Water Lilies

What’s your definition of art? You may think that art captures reality and depicts something that is tangible. For French artist Claude Monet, that is not the case. Monet, a French impressionist, lived from 1840-1926. He painted his famous series Water Lilies (1919) in his flower garden at Giverny, which he used as the tool of observation in his perceptual study light. Monet does not make the object the center of his art piece; he centers the attention on the emotion of the scenery through his technique. He believes that landscape changes but light and air does not. He demonstrated these principles in this series of painting. As Monet progressed, he became less concerned with traditional pictorial space. His paintings became less “tangible.”

In his early career, he created realistic artwork like the “Fontainebleau Forest” (1856). The trees are well defined by dark lines; the shadows and low-lying vegetation are defined by contrasts in color and texture. Like any young artist, he took inspiration from his Romantic contemporaries and painted according to the Roman and Greek ideals. Focusing on the Water Lilies series, Monet started to experiment around with Impressionism-- a predominantly French style that captures the moment and the emotion onto the piece and does not convey accurate depiction. “Nympheas” began the series-- the painting depicted two water lilies floating on the pond. He still retained some of the three-dimensional aspects like the reflection of light and subtle indicators of depth. However, he shows the waters lilies as intangible objects: the colors blur into each other, and you have difficulty seeing where the object begins and ends.

In his 60s, Monet further developed the principles of Impressionism. You would have a harder time grasping the look of the object. Looking from afar, an observer will have difficulty comprehending the details of the painting without a title or description. His paintings became more two-dimensional, and all the objects in the painting seem out of focus. This can be demonstrated by the Water Lilies painting he’s done in 1907. The piece, painted with the sfumato technique, showed no defined lines and unclear linear perspective.

At the end of Monet’s career, when his vision began to decline, he painted with further abstraction. “Wisteria”, painted two years before his death in 1925, illustrated the water lilies with little physical form. The water lilies were simply represented by seemingly random strokes of shades of green and red. The painting showed no signs of depth or perspective; it is strictly two dimensional. For an ordinary person, the painting would be seen as random irrational scribbles. This influenced the modern abstract expressionism movement. The water lilies of Monet characterized the starting point of abstraction.

When I visited the Legion of Honor, the Water Lilies piece engrossed me with its ability to display reality and intangibility at the same time.  My exploration of the Water Lilies series helped me see the transition from accurate representational imagery to abstraction in Monet’s principle. I investigated the technical aspects of Monet’s Water Lilies by consulting the Annotated Mona Lisa by Carol Strickland. During my research, I stumbled across techniques in Annotated Mona Lisa that match with what Monet used. I used this process to refine my technical understanding of Monet’s art. For the specialized techniques that I did not understand. I did research to better grasp his ideas. As I researched, I developed an appreciation for Monet’s work. Monet served as a bridge between Late Impressionism and Expressionism as his work pushed the boundary of our perceivance of reality. His Impressionistic work inspired many artists. One of the many artists Monet influenced was Vincent van Gogh. Monet’s unique perspective on light made van Gogh dump the gloomy Dutch palette and seek a more vibrant and vivid palette. Simply put, Monet led the way to modern art by showing us that nature has multiple ways to be perceived.