A fascinating aspect of impressionist art is that
it makes no pretense at creating a world in an
illusory space beyond the picture plane.
Instead, the artist attempts to duplicate, more or
less spontaneously and without intense concentration,
the patterns of color falling upon the retinas of his
or her eyes. There is no conscious effort to
produce a specific image, but rather to capture an
idea. The artist simply applies color to the
canvas in response to the patterns detected by the
eye when gazing at the subject. The picture
plane does not represent a window; there is no true
image within its borders. The artwork itself is
simply pigment on fabric, no more. It is
indeed, as early critics of the style complained,
incomplete.
Yet this incompleteness is no flaw. It is
intentional; there is a creative purpose to it.
It is the artist's aim to engage the viewer, not as a
mere observer, but as a participant, to complete the
process, and thereby become an integral and intimate
part of the whole communication process of art.
It is not until the pattern of colors and shapes
filters through the sensory apparatus and into the
brain that it is transformed into something
significant. There, in the viewer's mind, the
image materializes, and the scenery, objects, people,
and their activities finally emerge from it. Magic!
Even more amazing, it turns out that this magic is
very much the form in which memorable scenes we
encounter in everyday life are stored in our
long-term memory, and also how we dream—not in
terms of microscopically detailed concrete objects,
but rather in terms of patterns of hue and shape,
light and shade. When we remember a scene from
years past, we do not recall the precise arrangement
of bricks in a wall, or the exact variety of
wildflowers in a meadow. What we recall are
general impressions of color, geometry, motion,
density, and the like, perhaps along with a few
details which happened to strike us as
noteworthy. Just as in recalling memories, when
viewing impressionist art we actively apply familiar
associations and ingrained concepts of space-time to
the perceived patterns. We do not simply
register an already existing image, but effectively
regenerate the subject in our minds. Indeed,
this is essentially what happens in the
"man-in-the-moon" illusion, when our minds
piece together a face out of nothing but lunar
mountains, craters, and plains too indistinct to be
made out individually. Perhaps because
impressionistic art corresponds so remarkably to
actual phases of human perception and memory, it
often evokes a feeling of comfortable familiarity,
even if the viewer has never seen the particular work
before.
A case in point is Claude Monet's Waterlilies,
an impressionist plein air painting of 1903,
currently owned and exhibited by the Dayton Art
Institute. It is oil on canvas, approximately a
meter in width and a bit less in height, yielding an
aspect ratio of about 5:4. Its genre is
somewhat indistinct, combining elements of both
landscape and still life, and infused with a mood of
serene introspection. As one approaches the
painting, the view is of a dozen or more water lilies
of various colors floating upon a glass-smooth pond,
with a bit of foliage overhanging the top of the
image. Indeed, one can divide the essential
features of the work into these three components: the
branch, the lilies, and the reflecting surface.
There is no horizon; the entire background
comprises only the surface of the water. At the
bottom—nearest the viewer—it is dominated
by a muted purple, while near the top it blends to
ochre, yellow-green, and teal. Between
foreground and background, the placid surface is a
more heterogeneous assortment of muted blue, magenta,
brown, and green, suggesting the reflection of unseen
sky, shrubbery, and trees outside the direct field of
view. (Though subtle, these reflections are
crucial, for they define the pond's very
surface. With neither reflections nor ripples,
the lilies would appear to be artificially stuck onto
a flat background, rather than naturally floating
upon a transparent liquid.)
Lack of a visible horizon affects the visual
perspective. If Waterlilies were a
classically representational work, its vanishing
points would be beyond the borders of the
image. The fact that perspective is not
anchored to visible points may give rise to a vague
sense of disconnection, between the world of the
viewer and that of the pond.[1]
To fathom the treatment of perspective in this work,
we must shift our attention to the water lilies
themselves. First, we note that, absent a
horizon line, the oblate plant groupings themselves
establish a horizontal reference. Second, the
plants diminish in size with apparent distance, in
accord with traditional linear perspective. But
perhaps most noteworthy, we observe that the lily
pads in the foreground are distinctly elliptical,
while those seen nearly edge-on in the background
become almost flat horizontal streaks. This
shifting of shape presents a kind of perspective that
might be described as lenticular, characteristic of
wide-angle photography. Although this device is
not at all uncommon, its prominence in this work is
elevated by the relative scarcity of traditional
linear depth cues.
Yet even as we move closer to examine Monet's
technique, the illusion of water and vegetation
abruptly shatters into a seemingly random confusion
of strokes, swirls, slashes, daubs, and
scrapes. Suddenly we no longer see the scene,
but the raw medium. Viewed close up, from a
distance of a meter or two, the artist's technique
becomes apparent almost at the very instant that the
scenic illusion is lost.
What appeared at a distance to be lily pads are,
upon closer inspection, horizontal streaks of pale
green, olive, and gray, most of them apparently swift
brush strokes. Dark accents, marking the
shadows beneath the curled edges of the pads, are
deep blue-green to purple. Many of these have a
ragged texture, and appear to have been executed,
either with a nearly dry brush, or perhaps with the
swipe of a palette knife after the underlying color
had hardened.
Likewise, the water lily blossoms are revealed to
be little more than heavy smudges of color.
