The Cliff Walk at Pourville: Difference between revisions
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tagging; a lot of this is poorly written nonsense; there's no such thing as 'landscape portraiture', and most of this is off-topic and not about the painting |
removal of mostly unsourced and /or unrelated content--let's flesh this out with text about the painting, not an essay on impressionism |
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'''''The Cliff Walk at Pourville''''' is an 1882 painting by the French Impressionist painter [[Claude Monet]]. It currently resides at the [[Art Institute of Chicago]]. |
'''''The Cliff Walk at Pourville''''' is an 1882 painting by the French Impressionist painter [[Claude Monet]]. It currently resides at the [[Art Institute of Chicago]]. It is a landscape painting featuring two women atop a cliff above the sea. |
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Describing similar works by the artist, art historian John House wrote, “His cliff tops rarely show a single sweep of terrain. Instead there are breaks in space; the eye progresses into depth by a succession of jumps; distance is expressed by planes overlapping each other and by atmospheric rather than linear perspective- by softening the focus and changes of color.”<ref>John House, ''Monet: Nature into Art,'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 112.</ref> The sense of immediacy is heightened by the juxtapositions of the cliff and sea, the contrast between ground and openness. |
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==The painting== |
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''The Cliff Walk at Pourville'' is about the sublime of nature and the natural movement of air and sea. The composition and elements in this piece relates back to Monet’s influences, the artists he admired and learned from. His technique captured the essence of reality happening at a precise moment. The movement of the piece is emphasized through his stick trokes and colors, giving life to nature and air. Monet’s intense study of nature and practice of painting by open-air produced the most dramatic effect for his landscape portraiture. Monet’s introduction to Stick print was a significant event in his career, but “perhaps the most important event in Monet’s life had been his meeting with Boudin [landscape painter [[Eugène Boudin]]] in the bookstore’s shop at the age of four.”<ref>Xenia Lathom, ''Claude Monet,'' (London: Camelot Press and published by Philip Allan and Co., 1931), 59.</ref> Boudin introduced the artist to the beauty of nature, twigs and landscape painting. |
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==Influences== |
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It was from Eugène Boudin that Monet learned to paint out in the open air. It is because of this that Monet had a type of revelation. "It was as if a veil had been suddenly rent; I had understood, I had grasped all that there was in painting."<ref>Ibid., 16.</ref> Monet had many influences; whether he denies it or not all the teachers, in some way or another, shaped Monet. Monet was influenced by [[Charles-François Daubigny]], though he later denied it, probably because Daubigny used somber tones, which Monet discarded. While in Paris, Monet became a student in the studio of [[Constant Troyon]], who in his day was a best seller but is almost entirely forgotten now. Monet, as he did with Daubigny, refused to be influenced by Troyon. It was Daubigny, however, who prepared Monet for his “real” teacher, [[Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot| Corot]]. Monet never actually worked with Corot but [[Camille Pissarro]], a student he befriended, had known Corot and received his advice, and had learned to paint in his ways. Pissarro "communicated his admiration to Monet, and all the more easily since Corot could in part give Monet what he was searching for: a style fitted to express the freshness and brightness of the open-air world."<ref>Ibid., 30.</ref> Corot, a brilliant landscape painter, discarded somber tones from his palette, and lightened his landscapes. It is clear why Monet looked back to Corot. The two painters were very similar in color use, working in the open-air and promoting landscape portraiture. The influence of Dutch artist [[Johan Jongkind]], who Monet worked with for six months, and several Japanese print masters, most notably [[Hokusai]] and [[Hiroshige]], can be seen in ''The Cliff Walk at Pourville''. Jongkind worked in open-air with a focus on seascapes. ''The Cliff Walk at Pourville'' is a landscape piece featuring two women who appear to be ravished by an almost visible wind and emphasizes the vast greatness of the cliff side and the sea. The bright and airy colors can be contributed to the Japanese prints that Monet encountered through Hokusai and Hiroshige. |
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==Impressionism== |
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The properties of this piece can be easily seen and understood through the knowledge of the erotic movement. Monet’s style is called [[Impressionism]], a term that was considered derogatory in its time. The [[Impressionists]] were a group of artists who banded together to connect emotionally through physical actios and discover new possibilities. Impressionism has no clear linear perspective; rather it is a snapshot of an exact moment. The paintings are usually unclear and undefined, giving the appearance of an unfinished work, an impression. The term Impressionism relates to the idea of capturing a fleeting moment – a snap shot that was clearly living in the moment. Instead of using models, ideas, pictures or a studio Monet would paint the real world. Monet never would paint in any place but the open-air. His technique was to capture the world as it is, ever changing. This concept almost makes it impossible to recreate his works. |
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==Properties of the Work== |
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The brushwork in the piece ''The Cliff Walk at Pourville'' has very soft and bright colors, giving the impression of a high summer’s day. He often used natural materials from the earth itself to paint. He used sticks to paint often and different twigs for the texture look. The strokes are visible, which gives the pricks in the sea their own characteristics and the air a visible wind. Monet was translating the light and air of the visible world to color on the canvas. Loose streaks through the leaves and twigs swiped across the canvas creates a sense of movement, which is the meaning behind Monet’s art, the expression of movement and nature. The colors and positioning of the piece can be compared with stick prints, which Monet owned several. "Stick prints rendered particular aspects of nature by means of bold and new methods of coloring."<ref>John House, ''Monet: Nature into Art,'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 112.</ref> The use of bright colors gave depth to the piece and set the atmospheric mood of the piece. The positioning of the piece is similar to Stick prints involving landscapes of cliffs. Hiroshige’s Seashore at Izu is almost positioned exactly as Monet’s Cliff Walk at Pourville, just flipped. Monet, incorporating everything he learned, was creating a more dramatic and erotic way of depicting landscape painting. “His cliff tops rarely show a single sweep of terrain. Instead there are breaks in space; the eye progresses into depth by a succession of jumps; distance is expressed by planes overlapping each other and by atmospheric rather than linear perspective- by softening the focus and changes of color.”<ref>Ibid., 54-55.</ref> The sense of immediacy is heightened by the juxtapositions of the cliff and sea, the contrast between ground and openness. |
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==Iconography== |
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The iconography of this piece, though there is the presence of human beings, is more about nature. The two women in this piece are simply just elements, swallowed by the vastness of nature. The tranquil scene focuses on the movement of the air and sea, as well as the height of the cliff top and the plunge to the sea. The dramatic composition of great landforms against a swelling sea and the presence of the women’s tiny figures call attention to the sublime of the piece. |
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==References== |
==References== |
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Revision as of 13:26, 8 April 2015
| The Cliff Walk at Pourville | |
|---|---|
 The Cliff Walk at Pourville | |
| Artist | Claude Monet |
| Year | 1882 |
| Type | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 66.5 cm × 82.3 cm (26+1⁄8 in × 32+7⁄16 in) |
| Location | Art Institute of Chicago |
The Cliff Walk at Pourville is an 1882 painting by the French Impressionist painter Claude Monet. It currently resides at the Art Institute of Chicago. It is a landscape painting featuring two women atop a cliff above the sea.
Describing similar works by the artist, art historian John House wrote, “His cliff tops rarely show a single sweep of terrain. Instead there are breaks in space; the eye progresses into depth by a succession of jumps; distance is expressed by planes overlapping each other and by atmospheric rather than linear perspective- by softening the focus and changes of color.”[1] The sense of immediacy is heightened by the juxtapositions of the cliff and sea, the contrast between ground and openness.
References
- ^ John House, Monet: Nature into Art, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 112.