Monet-Lilly Pond Series

Hellooo!

Just a quick post on Monet's Water Lillie's, the meanings behind his paintings and his techniques. I was very fortunate to be able to see this painting (above) on my trip to London last weekend, this is one of my favourite pieces of all time.

Claude Monet "The Water-Lily Pond" 1899, oil on canvas, 88x93cm, National Gallery London.

Claude Monet, 1840-1926, was a key figure in the impressionist movement that transformed French painting in the second half of the 19th century.

Throughout his long career, Monet consistently depicted the landscape and leisure activities of Paris and it's environs. He led the way to 20th century modernism by developing a unique style that strove to capture on canvas the very act of perceiving nature. 

Monet adopted and extended a close observation and naturalistic representation developed by the Barbizon Painters. His quest to capture nature more accurately also promoted him to reject European conventions governing composition, colour and perspective. 

Influences by Japanese woodblock prints, Monet's asymmetrical arrangements of forms emphasised their 2-dimensional surfaces by eliminating linear perspective and abandoning 3-dimensional modelling.

He brought a vibrant brightness to his works by using unmediated colours, adding a range of times to his shadows, and preparing canvasses with light coloured primes instead of the dark backgrounds used in the traditional landscape paintings.

In the 1910's and 20's Monet focused almost exclusively on the picturesque Water-Lily Pond that he created on his property in Giverny.

In 1899 Monet painted 12 canvasses, mostly square format, of the pond in different light conditions it form the same vantage point.

Monet compresses the space and uses the Japanese bridge to anchor his composition but the bridge is truncated so that it no longer links the banks, appearing instead to levitate above the pond. It's arch bisects the canvas, the upper half rendered in an array of greens, grey-blue and pale yellows, while in the lower half he uses a tapestry of pale blues, greens and pinks to convey the water lillies. 

The surface of the pond seems almost thick enough to walk over; this adds to the illusion.