Although within each grouping these multiple smudges
exhibit a vague uniformity—a similarity of color
accent and brush dynamics—there is no meticulous
representation of petals or other details, even on
the foreground specimens. Despite this, they
attain an illusion of substance and
three-dimensionality through the shallow relief
afforded by the thick application of paint. By
their colors, the clusters of blossoms clearly
distinguish each water lily plant as an
individual. Most vary from white to yellow or
pink, blending with undertones of green, the colors
brightening noticeably on those individuals lighted
by direct sun. However, even the lilies in the
dappled shade of the foreground are not to be denied
their share of glory, for the cluster nearest the
viewer displays a seductively bold, red-accented
bloom that bids the eye linger.
Lazily overhanging in the immediate foreground is
the tree foliage, which partially frames the view,
and also suggests that from a vantage point behind
this ephemeral screen[2]
the viewer is free to enjoy the idyllic scene without
disturbing it. The tree's compound leaflets are
sinuous swirls of several shades of green, accented
with blue-black, and a bit of muted yellow where the
sunlight has caught this sprig or that. The
foliage seems curiously active in an otherwise still
scene, perhaps caught by a stray air current.
The small visible bit of branch supporting the
foliage is mostly dark; however, even this minor
element at one point teases the eye with a playful
highlight of burnt orange.
Yet while we examine Monet's work at close range,
we are conscious, perhaps even annoyed, that all we
truly see is not nature, but paint, paint, and more
paint—rapid strokes here, a few clumpy daubs
there, an almost vicious swipe over there. To
transform this busy mass of pigment on canvas back
into the tranquil pond, we must step back. Two
meters… three… four… Ah! The
change is abrupt, and the sensation is visceral.[3] As the eye loses
contact with the technical details, the brain
simultaneously leaps to a different plane of
awareness. Instantly the paint vanishes, once
again swallowed up in the magical depths of that
tranquil pond, its mirror-smooth surface unmarred by
even a ghost of a breeze, the delicate lilies
serenely floating, almost hovering just above the
surface. Peace!
The treatment of flowers and water in this work
contrasts markedly with that in a much earlier (1867)
Monet painting, Terrace at Sainte-Adresse
(Stokstad 1021), in which both the flora and the
fluid are quite "busy." This, along
with the depiction of human activity, contributes to
an entirely different mood. Although both works
are pleasant and agreeable, Terrace is
youthful, vibrant, congenial, a casual glimpse of
human activity; Waterlilies, on the other
hand, is serenely contemplative and mature, a subtle
and intimate communication between artist and viewer.
During his later years, Monet painted many views
of his property at Giverny, including several of his
"water garden" and its water lilies.
Yet of those which I have seen, this particular work
strikes me as both the most peaceful and the most
absorbing. Moreover, the illusory image of Waterlilies,
when it materializes in the mind, is surprisingly
realistic—extraordinarily so for an
anti-realist, impressionistic work. It reminds
me vividly of a lily pond of my own experience many
years ago, and transports me to a time of long, sweet
summers, good friends, and no worries.[4]
Perhaps because of that magical similarity between
the mechanism of impressionism and the intimate
workings of the mind, the art draws me in, binds me
to itself. It is good to know that a fellow
human being, from another place and another time,
also knew and valued that kind of tranquility, and
reached out to touch me and others with it.
Footnotes
[1] This sense of disconnection was
probably somewhat more disconcerting in Monet's own
time. Today's viewers are accustomed to such
bizarre perspectives as wide-angle aerial and space
photos, by comparison to which the vertical sweep of Waterlilies
seems rather tame.
[2] Incidentally, the overhanging
branch affords an indicator of scale, for any viewer
who might be unacquainted with water lilies.
[3] The transformation is
eerie. Rod Serling, creator and host of the
monochrome television classic series The Twilight
Zone, might have described it as entering
"a dimension, not only of light and shadow, but
of mind."
[4] Oddly enough, that was about
the time Waterlilies was donated to the
Dayton Art Institute—1953. Although there
were plenty of worries during that era, they were not
the sort that might trouble an eight-year-old boy.
References
Monet, Claude. Waterlilies. 1903. Dayton
Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio.
Stokstad, Marilyn. Art History. 2nd ed.
New York: Prentice Hall, 2002
Writer's Memo
I find that I enjoy modern art more than the
average person, probably because I appreciate that
art doesn't have to be pretty or realistic in order
to be good or to make a statement. Perhaps this
arises from my musical background. For example,
Stravinsky's ballet, The Rite of Spring, is
a brutally ugly work that nevertheless fires visceral
reaction and makes the heart pound. There are
so many ways in which art can connect with the
receptive viewer: the intense anxiety of Munch's The
Scream, the exquisite intimacy of Klimt's The
Kiss, the sarcastic surrealism of Dali's Slave
Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire.
Even completely abstract art has the power to
delight, enchant, seduce, or disturb.
Slightly old-fashioned by comparison, the
impressionist style has been a long-time favorite of
mine. Yet until now my enjoyment of it has been
on a superficial level. This is the first time
I have explored the reasons for that enjoyment with
anything more than casual interest.
The only difficulty I have encountered in
describing this artwork is that, aside from Monsieur
Monet's personal motivations (whatever they might
have been), there is no behind-the-scenes action or
history, such as is typical of mythical, religious,
historical, or situational subjects. Waterlilies
conveys a message, but it is more the sharing of an
emotional meditation than a communication of
intellect. Instead of examining its relevance
to the outside world, one must reach into the work to
appreciate how it functions as an intimate connection
between artist and viewer. Even so, the process
of analyzing that emotional connection has turned out
to be an intellectual exercise—a rare
opportunity for the joyous interplay of both left and
right cerebral hemispheres—which to me makes the
experience even more enriching.}
