“The Late” Claude Monet

Claude Monet - Water Lilies - c. 1920 - Oil on canvas - 200 x 425 cm - Museum of Modern Art, New York (click photo for larger image)When one looks at the late work of Claude Monet (1840-1926), it’s impossible not to see the “modernism” of Impressionism. In the past, the highly abstract nature of the work was “blamed” on Monet’s failing eyesight. However, we now recognize that the artist’s vision was never more clear.

Monet didn’t engage in all of the debates going on among artists during that time, about theory, the directions art was taking, and so forth. He remained at Giverny, tending those gardens that were his studio—and painting. He lived and worked in his own world, of his own creation. He undoubtedly heard of the “abstraction” that was emerging in art, but was likely not affected by it. Instead—as he had always done—he followed the directions of his own imagination, his own view of his reality. By so doing, he created some of the most “modern” — most “abstract” images of the twentieth century. The history of art continues to owe Monet a great debt. It is worth noting that the interest of such postmodernists as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko in the work of the Impressionist master contributed, in part, to the resurrection of Impressionism by art historians. It wasn’t until the late 1940s and early 1950s that a revisitation at last appropriately gave that movement its proper stature in the history of art.

The work featured here is one of the three large water lily paintings by Monet housed in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. It shows a pond covered with water lilies, with reflections of clouds overhead.