MONET
Sunset at Lavacourt (1880)
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Impressionism has played a significant role
in the history of painting, because it characterizes a spirit of
innovation. Although Impressionist paintings provoked strong negative
reactions and even censure when they first appeared, eventually
they gained worldwide acclaim.The Impressionists broke away from
the Academy with a new vision of the world, focused on depicting
the environment that surrounded them with particular attention to
light and its ephemeral, changing qualities on the landscape. To
achieve this effect, they used a new palette and worked with different
brushtrokes.
Impressionism
attempted to capture
an immediate impression--painting outdoors in front of the scenes
that artists actually witnessed as they worked. Since studio work
was considered the norm, painting outdoors was considered to be
unconventional. Among the Impressionist painters, Claude Monet seemed
to be the most "rebellious" in the eyes of the critics
during that time. His passion was to capture the scenes of the countryside
as well as the scenes of everyday life--considered simplistic by
his critics. He created his works "en plein air"--meaning
in the "open air", outdoors. |
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MONET
The River (1868) |
Monet
spent many years painting a wide variety of subjects, with concentration
on his favorite landscapes. In The River (1868), the figures
are bathed with the sunlit atmosphere and the water. The picture as a whole reproduces the effect of a momentary
glance, an approach often practiced by the Impressionists.
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MONET
La Grenouillere (1869)
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As
early as 1869, Monet started to paint at La Grenouillere along
with his close Impressionist friend, Pierre Auguste Renoir. Having worked together at the bathing place, Monet and Renoir
discovered that shadows were colored by their surroundings not solely
in brown or black, but that the colors of the shadows were modified
by the light in which they were seen, or by reflections from other
objects. |
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MONET
Bridege over the Thames (1903)
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In
the 1890s, Monet started to create paintings in series; he depicted
the same subjects under various conditions of weather, light, and
at different times of the day.
Monet's series of Bridge
over the Thames (1903) was
one of his most famous projects.
In order to execute the Thames paintings, Monet made a journey
to London every single winter from the late 1890s to early 1900s.
In this painting, he was able to capture the atmospheric
changes that the fog created. |
MONET
Waterloo Bridge, Grey Day (1903) |
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