Claude Monet

A famous French impressionist.
Born: November 14, 1840 in Paris, France
Died: December 5, 1926 in Giverny, France
He painted mostly landscapes and scenes on contemporary middle-class society. His experimental paintings seemed almost sketchy, as if they were a first impression; hence the term impressionism.

Claude Monet (1840-1926)

Of the Impressionists, Claude Monet carried the color method the furthest. He called color his

daylong obsession, joy and torment.

His response to lighting and atmospheric conditions in terms of color, which he dabbed on the canvas surface with thick strokes, caused the surface of the painting to shimmer. Color was used to dominate the work with the glow of the sun low on the horizon, bouncing off clouds in the sky and streaming across rippling water to reflect back up onto a symphony of grays, brown, and golds on the side of the rocks. The eye feels bathed in light that seems to come from the painting itself. Lila Cabot Perry, a student of Monet's late in his career, described his approach as

I remember his once saying to me: "When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before you--a tree, a house, a field, or whatever. Merely think, here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact color and shape, until it gives your own naive impression of the scene before you." He said he wished he had been born blind and then suddenly gained his sight so that he could have begun to paint in this way without knowing what the objects were that he saw before him

As a child Monet was considered to be undisciplined and, not likely to make a success of his life. He displayed no interest in inheriting his father's wholesale grocery. The only subject which seemed to spark any interest in the child was painting and developed a decent reputation in school for the caricatures he was fond of creating. So much so that by the age of fifteen, he was receiving commissions for his work.

Early influences of Euégne Boudin are evident in his works. Boudin was determined in his ideas of painting outdoors or en plein air. The two painters met in 1856 at Le Havre and formed a lifelong friendship. In 1859, Monet left for Paris, but became quickly disillusioned and rejected the formal art training. Three years later Monet was called to duty with the prestigious regiment: les Chaussures d'Afrique. His later landscapes and colors of Algeria presented an entirely different perspective of the world and profoundly affected the art world for years. He contracted a case of typhoid during his service and his aunt Madame Lecadre took charge of his health and insisted that he repay her by returning to Paris and making a serious attempt at completing a formal artistic tuition course.

Determined to contradict the more traditional artist Monet joined the studio of the Swiss-born Charles Gleyre.

Remembering his own poverty as a student artist, Gleyre charged very little, only 10 francs for models and the studio. This leniency attracted a large number of artists. The student body, such as it existed, was extremely diverse: young, old; rich, poor; good, bad, etc. Among them all, however, Monet was to meet three very close and influential friends: Frédéric Bazille, Pierre Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley. This subcategory of Gleyre's students was representative of the studio's diverse constitution. While all three of these painters were talented, they came from very different social backgrounds. Noticeably, Renoir was considerably less well off then his fellow artists. The unifying force that was to bind the group for so long, however, was the commitment and intense dedication to their new approach to art. One which was eventually to be labeled --impressionism .

Monet soon set his sights upon appeasing the traditionalists of the Académie. Painting many indoor paintings that were "broadly handled with a loaded brush, giving a rough surface texture and clearly visible brushstrokes, and sacrificing detail to overall effect." he met with moderate success. However, once he began to endeavor away from the traditional he was met with criticism and rejection.

"His last entry, The Woman in the Green Dress (reportedly painted in four days), bought both recognition and introduction to his mistress, Camille Doncieux. Monet, desperate to achieve complete success, immersed himself in his next project and entry to the Salon for the following year: Women in the Garden. This painting took a very long time to finish because Monet would only paint when the light was falling correctly on every aspect of the painting's subject-matter. In order to complete the top of his canvas, Monet dug himself a ditch so that he could continue to paint the scene from the same perspective (other painters simply stood upon a ladder). Despite these many arduous efforts, the Salon rejected the painting when it was finally entered for the following season."

When Camille became pregnant they had little money and this began Monet's more itinerant days, moving to London in the 1870's avoiding the Franco-Prussian War, there he was exposed to the influential works of landscapists John Constable and Joseph Mallord William Turner Moving back to Paris began the culmination of the height of the Impressionistic movement. There Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Paul Cezanne, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley and Claude Monet put together an exhibition which has been vastly talked about in the history books but was, unfortunately, a contemporary disaster.

Camille died in 1882, and Monet at last moved to Giverny where he remained until his death. Marrying in Alice Hoschede 1892, with whom he had an affair with during his marriage to Camille, unlike most artists he never became morose or discouraged as he continued to commit himself to his unique style of painting. He began to paint his series of the Rouen Cathedral at this point in his life noticing how each detail of the scene changed in accordance with the changing light. Finally, with gaining popularity Monet spent the last part of his life gardening and exclusively devoting his time to his last work The Water Lily Pool until his death in 1926.

The most remarkable reason for Monet's outstanding position as an Impressionist.... if one compared his paintings over a short period with the paintings of his contemporaries, that while the others painted within a restricted range of ideas and even of feelings, so that the Renoir’s of the period 1873-76 are characterized by the joyousness in a collective world of recreation , Monet, with his powerful, ever alert eye, was able to paint at the same time brilliant pictures and also rather grayed ones in neutral tones. He was more reactive, he had more of that quality that psychologists of that time called Impressionability. That is to say, he was open to more varied stimuli from the common world that for these painters was the evident source of the subjects of their paintings. The Impressionist emphasis on the basic reality of the senses as an understanding of nature of the world was paralleled in the work of contemporary scientists, philosophers of science, and psychologists who asserted that reality is a sensation and the knowledge could be based solely on the analysis of these sensations. Indeed, Austrian physicist Ernst Mach believed that the only reality was sensation and all the laws and principles of physics are only a type of shorthand related to complex linkages of the data of sense. Modern experimental psychology began at this point to measure the senses of experience and the artists who shared their beliefs that a single accepted model of unchanging optical truth no longer existed--just as a standard of seeing cannot be mandated--considered nature, in the broadest sense of whatever the world reveals, to be the genesis of all sensation.

