Why do artists paint pictures of our physical environment? How do they present the environment? Do they represent landscapes or nature, social issues, psychological perspective, reflect the styles of the times, or paint for the money? Show me the Monet!

In this introduction, I am going to explore different ways of examining why visual artists do what they do. After you have read through this, you can pick a particular artist, style, or historical development regarding the environment. You many pursue the approach taken by artists in the visual arts--in paintings, in dance, in drama, and in music. I will begin by examining the works of Claude Monet, a French impressionist artist who lived from 1840-1926.

Claude Monet and Nature

Claude Monet began his life as a landscapist, portraying mostly man-made landscapes until 1880s when he became fascinated with raw nature--portraying multiple ways of looking at plants, flowers, rocks and waves. He displayed a passion for the effects of light early in his career but became absorbed with light after about 1890. His natural subjects became subordinate to his desire to depict the changing color of light on the landscape--"the everchanging enveloppe of couloured [sic] air which surrounded them and brought them to life" (House 1986:15).

In his early years, Monet painted urban landscapes and rural landscapes to include the encroachment of man's inventions. His paintings compelled Emile Zola to write at the time:

'He has sucked the milk of our age, his adoration of what surrounds him has grown and will grow still further. He loves the horizons of our cities, the grey and white patches (taches) which the houses make against the light sky: in the streets, he loves the figures who hurry about their business in their great-coats; he loves the race-courses, the aristocratic promenades with the noise of the carriages; he loves our women, with their parasols, their gloves, their chiffons, and even their wigs and their face powder--everything which makes them daughters of our civilisation' He emphasised Monet's deliberate inclusion of the traces of man even in his country scenes: 'Nature seems to lose some of its interest for him when it does not bear the imprint of our customs' (House 1986:16).

House sees in Monet's early work an interrelatedness between man and nature. His canvasses produced a relationship "between elemental forces and human intervention" (House 1986:19) because he gave the works no central focus. In each diverse environment he gave no hierarchical significance to any one subject, such as in his painting The Plaine des colombes, Hoar Frost 1873 (Picture A from House 1986:116).

All elements attract our eye with equal emphasis yet in this pastoral landscape we see the encroachment of man's farms and distant factory chimneys onto land in juxtaposition to the poplars. His views of subjects became a dialogue between painter and subject, but were intended for Parisian audiences where they would contribute to debates regarding city, suburb, country, and modernity itself. He was later to drop all forms of modernity from his canvasses in his rural scenes, depicting views unfettered by industrialization. He began omitting people from the countryside as if the country was an escape from "man's intervention."

 

 

Nature and Light

Monet had a passion for landscapes and light. At the time that he lived he spent no active part trying to preserve nature from "progress" except to delete modern buildings and features later landscapes. On one occasion he did try to save four poplar trees from the axe for the picture he was painting of The Four Poplars. 1891.

He recorded this: I had to buy the poplars in order to finish painting them . . . . The township of Limetz had put them up for auction. I went to see the mayor. He understood my reasons, but could not postpone the sale. I had no other expedient but to appear at the auction; not a pleasant prospect, because I said to myself: They'll make you pay dearly for your whim, 'mon bonhomme'!" Then I had the idea of appealing to a lumber dealer who wanted the wood. I asked him how high he intended to bid, and agreed to provide the surplus if the bidding went above his figure on the condition that he buy in my place and leave the trees standing for a few more months. It was done that way, but not without damage to my purse (Seitz 1960:25).

