Global Visual and Material Culture - Essay Example

Global Visual and Material Culture: 1800 to Present The painting Figure Photograph of Vetheuil in Summer, 1879 Oil on Canvas by Claude Monet1 Claude Monet’s ‘Vetheuilin Summer’ is one of a series of 1880s paintingswhereby the same scene is captured many times in order to record changing of light and the passing of seasons.This painting illustrates Monet’scareer long aim of open air painting and search for novel ways of expression in terms of colour and shapes; and veering away from then traditional scenes and objects. To achieve this, the painter used bright colours and juxtaposition, shunned academic or orthodox painting norms and withscientific precision, recorded passage of time through light, mist and rain effects on landscapepaintings of a subject. Monet is the father of French Impressionism, a term coined after his painting ‘Impressions, Sunrise’ submitted to the premier impressionist exhibition in France by avant garde artists. Moffett observes that Vetheuil in Summer was painted from opposite Vetheuil’s across the river Seine with defined sensations of colour and light that create abstractness2. The landscape was painted after the fifth impressionist exhibition and was accepted by the Salon jury which actually changed selection criteria to accept impressionist works. History Monet was living in Napoleon II’s second empire, a political regime backed by the elite class. His work shows that he had no interest in the political or socio-economic problems of the time, but was detached from societal expectations as evidenced by his courtship and marriage of a poor woman with a lower social standing despite his father’s disapproval3. Ignoring the national struggle, he focused instead on promoting the intimate and everyday life situations, interaction of various elements with open spaces, deemphasized humans and put them as elements in his landscapes. After the interruption of the Franco-Prussian war, he wholly shifted towards impressionism. In his time, the only way for an artiste to get recognition and earn income was by having works accepted by the Salon’s jury and thereby exhibited4. The Salon, whose name was derived from the Louvre’s Salon Carre, was established in the seventeenth century reign of King Louis XIV by Prime Minister Jean Baptiste Colbert. Its exhibitions were held bi-enially in different locations and at Monet’s time, it already had a 100 year history. The Salon had a jury made up of teachers from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts who selected paintings worth being exhibited. The Salon jury mostly favoured its students, and had rigid requirements based on traditional genres such as Greek mythology, biblical expression, fashionable individual scenes, portraits and ideal landscape composed by painters. Admission of paintings to the Salon was difficult. In addition to genre specification, a painting had to adhere to strict technical requirements of professionalism such as smoothness and blended-in brush stroke, and allowed no room for exploration. Faced with his and other painters’ works rejection by the salon, as well as criticism from contemporary artist Gustave Coubert, Monet wholly turned to impressionist landscapes and still life’s characterized by light and reflections in water5. His 1871 move to Argenteuil on the seine enabled this pursuit, and while there, he and fellow impressionists formed an exhibition society know after a painting he submitted to the society’s first exhibition, which he named ‘Impression, Sunrise’. However, Monet quit the society after the fourth exhibition in 1878, and Vetheuil on the seine, painted views of the town at all seasons, flowers and still life in 1880 was completed. Bulletin6 observes that Monet’s three years at Vetheuil were turbulent due to his wife’s death in 1879, isolation from friends and family as well as the vibrant arts centre at Paris and financial problems. Other problems affecting him included criticism of his paintings, depression and a reorientation from impressionism to be in line with the salon’s specifications. Another painting from this rough time expressing his feeling, La Debacle7 shows Monet’s spontaneity, free spirited nature, fleeting touch, incisive perception, inquiring nature and talent. In 1883 Monet moved to Givenchy, and his works at last appealed to collectors, whose interest gave Monet professional as well as financial freedom. Monet’s works are important to today dues to visual sensitiveness and strength as well as trademark use of space and light8. Sterling and Salinger state that9 130 the painting features the dominant Romanesque church, with discernible brush strokes creating reflections on water. It is similar to his other paintings such as A Path in the Ile Saint-Martin, 132, The Seine at Vetheuil and Ile Aux Fleurs. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bulletin - Museums of Art and Archaeology. Vol. 1 - 4. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1978. Kalitina, N. and Brodskaya, N. Claude Monet: Parkstone, 2012. Parker, D. M., and Derêgowski, J.B. Perception and Artistic Style. Amsterdam: North-Holland: 1991. 192. Sterling, C. and Salinger, M. M. French Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1967. Moffett, C. S. Impressionist and Post-impressionist Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1985. Read More