Claude Monet, born in Paris on November 14th, 1840, was the founder and true master of the impressionist movement. The French painter had quite a long career, which started at the mere age of 15 and continued to paint almost until he died in 1926.
Known for his mastery of color, light, and shadow, the founder of impressionism spent most of his career exploring the subtle relationship between color, light, and shadow. These are probably the first things that come to the mind of art admirers when they hear about Claude Monet.
Today’s article will talk about Claude’s Monet mastery of color and light and learn more about Monet’s artist. Besides, we will also look at some of Claude Monet’s famous paintings.
Best Paintings by Monet
Now that we have learned much about Monet’s painting style and his mastery of color and light let us check out Claude Monet paintings who is the father of the Impressionist movement.
The Green Wave – 1875
The Green Wave – Claude Monet
Many of Monet’s works were simply dark landscapes, while “The Green Wave,” created in 1875, is one of the artist’s few seascapes. The contrasting hues of the ocean and the clear
As mentioned above, Monet’s brushstrokes in this painting vastly differ when the artist focuses on the sky and the boats.
Poppies at Argenteuil – 1873
Poppies At Argenteuil – Claude Monet
Poppies at Argenteuil was created by Claude Oscar Monet in 1873 and presented a pleasant landscape of a poppy field at Argenteuil, Paris. The painting portrays Monet’s wife and son wandering through the poppy field.
The painting portrays a woman and child walking through the grass in the foreground, with another woman and child at the top of the hill. And although it looks like a good day, there is some cloud that hinders the sun. All in all, the painting looks pretty ordinary yet very pleasant.
Excellence in Color and Light
Talking about Monet’s excellence in color and light, Monet could capture the light and color on the canvas as it looked natural. Rather than focusing on drawing the figures and rendering, Monet’s primary aim was to capture nature’s light and color.
Many of Monet’s artworks were viewed by critics as ambient displays of colors. However, Monet’s understanding of colors and natural light was awe-inspiring and could be viewed in his paintings. Thanks to his incredible work with colors and lights, he was also considered one of the very few true colorists.
His mastery of color and light has made him one of the most celebrated artists of all time, with numerous masterpieces under his name. Monet was principally known for creating landscapes as the naked eyes saw them. Be it bright and vibrant landscapes or moody and dull sceneries, Claude Monet had attained mastery of color and light.
The Reason Behind Monet’s Mastery in Color and Light
So, the big question to Monet’s fans is how Monet mastered the art of perfectly combining color and light to create picturesque paintings. One of the key reasons is that Monet practiced the same subject of the painting repeatedly.
This allowed Monet to observe better and carefully understand the color relationships under various conditions of nature. The artist loved to watch how the play of light and color changed during the day and the seasons. Therefore he would create multiple sets of paintings of one subject, only in different subjects.
Monet began the Haystacks – 25 canvas series near the end of the summer of 1890 and continued through the following spring. The painting series features the same subject – the haystacks, painted in different light settings and atmospheres at other times of the day, across multiple seasons and weathers.
Monet’s Rouen Cathedral painting series is similar to the Haystacks, which the artist painted in 1892 – a year after the Haystacks series. However, the Rouen Cathedral series can be a more challenging subject, given its many nooks, crevices, edges, shadows, patterns, and highlights. These challenges allowed Monet to explore a broader and more complex range of color, light, and shadows relationships.
Water Lilies Series – A Perfect Representation of Analogous Color Scheme
The Water Lily Pond Aka Japanese Bridge – Claude Monet
During the last thirty years of Monet’s life, Monet painted a series of 250 oil paintings titled Water Lilies. This particular series depicts his flower garden at his home in Giverny, where Monet spent his later life.
For this painting representing his own garden, Monet used colors that themselves were closer to the color wheel. The set of colors was green, blues, and purples, perfectly wove together, thus resulting in a harmonious display of colors accompanied by the light.
In addition to the greens and blues, Monet has used warm accents of yellow, red, and orange in a few canvases of the series. The warm shades used in flowers allowed Monet to draw viewers’ attention. The painting demonstrates Monet’s exceptional painting skills, love for color, and ability to capture light with absolute perfection.
Brush Strokes, Techniques, and Painting Styles
Talking about Monet’s painting styles and brush strokes, Claude Monet used relatively shorter and broken strokes – similar to Vincent Van Gogh; but less stylized. The fast way to paint allowed Monet to take advantage of broken colors.
Instead of blending two colors, what Claude Monet did was weave together the strokes of two distinctive colors. First, Monet would fill the canvas with color and then refine it later once dried. Critics would often call the style unfinished and messy, but Monet was among very few Impressionist artists who aced the painting technique.
The Bottom Line
After admiring Monet’s paintings, we can conclude that Monet was a true master of light and color. However, apart from his mastery of light, Monet also sought to escape criticisms and accusations that his painting style was quite a messy one and lacked descriptive details.