Monet's focus in landscape painting began to be found in the forces of nature: in bursting waves on rocks, in the river's thaw, and in storms. Although his early works were more about sunny days, they turned to more somber moods. He liked to seek out his own special subjects but at times was led by the suggestions of others and guidebooks. He began to travel to look for prime physical features that created a mood or atmosphere rather than subject matter. He painted the same subject at different seasons, at different days, and at different times of day. He became so obsessed with the moods created by light upon his subject and it's infinite variety of color required on the canvass that he would stride into fields with several different pictures at different stages of completion so that he could work on them at a particular time of day (see Two Haystacks. 1891 from Seitz 1960:25). Guy de Maupassant wrote about Monet in 1886:

Last year . . . . I often followed Claude Monet in his search of impressions. He was no longer a painter, in truth, but a hunter. He proceeded, followed by children who carried his canvasses, five or six canvases representing the same subject at different times of day and with different effects.

He took them up and put them aside in turn, following the changes in the sky. And the painter, before his subject, lay in wait for the sun and shadows, capturing in a few brushstrokes the ray that fell or the cloud that passes (Seitz 1960:20).

Once when the seasons changed as he was working a particular wintry scene, he had helpers strip a tree of its spring leaves so he could recapture the wintry mood. For the rest of his life he concentrated on elemental forces of nature and the atmospheric effects. His work focused less on the obvious subjects than the interplay of light and color.

 

 

Landscapes and the Sea

He painted his quiet scenes at home, many times not more than steps from his home. His love for the sea compelled him to return at least to the shore at Etretat, even when he ceased his extensive travels. The storms and it monstrous waves there compelled him to paint the elements at play recognizing "man's insignificance against nature's power (see The Manneporte, Etretat. 1885). Jacques-Emile Blanche wrote his observations of Monet's return to the sea, "Etretat! Monet has always retained a vivid memory of its brave sailors, its agile boats and its then wild shores. And when nostalgia for the sea overtakes him again, in his peaceful Giverny, it is always to Etretat that he rushes to see again . . . the open sea under the cloudy sky" (House 1986:26).

Although the sea captured Monet's imagination, it was at his home at Giverny that he perfected the artistry of colored light. It was here that the atmospheric enveloppe became central to his art. "At Giverny his eyes were attuned to the most minute changes of light, and it was these, rather than any spectacular natural features, that sustained his interest so fully when he painted there. . . . [I]t was only in his paintings of the meadows at Giverny that the play of coloured light itself became the principal theme of the canvas" (see haystacks above).

We know that Claude Monet was more interested in preserving his atmospheric enveloppe than preserving nature. The consequences of industrialization and growth were yet unrealized. He had but to remove the effects of factory smoke and pollution from the air and water he painted. Yet his paintings, when viewed demand the looker grasp his love of nature and his European environment. Not only do we see the pastoral beauty, but we are also forced to look at the changing effect of light upon the landscape. We can only aspire to appreciate the beauty of our earth with the same respect and imagination that Monet did.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

House, John. 1986. Monet: Nature into Art. New Haven:Yale University Press.

Seitz, William C. 1960. Claude Monet: Seasons and Moments. The Museum of Modern Art, New York:Doubleday & Co.

  

 

IDEAS FOR SHORT PAPER:

Discuss the social environment that compelled Pablo Picasso to create "Guernica,"

Look at graffiti an its history and use.

Look at the earliest use of the landscape in art. How was it used? What was the attitude of the artist?

What was the Barbizon school of art? How did those artists view the environment?

Consider the work of Georgia O'Keefe. How does she present the environment? Why does she create her art out of nature? Does she have a personal philosophy regarding the natural world? What is it?

Find another artist that is well known for his or her landscapes or the natural environment. Answer all the questions as above.

Look at music, dance, or drama and analyze how the author views the environment? How does he/she portray the environment. Why do they focus on the environment in their art?

Read "A Midsummer's Night's Dream" by William Shakespere. What role does the environment play in this?

Write a short paper on the views and influence of the environment on photographers such as Ansel Adams and Clyde Butcher.

IDEAS FOR A PERSONAL INTERVIEW:

Interview a local artist who specializes in nature or landscape art. What is their philosophy towards the environment? What do they do to promote respect and conservation of the environment? What do they create? Why do they create natural art? Who or what influenced them early in their lives.