Artistic Ramblings   Term Paper ID:27363 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Stream-of-consciousness essay that discusses various topics in art history. Topics include: The Kreeger collection, Impressionism, 19th century Paris, & Claude Monet.... More...

6 Pages / 1350 Words 4 sources, 6 Citations, APA Format $24.00 Return to List of Papers

Paper Abstract: Stream-of-consciousness essay that discusses various topics in art history. Topics include: The Kreeger collection, Impressionism, 19th century Paris, & Claude Monet. Paper Introduction: The Kreeger Museum features a collection that was a joint effort by Carmen and David Kreeger, a collection started in 1959 and continued over a period of 15 years. The collectors showed a preference for coloristic richness and texture. There are nine Monet paintings in the collection, presented in a show at the museum in Washington, D.C. after the museum opened its doors in 1994. Claude Monet was one of the most important of the artists who developed the Impressionist movement. Monet experimented with the effects of atmosphere and light, and what concerned him more and more were the techniques required to effect a direct transcription of visual sensation to the canvas. His works show a variety in subject matter and technique while also reflecting the deepest concerns of the artist in a consistent fashion: Neither his choices of subject nor his modes of seeing, Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Monet's "Falaises aux Petites-Dalles" is a cliff scene along the sea with a more rugged appearance thanthe formations at Pourville, and here the land dominates with only a hintof the sea as it washes up on the beach. after the museumopened its doors in 1994. Monet made several paintings of this scene as he did others."Prairie a Giverny" is a highly textured work in which the meadow blendsinto the mass of trees in the background, with two prominent and oddlycurved trees standing taller than all the rest and attracting the eye tothe upper right hand corner of the frame. This formation is known as the needlebecause of the prominent pointed rock standing apart from anotherformation. He painted the same things over and over again atdifferent times of day to get the different effects of light during thecourse of a day, and he once exhibited fifteen pictures of the samehaystack in a gallery. New York: The Viking Press, 1966.Hauser, Arnold, The Social History of Art: Volume 4. The water itself is hinted at with a basecolor overlaid with splotches of shades of blue. It would be one of the most outstanding eventsin the history of art. (Kielty, 1964, 148) When Monet returned to Paris, he persuaded his friends in Montmartreto have a group exhibition of their own. Monet's techniques can be discerned in many of his paintings fromdifferent periods in his development, and in many cases it is possible tocompare the same scene painted by the artist some years apart, for hecontinued to explore the same subjects and to try to capture differentmoods, seasons, and times of day. He made pilgrimages to places heknew, especially in France, but also to London and Venice. The coveis the same as in the previous painting. There he came intocontact with the paintings of Turner and learned about the use of light bythat artist. During the Franco-Prussian war, at a time when Paris wasunder siege from Germany, Monet escaped to England. The works in the Kreeger collection come primarily from the 188 s andfrom the regions of Pourville and Giverny. He painted Rouen Cathedral forty times. Claude Monet was one of the most important ofthe artists who developed the Impressionist movement. (Seitz, 196 , 337) Impressionism is described by Arnold Hauser as the last universallyvalid European style, or the latest trend based on a general consensus oftaste. Lazare, the railroad station in Paris. These paintings are more subtle and vaporous, thickerand more suffused with light. The artist by now couldcomplete certain canvases from memory: This technique might seem to contradict the old idea of capturing nature by surprise, as it were, but in reality for Monet memory was only an instrument for recording an impression, an impression which free now of all petty detail preserved only the essence of the object remembered (Cogniat, 1966, 113). They asserted their independence in various ways, from theway they dressed to their art itself. Impressionism as amovement started with Monet, Renoir, and Pissarro, all of whom would sit onthe banks of the Seine and paint landscapes. His works show a variety in subject matterand technique while also reflecting the deepest concerns of the artist in aconsistent fashion: Neither his choices of subject nor his modes of seeing, composing, and executing were accidental, nor were they dictated by a systematic theory. The Kreeger Museum features a collection that was a joint effort byCarmen and David Kreeger, a collection started in 1959 and continued over aperiod of 15 years. Monet'scareer lasted sixty years, and toward the end of his life when his eyesightwas failing, he still painted as many as ten pictures a day (Kielty, 1964,147-149). His pictures were rejected year after yearby the Salon. Yet, beneath the eddies in the flow of his art always lay an unswerving determination to paint truthfully the world in which he lived. Claude Monet. The public came to see the pictures and to deridethem, and they seized on the word "impression" in the title of one ofMonet's works and applied the name to the group. There are nine Monet paintings in the collection,presented in a show at the museum