THIRD CLASS - LANDSCAPE 1. INTRODUCTION Today we are going to look at two paintings by the French artist, Claude Monet, who was one of the leading members of the Impressionists. Does anyone remember my mentioning his name in an earlier class? The term Impressionism was coined by a critic upon viewing a painting of Monet's entitled, Impression: Sunrise (l872). The Impressionists were bored with the rules and standard of the French Academy. Instead of historic subjects, romantic views, and idealized portraits, they tried to paint exactly what they saw--an even greater naturalism. They wanted to capture the moment, including the reflections of light on the surface of objects. They sought to paint visual sensations--what the eye sees at a glance-- not what the brain knows or what style or conventions dictate. In order to capture the changing effects of light on a subject, where do you suppose Monet usually did his painting, in the studio or outside? Outside! Unlike earlier artists who sketched outside but then returned to the studio to paint the finished product, Monet and other Impressionists painted their entire canvases out-of-doors. This type of painting done directly from nature is called plein-air (open air) painting. Since Monet was most interested in capturing natural light, what type of painting do you think appealed to him the most, i.e., portrait, landscape, still life, or narrative painting? Landscape Two inventions in the second half of the l9th century made it easier for artists to paint finished oil paintings out-of-doors. Can anyone guess what they might have been? The portable easel and new oil paints in tubes with screwable caps. Now let's focus on two painting by Monet. II. EYE EXERCISES Since we are stressing how the eye sees in this class, it's a good idea to warm up our eyes with these exercises today. III. LANDSCAPE PAINTING A. Garden at Sainte-Adresse (also called Terrace at Sainte-Adresse) Artist - Claude Monet - French (l840-l926) Year Painted - l867 Medium - oil on canvas Props - poster of painting, large sheet of acetate paper to place over poster, indelible marker. Activities - Tracing for structure BACKGROUND INFORMATION (for the teacher) Claude Monet was born in Paris on November l4, l840. His father was a wholesale grocer. Financial problems forced the family to move to Le Havre in the north of France when Monet was five. As a child, Monet disliked school, but loved to draw. He was particularly fascinated by the sea and the reflections of light on water. By the time he was a teenager, the artist was earning money as a caricaturist. His parents encouraged his precocious talent. Monet struck up a friendship with another painter in Le Havre, Boudin, who would become his first real teacher. Boudin taught Monet to paint what he saw and influenced him to paint in the open-air as a way to retain the freshness of a sketch in a finished work. This idea was to become one of the hallmarks of Impressionist painting. Monet went to Paris in l859 but studied at the Academie Suisse rather than at the more traditional Ecole des Beaux-Arts. A year later he was drafted into the French army and served in Algeria. He was fascinated with the quality of light in North Africa and spent more and more time thinking about how to capture the effects of natural light on objects. In l862 Monet was back in Paris and entered the studio of Gleyre where he met Renoir, Sisley and Bazille. They became his friends and joined Monet in painting out-of-doors. In l865 Monet had two seascapes accepted by the Salon, but for the most part his works were considered too rough, too sketchy and unfinished to be saleable. Monet often went hungry, lacked money for art supplies, and even contemplated suicide at one point. In l870 Monet went to London to avoid the Franco-Prussian War. There he was introduced to the dealer, Durand Ruel, who bought some of his pictures. Upon his return to Paris a year later, Monet began painting the landscape at Argenteuil along the Seine River. In l874 Monet was one of the main organizers of the first Impressionist Exhibit and showed pictures in four of the seven subsequent group exhibitions. Monet was always experimenting. In l877 he made the first of his series paintings, of the railroad station at Saint Lazare. By the l890s Monet was concentrating on making numerous versions of the same scene--of grainstacks, poplars, Rouen cathedral, etc--in order to record the changing effects of light and color according to the seasons, weather and time of day. His days of poverty were over. Collectors began to buy his canvases especially in America, and in l890 he had enough money to purchase a country home in Giverny twenty miles from Paris. Monet lavished his attention on the gardens there, diverting a stream to make a pond, building a Japanese bridge, and creating a colorful garden filled with a wide variety of plant material. Monet painted many pictures of his garden including the famous canvases of water lilies. In later years, the artist was troubled by poor vision. A cataract operation restored some sight but eventually he was almost completely blind. Monet continued to paint as he could and his later works are noted for their greater abstraction. Cezanne said of his fellow artist's unsurpassed ability to record visual sensations, "Monet is only an eye, but my God what an eye!" DIALOGUE SUGGESTIONS (for classroom presentation) Show the students the poster of Garden at Sainte-Adresse and ask them what it is a picture of? A garden and water, two of Monet’s favorite subjects. Tell the students the painting's name and that it shows the Monet family property at Sainte-Adresse overlooking the English Channel in the north of France. (Point this out to students on a map.) What about the people? Are they important? Could they be the subject? No. They are not the most important thing in the painting. It's not a portrait because we can't see their faces. We can identify who they are, however. The artist's cousin Jeanne Marguerite Lecadre is standing next to an unidentified man while the artist's aunt, Mme. Lecadre, and father, Adolphe, are seated. Monet spent the summer of 1867 with his father and aunt, partly because he was without money at the time and needed their financial support. If this is not a portrait, what type of a painting could it be then? A landscape. A picture in which a view of the land is most important. As you can imagine, landscapes and seascapes were very important to the Impressionists because they usually worked out-of-doors. Monet especially liked to paint landscapes because of his interest in reflected light. Garden at Sainte-Adresse is one of Monet's early works and is considered the first truly Impressionist painting. Let's figure out why this is true. If you were painting out-of-doors in order to capture the moment, would you paint slowly with lots of detail, or quickly with less detail? Quickly with less detail. Monet sometimes worked only l5 minutes on a particular painting and then came back to it at the same time the next day. What might change in fifteen minutes time? The weather The angle of the sun or the shadows. What type of brush strokes suggest this type of rapid glance? Loose, broken brush strokes that don't smooth over or hide the texture of the paint. Do you find certain areas of this painting that are painted more sketchily and loosely than others? Where? The flowers and water are more sketchy, just dabs of colored paint, whereas the other areas of the painting are more clear, traditional, smooth and detailed. All Monet's art will in a few years become splashes of color. What colors does Monet use most frequently in this painting? Red, blue, yellow, green and white. Are his colors bright or dull? Very bright. He has used the three primary colors--red, yellow, and blue-- unmixed with any other color. They add vivid accents that enliven the scene. Another hallmark of Impressionist art is its bright palette. Is this a formal or informal scene? It's informal, a casual gathering of Monet's family on the terrace of their home. The Impressionists favored casual scenes of everyday life. Where are we, the viewer, standing? Above the scene looking down, a bird’s eye view. Monet painted this picture from an upstairs window in the house. This elevated viewpoint flattens the picture. How would you divide this picture into three parts? Most students would divide it horizontally--terrace, water, sky. These three almost equal horizontal zones one on top of the other also flatten the picture. Where do you find strong vertical lines? The flagpoles, standing figures, flowers, fence, and masts. What other type of lines can you find? Curved lines: chair backs, mounds of flowers, sails, parasols Monet wrote of this painting fifty years later (i.e. in l920) that "...on each side of the composition there is a pole with a flag, and that, at that time, this composition was considered very daring." This painting is the essence of Impressionism in that it captures the moment so accurately that we can determine the time of year, the time of day and the weather. What season do you think is shown here? Look at the flowers for a hint. Summer Gladioli (tall spiky red flowers at left and right) and geraniums (red flowers in center) bloom in the summer.