Selected References

Claude Monet:
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/M/monet.html

De La Croix, Horst, Richard D. Tansey, and Diane Kirkpatrick.
Art Through the Ages. University of Michigan: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
1991

The Life of Claude Monet:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jns16/monet_html/monetbio.html

“Happy are the young people who believe that it is easy.”

It is a common fallacy among mankind to believe that anything that requires attention to detail, years of experience and that draws a good salary is actually easier than it appears to be. Almost always that is far from the truth –years of study and exceptional talent are usually the prime thing when seeking a career in such a field.

The above quote is from Claude Monet concerning his art and the abilities that he formed. Monet no doubt had a natural talent for the field that would make him popular in his own time and quite a bit more in modern times – his painting, even from his early years, is exquisite in it’s attention to color and detail. However Monet did not become a master of impressionism, a forerunner in his field, simply by painting and nothing else.

“It’s not everything to paint – you have to sell, and live.”

Monet had to be taught what it was to be a painter at one point. That statement in and of itself is quite contrary to common thought regarding this master of impressionism. Many forget that Monet had mentors – Boudin and Jongkind primarily. These two, masters in their own right, helped Monet to shape his style and also gave advice concerning how to sell his works. Monet was taught to scrutinize nature and how to be faithful to nature’s appearances. As a result of this instruction most of Monet’s work displays a wide format, a low viewpoint, and a large, if not expansive, view of the sky.

How does Monet’s technique correlate with modern technology today? In what possible way could a painter who was at the forefront of impressionistic painting in France influence or even be related to technology today?

“My art is an act of faith, an act of love and humility. Yes, humility…. I applied paint to these canvases in the same way that monks of old illuminated their books of hours; they owe everything to the close union of solitude and silence, passionate and exclusive attention akin to hypnosis.”

Monet’s technique for study and application of his painting is startlingly akin to that of the modern freelance programmer. The stereotype of the programmer sitting alone in their small apartment with books everywhere and multiple monitors with lines of code visible in multiple windows did not come about by chance. Like Monet, many of these individuals owe their creative thought to the silence and solitude that is afforded by simply cutting off the rest of life and working for as long as possible. It is interesting to note that Monet has also been quoted as saying, “I’ve always worked better in solitude… following my own impressions.” The modern programmer is not so much a person with degrees and certifications as they are people that have the ability – the innate talent for the work that they do.

Impressionism] as shown by Monet’s work is primarily the capture of a particular scene to be as true to life as possible. Science and computer technology are constantly working towards this goal – the precise representation of a scene that existed moments ago that is true to life, an exact replica. Video production has been striving after perfect picture representation for many years, and with the help of new technologies, they are getting closer to achieving resolution and bit depths that are so precise that any difference between the actual scene and the recorded scene cannot be physically discerned by the naked eye.

“I’ve always done what I saw without worrying too much about the process.”

That is very precisely the motto of many technology experts today. The process is not as important as the final product anymore. In modern business practice concerning companies that deal with high technology, if a certain person is able to do the work better than his colleague, even though his colleague has more accreditations, the job almost invariably will go to the one that is most capable, regardless of the age of the person. The process of getting a job in a technology field is not the same as the process for getting a traditional job. The whole point is that modern technology has distanced itself from traditional job roles. The pay is on average higher, the age of the worker is on average lower, and the satisfaction is for the most part higher.

Many people that work in high tech jobs today are there because it is their hobby, their interest. They do not work their job because they necessarily must, because they have a high sense of dignity that they receive from their job, but rather they do their job because of the satisfaction that they receive from the accomplishment of their work. It has been described that many take up information technology careers because it is much like playing chess. The opponent is the world of technology at large, and the individual player must make the correct moves to come out on top, otherwise they will be forced out of their position by a younger generation that knows more and has a better ability.

“Everything I have earned has gone into these gardens. I do not deny that I am proud of them.”

One of the biggest quirks that show up in most every programmer and information technology worker is their pride in their personal computer. Most consider it almost sinful to not have the latest and greatest. Many hours are spent in research regarding which components are the best on the market right now. Many hours are devoted to the customization of the computers appearance. Some go so far as to custom build their case, and those who are able even go so far as to design their own motherboards. Much of the pride that is invested in these machines seems to have a direct association to not only how much the person makes from their job, but also how involved they are in the technology culture that holds that the newest is the best and that those without will not be able to survive without it.

Today the technique and influence of Monet, when juxtaposed to the technique and influences of technology, are markedly similar. Monet had mentors in his contemporaries, so do most computer programmers, network analysts, and other high tech jobholders. Claude Monet required solitude for his work, and so do most modern jobs – silence and solitude to the point of hypnosis. If ever you have worked many hours on the same project, steadily making progress towards your goal, you understand that the feeling of exclusive thought and ability is to be cherished. That is why there are such things as cubicles in the modern workplace – the sense of solitude is a requirement for most to feel that they can work properly.

Monet’s advances with regards to impressionism are significant. The man moved forward in a difficult field to attain something that many thought was impossible – the re-creation of a moment of time. Today many regard technology with the same attitude – “it is impossible”. That may or may not be true, but thanks to the influences of abstract thought and the examples of those who passed before us, technology at least has a hope of reaching the dreams of those who purvey it’s wares.