Spring by Claude Monet is a work from 1875 that was exhibited in the show “From Monet to Bacon. Masterpieces from the Johannesburg Art Gallery” organized in 2019 at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa.
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The Impressionist Revolution
Monet was born in Paris on November 14, 1840.
Regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism, he was also one of its most important representatives.
Monet was a true revolutionary for his time.
Far removed from the academic interpretation of art, he believed that when art is confined to pre-established schemes, it ends up representing reality in a dry and outdated manner.
On the contrary, his goal was to portray reality as he saw it, as he perceived it at the exact moment he observed it.
The French painter has gone down in history as the face of Impressionism.
Monet definitively eliminated geometric perspective and relied solely on direct vision of things to capture their pure impression.
Monet always painted in natural light, “en plein air“, immersing himself in the environment he chose to portray, rather than staying inside traditional studios.
Spring
Monet had a very strong relationship with nature throughout his life, so much so that he decided to buy a large house in Giverny, where he had a garden built according to his specifications, the same one that is now known to everyone for the famous water lily pond.
Thus, nature plays a very important role: riverside landscapes, fields, city parks, snowy fields, seascapes, and so on.
Among all the Impressionists, the one who chose nature as his favorite subject was undoubtedly Claude Monet.
Monet was very passionate about gardening, to the point that he credited the flowers themselves with helping him become an artist, stating “Perhaps I owe my becoming a painter to the flowers”.
He also revealed that if he had not succeeded in the art world, he would most likely have become a gardener. Therefore, it is no surprise that the bond with nature is evident in his paintings.
The brushstrokes capture flowering trees, lush gardens, sun-drenched fields dotted with poppies, explosions of colorful plants and flowers along the Seine in Argenteuil or Paris.
