The Nymphéas: Re- Traced, Re-Membered; As Lived Encounter
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The Nymphéas: re- traced, re-membered; as lived encounter Wendy Stokes A thesis in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts UNSW Art and Design August 2015 ABSTRACT Claude Monet's (1840-1926) Nymphéas (1914-26), are a construct of complex interrelationships between immersion in image and site, memory and shifting geographies. They provide a platform for opening interpretations of immersive Australian landscape experiences pivoting around private territories and 'lived' sensory readings of site. While much scholarship has been directed toward Monet and the Modernist surface as Abstraction; this research returns to a fundamental, a critical friction that the images are of landscape. Both image and landscape become sites which are dismantled through drawing and painting as process, in order to be re - membered within a formalist and psychological construct. This is achieved by re opening the ground using the surface as a site for notations of my lived experiences in landscape. Through such perceptive and immersive experiences my research becomes a location for deceleration; a 'slowing down' and facilitate ways of knowing a landscape. My research aims to fracture Claude Monet's legacy into a renewed context framed around ritual practices and immersive lived encounters of landscape. TABLE of CONTENTS Acknowledgements Terminology and Definitions Introduction Chapter 1 Rationale: Critical and Cultural locations; Mixed Geographies Chapter 2 Methodology PART I LIVED ENCOUNTER: THE PARIS RESEARCH Chapter 3 My Experience as Viewer and Maker at Musee de l' Orangerie Chapter 4 In Context: Monet's Studies and Sketchbooks in the Musee Marmottan Monet Chapter 5 The Nymphéas as Studio Response i. Toward the unified field ii. Two propositions: space and light, closing and opening Chapter 6 Monet and Contradictions Toward the Modernist Surface PART 2 MY PLEIN AIR EXPERIENCE: AUSTRALIA Chapter 7 Bringing the Modernist Findings to Landscape i. Knowing through process ii. Critical friction, hybrid slippage, rhythms of nature iii. Engagement with landscape, residues of action PART 3 JOURNEY AND RETURN, FRANCE X 2: FLUID GEOGRAPHIES Chapter 8 The Nymphéas as Landscape, the Giverny Site Chapter 9 Reflection; Mutable Boundaries Chapter 10 Re-viewing Monet in Context, Current Practice Conclusion Appendix A. Photographic documentation as fieldwork research i. The Monet garden site, Giverny, France and my coastal walking site, Australia ii. Étretat and my Australian site iii. Orangerie; associated notes and sketches iv. Monet's sketchbooks and the Giverny site; my drawings re- tracing Monet's sketchbooks as process B. Historical research connected to fieldwork i. Étretat: coastal immersion and reflection ii. Monet, 'lived' experience and blue iii. Japanese Print Collection documentation C. Historical research; viewpoints i. A link between Monet and Cézanne ii. Griselda Pollock and female practitioners iii. Reviewing location References List of Figures/Images List and Images of Exhibition installation-Tamworth Regional Gallery 2015 Terminology and Definitions The French titling, The Nymphéas is adhered to as credited in Musee de l' Orangerie. I have maintained such, specifically to withdraw immediate metaphorical associations to waterlilies as flower and subject of my research. Landscape and Abstraction are broad terms which underpin this research. Both terms present multiple meanings throughout the text, relevant to the context in which the argument is placed; whether part of historical or contemporary dialogue. Landscape is referred in the context of revolving around roles of experience; whether observed or subjective, rather than a genre. It is defined within mutually dependent experiences between seeing, feeling and making; interpreting the 'lived' experience of a site; as an environment of personal significance; while considering the possibilities provided by landscape as a site which is observed as a component of nature, an organic shifting entity (Andrews, 1999). Abstraction, commencing in the context of Monet's time, 1890, is defined through painting, as a 'flat surface covered with colours assembled in a certain order' leading toward its autonomy (Alarco 2010, p.12). This definition becomes modified through the critical parameters of Modernist painting, emphasising the flattening of space by reducing perspective, through space and colour. In Late Modernist painting, Greenberg defined Abstraction as one confining 'itself exclusively to what is given in visual experience, that of establishment of the surface of the painting as the location of meaning and make[s] no reference to anything given in any other order of experience' (Wilson 2002, p 24). In current terms