Monet

Monet is often seen as the archetypal Impressionist painter, conveying unstructured, sensual impressions of `real' scenes, but this view may be misleading. Paintings like Bathers at La Grenouillère and Gare St Lazare are not, perhaps, `sliced from life,' but are highly worked and tightly structured to produce an almost flat, decorative effect. In later years Monet worked more and more from inspiration provided by the famous water-garden he had made at Giverny, culminating in the great series of waterlily paintings; but even in these, it is possible to demonstrate that clear artistic principles of organization are at work. It seems that whatever his subject, Monet was well aware of the part that illusion and artifice must play in any work of art.

© 1998-2008 The Roland Collection & Pira Intl.