By Margaux Ancel
Charles Harrison identified 1869 as a year of transition in Claude Monet’s artistic identity, both in his technique and choice of subject. To Harrison, La Grenouillere (1869) marked the moment when the modern Impressionist artist went from painting the modern social world with modern techniques, to creating pieces with impressionist effects. Harrison argued that Monet’s experience when painting La Grenouillere had ultimately altered his perception of modernism, and ultimately led him to turn away from the depiction of modernity in social scenes. Harrison’s argument for modernism was greatly influenced by Clément Greenberg’s thesis, yet it focused mainly on the stylistic ‘effects’ of impressionism instead of regarding modernism as a form of art that evolved through many generations of artists. With this interpretation, the evolution between Monet’s La Grenouillere and Le Pont D’Argenteuil can only be understood as a shift in the artist’s interest, from the busy modern social life to the calm of the countryside. However, Monet’s artistic development reflects his distinctive perceptions of the various faces of modernity.
Clément Greenberg described modern art as the visual experience one could find in a painting. He described modernism as a form of art that made painting distinctive from another other medium; by allowing the artist to embrace the two-dimensionality of the canvas, modernism opened the way for new techniques of painting that would highlight this aspect of the art. “Modernism used art to call attention to art,” as Greenberg wrote; the modern artist was thus challenged to use every distinctive aspect of painting in order to make the piece stand out among other works (Greenberg, 6). This new interpretation of painting gave artists the opportunity to reorganize artistic processes, from the sketches to the form and elusiveness of brushstrokes on the canvas. Greenberg argued the importance of self-criticism to help artists push back the traditional limits of art and further create the visual experience that he associated with modernism. The relation between the flatness of the medium, the depth of the painting, and the use of color and light were what Greenberg and Harrison called ‘effects’ of impressionism. “One is made aware of the flatness of the picture before, instead of after, being made aware of what that flatness contains,” which Greenberg referred to as dialectic tension, made the surface of the painting the key element in modernist art (Greenberg, 6). The difficulty of controlling the qualities of paint of a medium challenged Monet into self-criticism, a form of motivational psychology that pushed the artist to reinvent the way he used the medium.
Harrison’s theory on modernism followed similar ideas; he understood the need to reinvent painting as a form of art in order to call it ‘modern art’ and suggested that these new techniques implied the need for “directness of observation and spontaneity of expression” (Harrison 145). He defined impressionism as spontaneous vision of modernity, associating the characteristics of the changing urban world with the modernist stylistic techniques that favored expressive brushstrokes and colors to identifiable shapes and forms. According to him, Monet was “painting redolent of the atmosphere of modern life, which treats that atmosphere as if it could be reduced to spontaneously captured effects of light and color” (Harrison, 169). In La Grenouillere, Monet captured both the modern social atmosphere of the new Paris and the fleeting aspect of the moments and the movements. With short brushstrokes and touches of light and color, the artist captured a moment of modern social life; the figures are simplified but still identifiable and reflect the spontaneous aspect of modernism. The short brushstrokes and the use of colors and light give the painting its flatness, while his impression of the water adds depth. Harrison argued that La Grenouillere made Monet face the challenges of the canvas’ size in relation to the composition. By enlarging the painting, Harrison believed that the brushstrokes would lose their effect of “spontaneity and informality,” thus lessening the painting’s modernist aspect (Harrison 171). As a result, he concluded that Monet’s distinct use impressionist effects when painting result in limitation in the subjects and form of his paintings. Harrison associated this limitation with Monet’s artistic techniques to his transition from painting the modern social life to experimenting with the impressionist effects with various subjects.
Harrison looks at the artist’s paintings from the decades after 1869 to support his argument, such as Le Pont D’Argenteuil (1874). He further implied that Monet had found himself unable to reconcile “the representation of a modern social life… with an interest in modern artistic techniques” and favored the latter when painting in the following years (Harrison 180). However, when Monet moved to Argenteuil, his subjects changed but the overall theme remained the same: the depiction of the modern life. Argenteuil offered Parisians the opportunity to escape from the urban life, but as tourism increased along with its popularity, the city very soon became a new part of the urban experience. Monet had always identified as a modern landscape painter, and found in Argenteuil an opportunity to expend his artistic technique while still painting modern themes. The landscape paintings were “an ode to the present, a poetic but forthright presentation of a time and place where the contrasting elements of modern life, city and country, labor and leisure, co-exist in perfect harmony” (Tucker, 24). The modernized countryside gave Monet the ability to combine both his evolving impressionist techniques along with his perception of modernity. In Le Pont D’Argenteuil, Monet went further in his journey as a modern artist by flattening the painting in a very dramatic way and brightening the colors and lights. The paintings hint at both the serene aspect of the countryside with the warm colors of the background and its modernity through the bridge’s sharp details. Monet’s perception and illustration of the subject challenges Harrison’s argument; the artist explored further the impressionist effects of light, flatness, and colors, but it should be seen as a response to his perception of the changes in modernity. “To be a modern landscape painter in this era of rapid change meant, first and foremost, confronting the tangible evidence of that change” (Tucker, 25). Modernity no longer confined itself to the streets and cafés of Paris, it relocated itself to the countryside where the Parisian attempted to create a new life and estate.
The contrast between La Grenouillere and Le Pont D’Avignon should be understood as Monet’s evolution as a modern artist. As Clément Greenberg pointed out, impressionist paintings’ shape and form changed in size over “successive generations of Modernist painters” while “the norm of finish, of paint texture, and of value and color contrast, were tested and retested” (Greenberg, 7). Monet simply acted according to the values of modernism, testing and pushing back the limits of the medium in order to capture the essence of modernity in various ways. Monet was not simply interested in creating visual experiences, but also in painting his perception of modernity through landscapes. In Argenteuil, Monet “identified himself with the transplanted city dwellers… who thinks of the village as a place to build his domain, a garden of color and beauty which will build a compensation for the need to work” (Herbert, 158). The difficulties Monet found in representing the modern social life at La Grenouillere were solved when he turned to landscapes of Argenteuil. The contrast between wild and untouched fields and the modern bridges and boats complimented the artistic techniques he had struggled to integrate in his previous visions of modernity at La Grenouillere.
Margaux Ancel 