through Nickas, Abstraction can be eclectic and thought of as the 'filter through which the recognizable passes and is transformed' (Nickas 2010, p.11). Re- membered refers to re - assembling and reconfiguring the elements of imagery and sensory information; and also the findings which have been dismantled according to the research process. This is to be interpreted separately from remembering as an act from recalling from the past. For in text terminology of sites and images; Musee de l' Orangerie, Paris is abbreviated: the Orangerie; The Musee Marmottan Monet, Paris is abbreviated: the Marmottan and Fondation Claude Monet, Giverny: Giverny site or Monet's garden. The sketchbooks shift between those of Monet and my own and are referred to accordingly throughout the text. All Monet images within the main body of the text have been viewed personally. When referring to Claude Monet's Nymphéas images viewed in the Orangerie and the Marmottan the in text citation is abbreviated to title only, but is referred to in full within the image credit. Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge Peter Sharp, my supervisor and Sandra McMahon, former Director, Tamworth Regional Gallery, Tamworth for supporting both my research and application for the Cite Internationale des Arts UNSW Studio in Paris, 2014. I would also like to thank Sandra and Director, Dr Leigh Summers, Coffs Harbour City Gallery, for supporting exhibitions of my research. I gratefully acknowledge the Musee Marmottan Monet, Paris; its previous Director Jacques Taddei; Aurélie Gavoille and Claire Gooden, Attachés de conservation; Marianne Mathieu, Deputy Director in charge of Collections and Communication and Director, Patrick de Carolis. Much appreciation is extended to Fondation Claude Monet, Giverny for providing research access and Musee de l' Orangerie, Paris during my residency. I would like to thank my family who supported me during my research journey, offering patience and my colleagues who provided support in the final stages. Introduction Claude Monet's Nymphéas cycle, provides a platform from which to open interpretations and locate connections between immersive 'lived' experiences and hybrid readings of landscape; one filtered through the Modernist constructs of Abstraction.1 The Nymphéas, as research, sit within a collective body of work focussing on the immersive installation in the Musee de l' Orangerie, and the studies and sketchbooks which inform them from the Musee Marmottan Monet. Lived encounter of the works and landscape, offer several propositions to allow for an interrogation between somewhat conflicting philosophies; firstly, those which exist between Abstraction and Landscape, dealing with critical location as a genre; secondly, our confrontation of space and bodily location when viewing these works as painting and drawing; and thirdly, how this is transferred to interpretation of landscape; as a viewer and participant. Bringing my orientation of immersive Australian coastal landscape experiences to the research attempts to re define the terms of reference for the Nymphéas; as one which pivots around private territories and 'lived' sensory readings of site. It explores shifts in the terms of reference of landscape through my journey and return to the Nymphéas paintings, Paris; their associated sites in France and my Australian site, the shoreline and coastal walk at Port Macquarie, on the mid north coast New South Wales. Rather than adopting the more traditional approach to Monet research, as an art historian, the research is haptic; interpreted through intuitive material practice. The creative work posits itself between the shifting interface between drawing and painting practice around the sketch and through exploring these 1 Alarco (2010 p.14) argues Monet would inevitably be viewed as an abstract artist through the stance of transferring a personal perception of the world in a painted image through the self sufficiency of forms and colours. Alarco (2010 p.12) ' it was Symbolist Maurice Denis who in 1890 would provide the first true theoretical formulation of painting’s new autonomy when he defined a painting as a 'flat surface covered with colours assembled in a certain order '. 1 intersections, considers landscape as a spatial experience of nature and landscape rather than a view. Using Monet sites as models, the research interrogates the evolution of the release of the mark and spatial readings of the open ground. Drawing as a process becomes a method of notation, interpretation, historical record and act of making, while painting becomes a synthesis of the findings. The research moved between both processes. The research sites become immersive locations for an interpenetration and intensity of perceptive and bodily experiences. Monet’s Nymphéas were a culmination of extended