Claude Monet, Founder of Impressionism in 4 Articles. Claude Monet’s Ultraviolet Eye - Secret of his Masterpieces

Part 1

 Claude Monet’s Ultraviolet Eye

- Secret of his Masterpieces

Monet developed severe cataracts in old age that made the colors that had inspired him for decades nearly impossible to perceive. He underwent eye surgery, but his genius continued on - this time in a deeper expression of colors.

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature School on Blog 

These two paintings of Claude Monet are of the same scene - The House Seen From the Rose Garden, (1922-1924 series). The red and yellow version was painted as seen through his left eye which was limited to the wavelengths allowed by his cataract.The clouded lenses prevented him from seeing anything but reds and yellows.

The painting in deep blue and violet is assumed to have been Monet's color interpretation with his right eye, the lens of which had been completely removed, a condition called aphakia. Through this lens-less eye, Monet could see deep into the blue spectrum, and perhaps into the ultraviolet range, which is usually obscured by the lens of the normal eye.

Monet was “only an eye - yet what an eye!” - Paul Cezanne. 

What handicapped Monet from full perception of normal vision, provided him with a perspective that perhaps no other artist ever had. Similarly in the field of music, Ludwig von Beethoven made his greatest compositions when he was already completely deaf. These two cases clearly demonstrate the hidden power of our normal senses, which we often refer to as the "inner eye" as in the case of Monet, and the "inner ear" in Beethoven. 

Monet's full color perception is dominated by red and violet in this painting (above), so with the selected paintings shown below. The interplay of light and shadow in Monet's paintings, the freshness of his colors, and freedom in his brush strokes are a clear deviation from conservative art in pre-impressionism. It was Monet who led the French school of Impressionism in painting, together with Cezanne, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley, Manet, Degas, and other painters in the later part of the 18th century.

 

 

 

Part 2

Monet in Paris at Brisbane, Australia

"How I wish to see these flowers alive."

Dr Abe V Rotor

Flowers, flowers all around, above, below;

waterlilies of all kinds, and their tribe;

a garden, floral show, I really don't know,

 how I wish to see these flowers alive.

Art, you deceive the senses, hide the truth,

make a place a dream so inviting,

so tempting like the proverbial first fruit,

where joy was short and fleeting.

The author and his family visited the Monet in Paris museum

 in Brisbane on July 26, 2023.

"Flowers, flowers, demure;

Gertrude Stein would be amused:

a rose is a rose is a rose,

and much, much more."

 

"What difference does it make;

tell me for the artist's sake;

flowers in the hall,* on canvas,

those growing in the garden, 

 all are deemed from Eden."

                                                    

 *Made of plastic, paper and other materials.

Claude Monet, in full Oscar-Claude Monet, (born November 14, 1840, Paris, France—died December 5, 1926, Giverny), French painter who was the initiator, leader, and unswerving advocate of the Impressionist style. In his mature works, Monet developed his method of producing repeated studies of the same motif in series, changing canvases with the light or as his interest shifted.

Monet's Water Lilies (Nymphaea) are the most famous Monet paintings of all time. When we write about the famous waterlily paintings, we are in fact talking about 250 different canvases in oil. Claude Monet spent the last 30 years of his life painting water lilies. His muse was his waterlily pond in his garden in Giverny. Internet

Part 3 - 

12 Brilliant quotes by Claude Monet 

to awake the artist in you.

Monet in Paris Museum in Brisbane, Australia

"My wish is to stay always like this, 

living quietly in a corner of nature." 

- Claude Monet

Dr Abe V Rotor

Photos taken at Monet in Paris Museum

 with author's family at Brisbane, Australia,

 July 26 2023

 

1. "The further I get, the more I regret how little I know."

2. "I must have flowers, always, and always."

3. "Color is my daylong obsession, joy, and torment."

4. "The more I live, the more I regret how little i know."

5. "Eventually, my eyes were opened, and I really understood

nature. I learned to love at the same time."

                 6. "What keeps my heart awake is colorful silence."

7. "I have always worked better alone and from my own impressions."

8. "The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration."

9. "It's on the strength of observation and reflection that one  finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly."

10. "No one is an artist unless he carries his picture in his head before painting it, and is sure of his method and composition."

11. "I am following Nature without being able to grasp her, I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers."

12. “The light constantly changes, and that alters the atmosphere and beauty of things every minute.”

Part 4 - Pond Waterlilies - Monet's Signature

  

 

            

Claude Monet

Famous French Painter and Founder of 'Impressionism'

Born On: November 14, 1840
Died On: December 5, 1926
Born In: Paris, France
Founder / Co Founder: French impressionist painting
Died At Age: 86

Claude Monet was a French painter who was a founder of the Imperialism movement in the 19th century Europe. Oscar-Claude Monet is regarded as one of the most prolific painters who were ardent supporters of the art of expressing one's perceptions before nature. He gained recognition due to his works in Impression, Sunrise, Rouen Cathedral series, London Parliament series, Water Lilies, Haystacks and Poplars. Claude Monet is considered as the pioneer of plein-air landscape type painting. It is a method of iterative paintings which documents the gradual change in singular landscape with the passage of time and seasons. In an auction in 2004, his artwork ‘London, the Parliament and Effects of Sun in the Fog’ went on to be sold at a whopping US$20.1 million. A couple of years later, his painting Le bassin aux nymphéas (from the water lilies series) went on to be sold at a record price of US$71 million. This placed him in the elite list of top 20 highest paid painters. Let’s browse through the following quotes from this French Imperialistic artist. (Internet)

Acknowledgement: Internet, Wikipedia, Impressionism (Book)

LESSON on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio and the author, host and instructor, respectively.  738 DZRB AM Band, 8-9 evening class, Monday to Friday ~