The Crisis of Impressionism or Claude Monet’s New Realism?

Journal Title: Ikonotheka - Year 2015, Vol 25, Issue

Abstract

The question whether Monet’s Water Lilies are a separate phenomenon, a manifestation of “the crisis of Impressionism” or a simple and consistent continuation of his research has long been present in the history of modern art. In his book Postimpresjoniści [The Post- Impressionists] (1972), Wiesław Juszczak posed the problem in a radical manner and, by blurring the traditional opposition of naturalism and symbolism, offered one of the most interesting possible interpretations of Monet’s art. Juszczak perceived Monet’s experiment as a tentative search for an entirely new conception of form, not only in painting, as well as a search for the boundaries of the creative process. Referring to these considerations, the author of the current essay considers Water Lilies (conceived integrally as the paintings and the creation of the garden in Giverny) and proposes their perception as a construction of an “alternative world” (Emile Verhaeren). In the last years of his life, Monet enjoyed the sense of participating in nature’s “performance” that unfolded by itself at Giverny. The “Grand Decoration”, as he called the works in this series, was probably not intended to be the fi nal result of his many years’ work on the garden and on its painted image; it was rather a byproduct, so to speak, of this performance. The concept of a garden as a performance means the identifi cation or assimilation of nature and art. In the Giverny garden, Monet and nature exchanged their experiences. The dynamics of both processes of creation meant that the painter did not wholly control the creative process, but he encouraged it; Nature, in turn, participated in his display.

Authors and Affiliations

Andrzej Pieńkos

Keywords

Related Articles

Olga Boznańska and Marian Morelowski Read Michel Foucault

Michel Foucault, in his famous 1971 lecture concerning Edward Manet’s paintings, focused on three problems: the space of the painting, the lighting and the position of the viewer. At the beginning of the 1890s, i.e. at t...

The Icon and the Hatchet. The Motif of Aggression Against Icons in Russian Literature before the Revolution

The present work focuses on the motif of aggression against icons introduced in the works by many Russian writers before the Revolution. Analysed material includes the works of Nikolai Gogol, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai...

The Family of Man in Poland: An Exhibition as a Democratic Space?

The exhibition entitled The Family of Man, which was designed by Edward Steichen and presented for the fi rst time in 1955 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, belongs to the most famous and most controversial photog...

Käthe Kollwitz and Otto Nagel: Two Exhibitions of “Progressive Artists” at the Zachęta in the Framework of Cultural Cooperation with the German Democratic Republic

The essay focuses on a discussion of two exhibitions hosted at the Zachęta Central Bureau of Art Exhibitions in Warsaw that were organised in collaboration with the Committee for Cultural Cooperation with Foreign Countri...

Two Orthodox Churches (the Old and the New) of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in Kalisz

The Kalisz Orthodox church from the 1870s (Fig. 1) was demolished in the interwar period and quickly replaced by a “new” Orthodox church by the same name (Fig. 6). The surviving official correspondence reveals a specific...

Download PDF file
  • EP ID EP188628
  • DOI -
  • Views 68
  • Downloads 0

How To Cite

Andrzej Pieńkos (2015). The Crisis of Impressionism or Claude Monet’s New Realism?. Ikonotheka, 25(), 189-200. https://europub.co.uk/articles/-A-188628