The Artist’s Magazine – October 2019

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