in Washington, D.C. Monet also traveled constantly. They offer a hint of the wayMonet would paint and repaint the same scene, sometimes with subtle changesin light and shadow, sometimes with different additions in the foregroundor background, sometimes at one season, and sometimes at another. . He was the sonof a small grocer in Le Havre and was very poor -- Manet and Renoir helpedhim to buy paints and to eat. The style of painting in these works is markedly different from that ofhis earlier years. ReferencesCogniat, Raymond, Monet and His World. Monet here builds on levels ofgreens and yellows. His "Impression--Sunrise" from 1872 isimportant because it gave the artistic movement of which he was a part itsname--Impressionism, adopted after the painting was shown in 1874. He writes: "Since its dissolution it has been impossible toclassify stylistically either the various arts or the various nations andcultures" (Hauser, 1985, 175). Claude Monet was one of the true Montmartre bohemians. They were challenged by theneed to find a way to paint the reflection of light on the water, sparklingwith no shadows or dark tones, and their efforts to catch this ever-changing light developed into a new method of painting. The collectors showed a preference for coloristicrichness and texture. Theylived in Montmartre, a little village on a steep cliff overlooking Paris,and by 186 this village had become a part of the city itself. Still, they were always executed with amastery that could permit this difference. "L'aube sur l'oise" shows anotherscene of dawn at a different locale. The little village was the center of Bohemian life, and this lifetook place in the cafes of the area where the artists would congregate anddiscuss their art. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1964.Seitz, W.C. Theidea that this picture is the artist's impression can be discerned in theway elements are selected and layered so that the bright red of the risingsun, only a hazy ball in the sky at this point, becomes the focal point forthe dimly seen images of trees and ships. The artists ofMontmartre rebelled against the Salon system and chose to be isolated, farfrom the Salon. Monet had much in common with Turner: They saw the world with a fresh eye, and both were conscious of the modernity of that world. They painted in a new way, a way notaccepted by the Salon (Kielty, 1964, 141). "Printemps aGiverny" (1886) is part of the series of works from around Giverny, aseries of haystacks in the area, showing different effects of light andshade in different seasons and at different times of the day. To show the airy light in steam turner had painted an English railroad station, and for the same reason Monet painted Gare St. This was also a city of wealth at the time, and this contributed tothe support of the arts by a number of collectors. Monet was thefirst to be called Impressionist, and he abandoned the studio altogether,painting only outdoors. Paris in the nineteenth century was the center of the art world, and alarge number of brilliant artists gathered in the same region and worked atthe same time in this city. . London andVenice were the subject of a series of canvases displayed in 19 4 and 1912. Monet experimentedwith the effects of atmosphere and light, and what concerned him more andmore were the techniques required to effect a direct transcription ofvisual sensation to the canvas. Theseveral scenes of the cliffs at Pourville may be of the same subject, butthey create different moods and evoke different responses from the viewer,showing the range Monet could achieve with layers of color and withdifferent shading and emphasis in the composition as a whole. "Impression du coucher de soleil, Pourville, falaises dePourville" (1882) is another of the pictures Monet painted of this samesubject, this one the cliffs at sunrise with two female figures crossingthe beach and catching the eye just below the sun over the water. "L'aiguille d'Etretat" (1886) is an interesting study of a rockformation standing out of the sea. "Falaises aPourville" (1882) was one of a series of cliff paintings in Pourville, withtwo small boats on the beach as dark masses against the hazier view of thesea and the sky. Thescene was painted by the artist again and again over two summers, and thedeceptive simplicity of the brightening scene, with the clear reflectionsof the sky and the river set against the darkness of the trees, is undercutif one views the series of impressions offered by the artist. New York: 196 . Morning has a different feel in the series of paintings of the Seinenear Giverny, one of which is "Bras de Seine pres Giverny" (1897). New York: Vintage Books, 1985.Kielty, Bernardine, Masters of Painting. Only the one small boat in theforeground is clearly seen, a dark blob that balances against the brightred of the sun above, with a linking impression of the refection of the redsun on the dark water below. In part, Hauser finds that the rise ofImpressionism was related to the antagonism of the public to this style,and in part this was because the Impressionists did not make it easy forthe public to understand their artistic ideas. It stillhad a village atmosphere, however, and it was quaint, picturesque, andcheap. They endured years of rebuff and suffering,but together they completely changed the course of Western art. Finally, thirty paintersassembled 165 pictures of their own and hung them in the study of aphotographer named Nadar. Before them no one would have dreamed of putting anything so unromantic into a picture. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.