Claude Monet was born in 1840 in Paris, France. Like Leonardo Da Vinci, at the young age of 15, Monet became somewhat well-known for his caricatures. In 1858 he was introduced to outdoor painting by Eugene Boudin, and although he had become increasingly comfortable with indoor scenes, he left home a year later in pursuit of becoming a better landscape painter. He frequently travelled, tried to portray new landscapes, and experimented with different painting styles and color schemes. Due to his problematic financial situation at the time, it is said that he sometimes destroyed his own paintings, so that the creditors wouldn’t take them. Within the years that he was married to a woman named Camille, he produced some of his best paintings. However, at the time many artists did not praise his work—precisely because of the painting style he chose to use. He was an “impressionist”, which is a slightly more abstract-appearing type of painting in which portraying scenes was more based on perceptual understanding as opposed to conceptual understanding. In it, a painter, rather than painting scenes in an ideal manner, according to what they “should” look like, will not hesitate to paint nature as it is.
The belief that drove Claude Monet to be an impressionist was that nature should be artistically portrayed in its natural form. Some of the artists he painted with after leaving home probably influenced him in this respect, as he was a young painter at the time. Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Edgar Degas were the two skilled impressionist painters he became very close to when he was at the peak of his career. However, the public was very critical of the impressionist way of painting. Because most paintings at the time involved long, peaceful brush strokes, and often times realism, Monet’s almost choppy strokes and somewhat unclear paintings drew unpleasant reactions from the public, who claimed Monet’s pictures seemed “incomplete.” This is similar to how to the American public, in response to Elvis Presley's shift from gospel music to "Rock n' Roll", and his increasingly "risky" dance moves, did not want their children to be exposed to it in fear they might follow his behavioral example. However, in modern times, we both appreciate impressionist art, and let children of almost any age listen to Elvis' music. In a sense this "openness" of our postmodern world has allowed us to accept and reflect upon the talent of all artists, regardless of style, which has led us to be able to both analyze artistic pieces and derive meanings from them without an extremely biased perspective.
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| "Impression: Sunrise" by Claude Monet |
Now that we have accepted impressionism as an art form, and have had the tools with which to delve deeper into artistic pieces, several of Monet's works have emerged as being the best examples of his impressionism. One of them is titled "Impression: Sunrise" an oil painting on canvas that he painted in 1872 (shown on left). As is evident, the brush stokes are not necessarily unified in direction--they originate from several different angles. Also, it is interesting to note that the trees look somewhat "scribbled in", and that at points it looks like globs of paint were carelessly distributed around certain areas (mainly the distant background). However, it can also be seen, how much the painting comes into focus with decreased distance. For example, the two people and the boat, and the ripples in the water around them, are in the most focus. This essentially directs our attention to that point in the painting. Also, right next to the boat is the reflection of the sun's rays over the water; a bright orange contrasting with the almost gloomy greens and blues of the water. In my opinion, the effect of the sun is very prominent in this painting. To me, it seems that the abstractness with which Monet painted the distant background is almost symbolic of the tiredness one feels upon waking up, the drowsiness at having the previous days' successes or failures still stamped in ones mind. It's not quite the night, and it's not quite the day, and as such can represent the change in consciousness that occurs when one wakes up, and the mental disorganization that can follow. The sun, however, represents the aspect of a "new day" in that respect; still not having risen, you can feel the potential for change it has.
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