Artist # 20 Claude Monet

Right now in Art History, we're talking about Monet, so I thought I would do him as on of my artists. I think Monet's paintings are very beautiful. They're something that I would want hanging in my house. The impressionist style is beautiful to me. When I was really looking at the paintings in class I realized how talented he was. He really tried to paint what he saw. He was interested in the way that the eye perceives colors, and images the way a camera lens perceives them. He uses even brush strokes throughout his whole paintings. So it's very uniformed.

I love the colors in this one. They're so vibrant. Another thing about Monet, is that the paintings become this three dimensional piece. The paint is left on the canvas, it's not supposed to be an illusion or hidden. You can see the texture, and the brushstrokes. The detail of his paintings are also amazing. It's kind of ironic because impressionists are leaving impressions of images they see, but he does it in a way where there are still many details. You know exactly what the painting is of in that way.



I think that this painting of lily pads is really pretty too. Again the colors are very strong, because that is one thing that he focused on. His landscape paintings, such as this one evolved from his previous notion of landscapes. Before he painted scenes like a train station, or a shipping dock and called it a landscape. To him, every scene was equal because of how the eye sees it. Later on he shifted and painted landscapes that was the kind that we're used to-nature.

Here is the shipping dock painting:


The last paintings I chose were his grainstacks. He was interested in showing the right color, and light of different times of days and seasons. He painted straight from the scenes and so he would have to work quick to get it just right. Here are two examples of his paintings from different times, but essentially the same composition.