Monday, March 26, 2012

Claude Monet's Landscapes Around Giverny - very inspiring paintings


The Seine at Giverny, Morning Mists, 1897 (North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, USA)

Claude Monet's Paintings in and around Giverny


Monet and his family settled into Giverny, France in 1883. The subsequent 40 years of his life were mostly spent painting the landscapes within a 2 mile radius of his famous Giverny home and gardens.

It was during this time that he painted his most famous series of paintings - Poplars, Haystacks, Mornings on the Seine, and of course the infamous Waterlilies (see my Giverny garden lens). In these series, Monet strove to capture his landscape subjects at different times of the day, atmospheric conditions (such as fog), and various seasons to create series of paintings with unique visual nuances.

The effects of the light would only last a few minutes each day so Monet would simultaneously work on canvases pulling out whichever one best suited the current light, color and seasonal conditions.
Branch of the Seine near Giverny at the morning, 1897 (Hiroshima Museum of Art, Hiroshima, Japan)
Knowing when to stop. oil on canvas. 30 x 48 inches. Price: $2200
Painting by Patrick John Mills
I have been painting for 20 years now.  One of the artists that I love the most is Claude Monet.  When I started painting I would look and read countless books about him. Certain images tattoo themselves into your mind.  The above paintings by Claude Monet certainly have stayed inside me heart for many years.
I decided to stop this painting. I was just cleaning my brushes and adding paint to the canvas.
 I felt I had managed to capture something. I was wishing to work more on the painting.

Give more, Work more. Stuggle more. But the painting felt correct and had results outside of myself.

It is odd for me to first put white paint down on the canvas. White is opaque. But I started this painting as a result of cleaning my brushes while painting on another large painting. So the painting just developed. One could say that this painting was the left over paint on my brushes and palette knife that just painted itself. I was not thinking. Just painting. I think I am a better painter without using my brain. haha.


1 comment:

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