Poppy Field by Monet - Essay Example

?The work of art chosen for the purpose of this paper is the famous painting “Poppy Field” by Monet and is displayed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York which I visited during my vacations. The theme underlying this piece of art is Impressionism, which has widely been used in Monet’s art work. Impressionism is a genre of art (especially paintings) whereby the aim of the artist is to illustrate an impression of what he perceives from seeing various objects; it does not have a literal interpretation. More precisely, impressionists, such as Monet, have a deeper, rather vague, aspect to their paintings, which is reflected in their use of shadows, various angles of light, fog to name a few. A reflection of the Impressionist style is seen in Poppy Field whereby Monet depicts his perception through rough stokes of brush, vivid hues on a light colored canvas. The painting captures a spontaneous approach and depicts a snapshot of a scene that the artist has chosen. The most enthralling part of this painting is that it looks simplistic as opposed to complex; as if it were drawn with much ease. The painting depicts a typical day in Argenteuil’s summers (Murray). The most prominent part of the painting is the arrangement of various elements under consideration in the painting. The flat, horizontal flower bed is in strike contrast to the vertical stance of the trees. Furthermore, the striking green leaves stand in sheer contrast to the grass in the field which has been painted brown with a slight tinge of green as if it were dried. The essence of the painting is captured by the poppies that are painted vividly red with roughly six to seven random strokes of red brush at the bottom of the painting. To add to it, the sky stands in deep contrast to the rest of the painting with light blue hues and several scattered feathery clouds portraying a bright summer’s day. Monet has been more than just successful in outlining the sky with the aid of trees and the earth. The soil, although it encapsulates the largest space in the painting, gives an enthralling effect whereby its dark colors cause it to retreat and the white hues in the clouds cause it to become more prominent. Since the sky is in stark contrast to the trees and the soil, the ground and the trees drift the viewer’s attention to the sky. The perception of the artist is such that he controls the viewer’s eye movements by positioning the objects in a particular fashion. Hence, the viewer’s eyes first roll to the sky then towards the trees on the left side, and in the end towards the ground itself. It is a common mistake to think that because the ground depicts a lot of people that would be the most capturing position in the entire painting. In reality this is certainly not the case. Rather, the people become the most insignificant part of the painting, and that is simply because the people stand small in front of the greatness of the sky. At another instance also the painting demonstrates the insignificance of people by portraying three different people on the ground; the boy in the front who waves to the audience, and two women in the backdrop. Finally, the insignificance of man is further highlighted by the fact that the artist depicts a holistic view of man; he does not go into details and does not show the features of the boy of the women, in an attempt to merge them with the rest of the scenario. The boy is merely a figure and the artist does not even give the slightest hint of where his features ought to be. Furthermore, the hues used by Monet are bright ones, such as yellows, blues and greens; however, they tend to be not so bright or appear somewhat faded out by the scorching rays of the sun. We can, therefore, confidently say that the painting captures at length the sentiments of experiencing a typical summer’s day. Perhaps a significant aspect of this painting was that the outlines were thinned; the painting articulately depicted a melodrama of colors, a colorful fusion of brightly colored hues all blended together in an eloquent fashion. The inexplicably large patches of clouds in the background depicted Monet’s love for visual notion; hence this piece of art remarkably sets high standards for the Impressionists (Murray). Although the picture clearly depicts the artist’s perceptions and motives, the painting draws its first step towards abstraction which forms the bulk of art today. The painting is a blend as well as a stark contrast between two sets of hues; the reds and the blues/greens. The painter has not explicitly painted things; in fact, the objects are suggestive of various perceptions. Monet has yet again proven his association with the Impressionists with this painting by showing his alliance with the three primary sets of hues: the reds, blues and yellows. He then blends these colors into another bright pallet of secondary colors including green, orange and purple. It is this sound knowledge of colors and their unique blends that draws similarity between Monet and his other Impressionist counterparts. The contrast between what are perceived as ‘hot’ colors and ‘cold’ colors is rather quite suitably captured by the artist as the reds contrast fiercely against the blues. The distance downward of the ground is further enhanced by the smaller magnitude with which the house and trees are drawn; the primary colors are at symmetry with secondary colors because the ‘red’ poppy field is in symmetry with the ‘blue’ sky. The position of the sun on a summer’s day is also remarkably captured by the artist as the rays of the sun are seen emerging from the top left of the painting. It can be undoubtedly claimed that Monet love for showcasing the interplay between various bright hues of the field and the bright sunlight is evident here. The ease and beauty with which Monet has managed to strike a balance between the fresh, bright palette and dull hues of the sky is commendable. He has remarkably and rather, beautifully demonstrated a typical field in the French landscape. His love for poppies, however, lies at odds with the disgust of farmers who condemn poppies for destroying their fields. The underlying theme of this painting surrounds around the greatness of life rather than the concentration of the crowd. Figuratively, it depicts the sheer power of nature and the insignificance of man when compared with nature. Overall, the painting seems to be a classic piece of art, in line with conventional norms of artists; Claude did not recognize it as a work of art since these were one of his earliest attempts (Murray). It appears that the strokes of brush are rather randomly drawn; that they have been led astray in a rather simple composition. Furthermore, the flowers themselves lack depth and do not possess the depth that they ought to; as a result the scope for depicting appropriate tints of light becomes limited. However, the artist explores here a single object (the poppies) in various contexts. To conclude, this piece of art particularly drew my attention for most of the reasons mentioned above; it stood in stark contrast with the other more sophisticated paintings which required some cognitive analysis. Unlike its counterparts, this particular painting demonstrated the beauty of simplicity and increased my interest in Monet’s work especially because of the manner in which he managed to bring out the best of nature in his paintings. He had demonstrated, through this painting that nothing can be as powerful, simple yet complex as nature and that man bore little significance in front of the beauty of nature. This figurative meaning, as I perceived from the painting, increased my love for Monet’s work and drew me closer to nature where I could find peace amidst the hustle and bustle of life. References: Murray, Elizabeth. Monet's passion: ideas, inspiration and insights from the painter's garden. Maldon: Pomegranate Communications, 1989. Read More