Claude Monet: The Rouen Cathedral Series
Claude Monet produced thirty paintings of the Rouen Cathedral.
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In most of them, the Gothic church is shown from the same angle; it is the colors that were the main subject of variation. By using unpredictable, sometimes improbable palette combinations — or “harmonies” — as the artist called them, Monet strove to capture the structure in different light and weather effects, some of which, I have to say, seem just as the colors, improbable and unpredictable. I certainly do not wish to contend Monet’s artistic logic, because impressionism has its own rules, and it was the man himself who invented them. Still, for someone uninitiated, there is considerable surprise involved, and my goal here will be to try and outline its origins from a fresh perspective.
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Impressionism is known for its precept to make the air present and visible — through light. Indeed, atmosphere is given an active role in the series: it can be hazy, foggy, cold or warm; subsequently, the cathedral can come across as mystical, enigmatic, deterring or welcoming. Every color finds an according response in the viewer’s emotional palette. And while this correspondence may be a commonplace truth, in the context where atmosphere is literally created by color, and works of art become figuratively atmospheric, seeking a matching sentiment in the viewer, it overcomes banality and steps into the territory of originality. It is the intense focus on hue and its emotional corollary that marks the series — and impressionism — as original.
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In a way, Monet finds a pure and nearly abstracted (not yet in the special stylistic meaning of the word) channel of communication through color. Perhaps that is why historically, impressionism may be considered as the first step towards abstraction as a painting style, distilling, purifying and prioritizing one particular element of the art. (I think that in the formalist theory this is called “foregrounding.”) However, what gave impressionism life was also the reason for its decline: there is not much ground for inter-disciplinary dialogue, for instance between color and composition, or color and line. One theme, in spite of its inherent richness, can be exhausted quickly. Thus, impressionism was a live active movement only during a period of twenty years or so, degenerating into a retrospective and “in the style of” art soon after.
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These paintings may appear difficult to approach: the cathedral is cramped into incomparably smaller dimensions, resulting in an almost brute intensity impending over the viewer from the structure’s mass of the material. This threat, though surmountable, leaves a mark on the viewer, and the paintings forge a relationship where they grab psychological control right from the start and keep it, until challenged by the viewer. I think that it is interesting to study how religious symbols retain influence after moving from one art form to another. Perhaps, they even amass more power and magnitude in the minds of people after the transposition, which, by itself, may be indirectly corroborating these symbols’ prophesied spiritual universality.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 27th, 2007 at 10:16 pm and is filed under Claude Monet, Impressionism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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