microcosm one noticed the elements’ existence and the unstable nature of the universe that changes every minute under our eyes.”

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MONET’s Agapanthus (1920) central part of a triptych

Monet’s Japanese Bridge (1925)

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IMAGE INDEX •

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RENOIR, Auguste. Monet Reading, Oil on canvas, (c.

1875), Musée Marmottan Monet.

(Left) HOKUSAI. Turban-shell Hall of the Five HundredRakan Temple (1830-35), color woodblock print, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; and (right) MONET’s Garden at Sainte-Adresse (1867), Oil on canvas, 38 5/8 x 51 1/8 in., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

MONET, Claude. On the Bank of the Seine, Bennecourt (1868), Oil on canvas 81.5 x 100.7 cm, Potter Palmer Collection, Art Institute of Chicago.

MONET, Claude. Woman with a Parasol - Madame Monet and Her Son (1875), Oil on canvas, 47 x 39 1/4 in., Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. MONET, Claude. Impression: Sunrise (1872), Oil on canvas, 19 x 24 3/8 in., Musee Marmottan, Paris.

MONET. Boulevard des Capucines (1873), Oil on canvas, 31 1/4 x 23 ¼ in., Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.

IMAGE INDEX •

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(Left) Turner’s Romantic Rain, Steam and Speed (c.

1845) vs. (right) Monet’s Impressionist Gare SainteLazare (c. 1875) MONET, Claude. Saint-Lazare Station (1877), Oil on canvas, 21 3/8 x 29 in., National Gallery, London.

(Left) MANET’s The Railway (1872-73) vs. (right) MONET’s Saint-Lazare Station (1877).

(Left) Monet’s French Impressionist Still Life with Pheasants (1879); and (right) Steenwijck’s Dutch Baroque Still-Life (1640) (Left) HIROSHIGE. Futami Bay in Ise province (1858), color woodblock print, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College; and (right) MONET’s Rock Points at Port-Goulphar (1886), Cincinnati Art Museum.

MONET, Claude. (Left) Wheatstacks: End of Summer (1890-91); and (right) Grain Stacks: Snow Effect (189091), Oil on canvas, 60 x 100 cm, Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, CT.

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IMAGE INDEX •

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(Left) HOKUSAI. South Wind, Clear Dawn (c.1830-35), color woodblock print, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, OH; and (right) MONET’s Haystack, sunset (1891), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA. (Left) MONET’s Poplars on the Epte, Autumn (1891), Philadelphia Museum of Art; (right) Poplars along the River Epte, Winter (1891), Oil on canvas, 39 3/8 x 25 5/8 in., Private collection.

(Left) HOKUSAI. Hodogaya on the Tokaido Road (c.

1830-35), color woodblock print, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College; and (right) MONET, Poplars in the Sun (1891), color woodblock print, Matsukata Collection, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo.

MONET, Claude. (Left) Rouen Cathedral in Dull Weather (1892); and (right) Rouen Cathedral in Full Sunlight: Harmony in Blue and Gold (1893), Oil on canvas, 42 1/8 x 28 ¾ in., Musee d'Orsay, Paris.

MONET, Claude. Water Lilies (1903), Oil on canvas, 29 3/8 x 41 7/16 in., Private Collection.

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(Left) HIROSHIGE’s Inside Kameido Tenjin Shrine (1856-58), color woodblock print, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College; and MONET’S Japanese Bridge (c. 1900).

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MONET, Claude. (Left) The Thames at Westminster (1871), Oil on canvas, 18 ½ x 28 ½ in., National Gallery, London; and (right) Houses of Parliament, London, Sun Breaking Through the Fog (1904), Oil on canvas, 31 7/8 x 36 ¼ in., Musee d'Orsay, Paris.

MONET, Claude. (Left) Houses of Parliament, London, Sun Breaking Through the Fog (1904); and (right) Houses of Parliament, London (1905), Oil on canvas, 31 7/8 x 36 ¼ in., Musee Marmottan, Paris.

Installation view of Grand Decorations at MoMA. MONET, Claude. Agapanthus (1920), central part of a triptych, Oil on canvas, 200 x 425 cm., Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis, MO.

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IMAGE INDEX •

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MONET, Claude. The Japanese Bridge (c. 1918-24), Oil on canvas, 35 x 45 ¾ in., Minneapolis Institute of Arts, MN.

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