The water lilies are the Monet paintings everyone loves. I am drawn to the earlier works, but the lilies have their place. If Monet never painted the lilies, it would be like Led Zepplin never playing rock and roll or Johnny Unitas never playing football. It wouldn't be right. But the lilies always made me tense when I looked at them. And by looking at them, it gets weird cause I really like to look at shit. I carry a magnifying glass around. I dream of binoculars. Hell my daughter can already say binoculars. So I can claim to be an expert observer. It gets weird with paintings cause when I get in the presence of painting I want to see, I check it out from all angles. I get up close as possible, I stand back at 1,2,3,5,7,9,11 feet. Yea all primary numbers. It just brings something to the experience. Don't ever go to the Louver with me. Or the National Gallery of Art. Hell any art gallery. Anyway I digress, the whole point is the lilies collection always got me on edge and I could never figure out why until it struck me that they were painted while WWI marched past Monet's house. All that uncertainty, violence, fear, destruction, devastation was right there in Monet's backyard. And it comes through in the brush strokes, the colors he made during that time. Again another way WWI changed everything. So enjoy this classic painting, Water-lilies, from the year 1914.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Monet.
The water lilies are the Monet paintings everyone loves. I am drawn to the earlier works, but the lilies have their place. If Monet never painted the lilies, it would be like Led Zepplin never playing rock and roll or Johnny Unitas never playing football. It wouldn't be right. But the lilies always made me tense when I looked at them. And by looking at them, it gets weird cause I really like to look at shit. I carry a magnifying glass around. I dream of binoculars. Hell my daughter can already say binoculars. So I can claim to be an expert observer. It gets weird with paintings cause when I get in the presence of painting I want to see, I check it out from all angles. I get up close as possible, I stand back at 1,2,3,5,7,9,11 feet. Yea all primary numbers. It just brings something to the experience. Don't ever go to the Louver with me. Or the National Gallery of Art. Hell any art gallery. Anyway I digress, the whole point is the lilies collection always got me on edge and I could never figure out why until it struck me that they were painted while WWI marched past Monet's house. All that uncertainty, violence, fear, destruction, devastation was right there in Monet's backyard. And it comes through in the brush strokes, the colors he made during that time. Again another way WWI changed everything. So enjoy this classic painting, Water-lilies, from the year 1914.
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1 comment:
truly a great work of art. The one painting that blew me away was travelling to holland to see Rembrandt's "the night watch". Honestly sat there for hours taking it all in. Also its a full mural, so its frickin' huge. Anything by Rembrandt is astounding. Who knew brown had so many tones.
http://daystarvisions.com/Docs/Essays/Seeing/RembrandtNightwatch-sz500x417.jpg
ralph
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