Claude Monet is generally credited with inventing Impressionism, now one of the most beloved painting styles of all time.
It is indeed true that Monet's technique and favorite subjects were different from the artistic norm of his time and that his paintings from the 1860s and 1870s were scorned by painters, collectors and critics of the arts establishment. His early career can certainly be characterized as the stereotype of a struggling artist: woefully misunderstood, hungry and poor. Monet was so poor, in fact, that he had to move farther and farther away from Paris, just to pay the rent, he claimed.
And so he went, from Paris to Argenteuil to Giverny. Yes, he found lower rent, but he also searched out beautiful surroundings that served as subjects for some of his most famous and enduring canvases.
Fast-forward to 1914. Prosperous and successful Monet, immaculately dressed in a chic white suit and sporting a wide-brimmed panama hat, standing beside his waterlily pond, picks up his palette and brushes, looks out to the water and starts painting. The scene was captured by pioneering cinematographer Sacha Guitry in his 1914 film, "Ceux de Chez Nous," which includes footage of Renoir, Degas and Monet. Clips from the once-elusive film are now on YouTube.
Monet moved to Giverny in 1883 and almost immediately began planting gardens around his house that would eventually become a sprawling estate, filled with plantings of greatly varying colors and textures. Indigenous and familiar plants could be found side-by-side with exotic species. Perhaps his greatest achievement, though, was his waterlily pond, inspired by the Japanese color woodblock prints he so avidly collected. It was a work of art to inspire works of art.
The pond, precisely maintained by a hired gardener, was the perfect vehicle for a painter obsessed with capturing the effects of light and color. Monet would work on multiple paintings at once, turning to a new canvas as time of day and light changed.
In this 1906 canvas of waterlilies, the real world seems transformed. The pond and waterlilies at the bottom (foreground) are in shadow, starting to close. The trees on the banks, willows, poplars, or ash, for example, glow in sunlight and splash reflection across the top (background).
With no references to horizon or shore, dominated by energetically painted reflections, the whole painting -- not just the flowers -- seems to float, both upside-down and rightside-up.
Monet's "Waterlilies" will be featured in "Turner to Cezanne: Masterpieces from the Davies Collection National Museum of Wales" at the Everson Museum of Art, Oct. 9 through Jan. 3.
Steven Kern is director of the Everson Museum of Art.