Claude Monet
Fundamental Paintings to Understand the History of Painting
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Impression, Sunrise (1872). Claude Monet.
Oil on canvas. 48 cm x 63 cm
Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris. France.
This painting gives the name to Impressionism. It is a definitive turning of the page in the history of painting.
Monet and the other painters of the movement —all of them were called “Impressionists” in a derogative manner at the beginning— did something very different from what had been done up to that point. They were no longer worried about painting things in detail, and definitely not in the way academies had taught so far; they wanted to reflect how the eye perceived things.
They sought to “capture the moment”, the impression, amidst the atmospheric conditions and the luminosity that change every moment of the day. For this reason, they no longer worked in their studies, but did it outdoors.
The Impressionists wanted to capture reality. And reality is moments.
Monet was fascinated by the reflections in the water and dedicated great part of his work to them. Here we can see how the loose, quick brushstrokes of different individual colors create the impression of light on the water surface. This is considered as a precedent of the abstraction that would arrive the following century.
Even when Monet is maybe the most recognized painter of a true revolution, he liked neither theories nor interpretations. He understood the world with his vision, not with his intellect. The eye as the beginning and end of the painter.
Recommended links:
Characteristic Elements of Impressionist Painting.
Timeline: from Neoclassicism till the end of the 19th century.
Monet’s path t.o Impressionism.
Stories behind the Works of Art: Monet and the Rouen Cathedral.
The Last Paintings of Monet: a Touch of Expressionism?
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