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25
To achieve his effects Monet had to work systematically in series. By the 1890s, still faithful to
Impressionist principles when others had long deserted them, Monet brought with him daily in a
carriage, to the place chosen to paint, stacks of canvases on each of which he had begun the study of
a certain light effect at a given moment of the day.
Monet painted series of cliffs, of haystacks, of poplars bordering a river, of the Thames in
London, and the Grand Canal in Venice. But the most impressive was the series of views of Rouen
Cathedral. This building an example of Flamboyant Gothic dematerialisation of stone appealed to
him as an analogue of his own Impressionist insubstantiality. Systematically he studied the effects
of light and colour on the lacy facade. In 1895 he exhibited eighteen views of the facade and two
other views of the Cathedral. Monet's moments had, in the process of being painted, become the
work of art.
The painting known as Rouen Cathedral in Full Sunlight represents the moment just about
noon when the low winter sun is still striking the southern flanks of the masses masonry, and has
not yet entered the west portals, illuminated by reflections from the square in front. Dazzling as the
cathedral paintings are, Monet was discouraged by the impossibility of registering with his hand
what he saw with his eyes.
In 1899 Monet began a series of water landscapes that occupied him till his death twenty
seven-years later. These late pictures are the most magical of all. He won his battle with nature by
annexing it. He constructed an environment that he could control absolutely, a water garden filled
with water-loving trees and flowers, and crossed at one point by a Japanese footbridge. Here in the
gigantic canvases he submerged himself in the world of changing colour, a poetic fabric in which
visual and emotional experience merge. Abandoning the banks the aged artist gazed into the water,
and these paintings show a surface in which the reflections of sky and trees blend between the
floating water lilies. In Monet's last works the stream of experience has become timeless. Monet
symbolically conquered time.
Make sure you know how to pronounce the following words:
Claude Monet [
]; Impressionist [
]; photographer
[
]; retrospect [
]; Normandy [
]; Japanese
[
]; Flamboyant [
]; Gothic [
]; Cathedral [
]; Le
Havre [
]; Rouen [
]; Seine [
]; Thames [
]; caricaturist
[
]; locomotive [
]; instantaneous [
]
NOTES
Impression - Sunrise, Le Havre - "Впечатление Восходящее солнце"
Women in the Garden - "Женщины в саду"
Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris - "Вокзал Сен-Лазер в Париже"
Rouen Cathedral in Full Sunlight - "Руанский собор в полдень"
TASKS
I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.
1. The first exhibition of the Impressionists was held in 1872.
2. In Impression - Sunrise, Le Havre, Monet demonstrated that colour belongs not to the object
but to the moment of the visual experience.
3. At the third Impressionist exhibition in 1879 Monet showed ten canvases devoted to the
railway.
4. By the 1890s Monet had long deserted the Impressionist principles.
5. In 1899 Monet began a series of seascapes that occupied him ten years.
6. The fleeting effects that absorbed Monet's attention could not pause long enough for him to
paint them.
II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?
1. Where was the first exhibition of the Impressionists held? Why was this exhibition greeted
with public derision? What picture gave name to the whole movement? What does it represent?
What did this revolutionary painting intend to correspond? What did this revolutionary painting
intend to correspond?