Artists Magazine - USA (2019-10)

(Antfer) #1
ArtistsNetwork.com 55

OPPOSITE
View From Rouelles
by Claude Monet
1858; oil on canvas,
18 ½ x25⅝
MARUNUMA ART PARK,
ASAKA


BELOW
The Artist’s House
at Argenteuil
by Claude Monet
1873; oil on canvas,
22¹ ⁄ ₁^6 x28⅞
THE ART INSTITUTE OF
CHICAGO: MR. AND MRS.
MARTIN A. RYERSON
COLLECTION
PHOTO CREDIT: THE ART
INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO/
ART RESOURCE, N.Y.


through color. With most of the foreground in shadow,
Monet tracks the coolness of the greens of the plants at
the front of the house while being careful to keep much
more saturated and warmer color for the sunlit plants
on the left of the composition.
Moreover, the shadow area of the gravel in the
foreground is subtly active with mushroom pinks and
mauves interspersed with hints of turquoise. Here
Monet re-creates the indeterminate nature of the expe-
rience of shadow color by keeping it active instead of
letting it fall to a uniform gray. Similar subtlety is in
evidence on the wall of the house, where gentle shifts
of cool colors are pitched against the underside of the
gutter, the reflected light warming the color to a yellow.
The carefully related color throughout the work
creates an entire envelope of light so that every
element in the painting works appropriately. No one
thing receives more attention than another, including

the figures—the small child and
the mother at the door—who are
achieved with just a few suggestive
strokes of the brush.
Monet’s approach here came to be
known as Impressionism, a movement
that took its name from Impression,
Sunrise, a painting the artist sent to
the first exhibition of a group of inde-
pendent artists in 1874. Ridiculed by
a critic, who dubbed the painting
“Impressionist,” the name stuck and,
in fact, made Monet famous.

A CHANGE IN FORTUNE
Monet’s breakthrough had come
from several years of working out-
doors in all weather, and his resilience
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