Claude Monet Painting

Claude Monet Painting

Impressionism: Painting in the Style of Claude Monet

Have you seen an Impressionist style of painting? If you do, then probably you noticed that it is characterized mainly by concentration on the general impression produced by a scene or object and also the use of unmixed primary colors and small strokes to replicate actual reflected light. Impressionism is a movement that began in France in the mid 1800s which was founded by Claude Monet. The term Impressionism was derived from one of Monet's paintings, the "Impression, Sunrise," which was used by some critics during that time to ridicule the whole movement.

During that time, the Impressionists painters were not very popular because they had a different approach to painting unlike most artists who painted in a very traditional way like those of their previous masters. The other well-known Impressionist painters were Pierre Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Berthe Morisot, Armand Guillaumin, Alfred Sisley, and Frédéric Bazille.

The Impressionists often do their craft outdoors and illustrate the effect of light and color at particular times of the day. Their works are sometimes referred to as 'captured moments' which are characterized by short quick brushstrokes of color that when viewed closely, it may look messy and unreal. But to Impressionists painters, exposure to light and movement was enough to come up a justifiable and artistic subject out of literally anything. Impressionist painters mastered how to transcribe directly their visual sensations of nature, unconcerned with the actual depiction of a particular subject.

By looking at some Impressionist paintings, you will notice that there is a fascination of the seasonal changes on the same landscape. The effects of this technique lead us to perceive of the changing nature of trees, vegetation, sky and clouds. Such technique was initiated by Claude Monet and according to some art scholars he perfected how to render the season's impression on the canvas by painting the same scene again and again in different seasons and at different times of the day. With this, Monet painted not the landscape itself, but its impression on his mind as he kept seeing it. He simplified the subject through his painting making it easy for us to recollect it and this is the reason why his paintings are classics.

About the Author

Jared Hum is a big fan of Impressionist paintings particularly the works of Claude Monet. This is an original article which was first appeared as Impressionism - Painting in the Style of Claude Monet.

what does claude monet 's painting of water-lillies mean?

i need to have an idea of what he was thinking when he was painting it.how does one interpret it?

The variations on a theme in the magnificent Water-Lily murals were his crowning achievement. In all of these, it is the changes in light and shadow, more than the landscape itself, that are the subject. "The subject is secondary," Monet affirmed. "What I want to reproduce is what lies between the subject and myself." At the beginning of World War I, Monet conceived the idea of the cycle of water-lily murals, works now in the collection Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris. This project, which spanned the last years of Monet's life, is one of his greatest legacies. In these large panels, as well as in the smaller, more intimate studies, the subject tends to disappear, giving way to modulations of color. Monet labored relentlessly despite the fact that his sight, increasingly blurred by cataracts, slowed down his work. He refined these canvases, which are much more than direct transcriptions of the movements of water and the effects of light. In the water-lily painting of 1916-17, for example, Monet combines a strict economy of theme with swift agitated brush strokes, allowing the canvas to show through the sumptuous, predominantly blue background, thus giving it great visual importance.

In the water lily paintings, the absence of all references to the pond's perimeter, the swirling brush strokes, and the unfinished edges of the canvas served to reinforce Monet's affiliation with modernity. His vertical interpretation of the horizontal surface of the water contributed to the demise of traditional modes of representation. What emerges in these works is a new tension between surface and depth of perspective. Sometimes the natural surroundings are conveyed only through reflections, while figurative elements break down into flickering spots of pigment. Within Monet's fluid compositions, our gaze tends to glide over the surface, savoring the paint itself, sensing the water and the vegetation rendered in broad, luxuriant strokes. In a desire to make nature his main source of inspiration, Monet paradoxically broke through into the realm of abstraction.