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Claude Monet: Lights
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Monet's painting during this period slowly gravitated toward a broader, more expansive and expressive style. In Spring Trees by a Lake (1888) the entire surface vibrates electrically with shimmering light and color. Paradoxically, as his style matured and as he continued to develop the sensitivity of his vision, the strictly illusionistic aspect of his paintings began to disappear. Plastic form dissolved into colored pigment, and three-dimensional space evaporated into a charged, purely optical surface atmosphere. His canvases, although invariably inspired by the visible world, increasingly declared themselves as objects which are, above all, paintings. This quality links Monet's art more closely with modernism than with the Renaissance tradition.
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In the 1890s Monet returned to this idea of a concentrated series of paintings based on a single motif. In his series of Haystacks, begun in 1890, the rather ordinary subject matter allowed Monet to emphasize subtle changes in light and weather conditions. Each painting has such an individual character that the series ... seems to chart Monet's shifting feelings in front of nature. In 1891 French art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel showed 15 of the Haystack paintings in his Paris gallery.
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[L]ate 1880s saw renewed interest in Claude Monet pictures. Soon, he not only became famous, but ... wealthy. Now, paintings by Claude Monet became bolder, and freer. He began painting landscapes. The use of light and perspective in Claude Monet pictures such as the series: 'The Rocks of Belle-Ile' (1886), 'Cliffs at Belle-Ile' (1886), 'Poplars on the Bank of the River Epte' (1890), 'Poplars on the Banks of the Epte' (1891) show his mastery in being able to seize the effects of light at different times of the day. He began painting a series of view, with the same subject, but in different colors and with different lighting.
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As with other impressionist painters, Monet too was very particular about the colors he used in his paintings. He never used pure black in any of his paintings. His favorites were light hues like cadmium yellows, greens, blues etc., As he aged, he was afflicted by cataract that hampered his vision. Yet Monet continued to paint, now with new vigor as he saw the world with new colors that he thought were (and indeed were) more beautiful!
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In June, 1870, just before the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war, Monet married Camille. In the autumn he fled to London. There he was introduced to Durand-Ruel, a dealer who was to be for many years the chief patron of Impressionism. Pissarro was ... in London, and he and Monet painted together in the open air and saw the Constables and Turners in the museums. After the war, and a visit to Holland, Monet returned to France to settle with Camille in Argenteuil, on the Seine near Paris. A studio boat was built so that he could watch the light on the water.
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Monet's constant movements during this period were directly related to his artistic ambitions. The phenomena of natural light, atmosphere, and color captivated his imagination, and he committed himself to an increasingly accurate recording of their enthralling variety. He consciously sought that variety and gradually developed a remarkable sensitivity for the subtle particulars of each landscape he encountered. Paul Cézanne is reported to have said that "Monet is the most prodigious eye since there have been painters."
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