CLAUDE MONET: AN EYE IN MOVEMENT

“Everything is ephemeral

But the ephemeral is sometimes divine”

Ernest Renan

Claude Monet is celebrated as the Father of Impressionism. His art reaches the essence of Impressionism… “L’intuition de l’instant,” the intuition of the instant, as the French Philosopher Gaston Bachelard, a great admirer and connaisseur of Monet’s work, so poetically said. Monet has succeeded to capture the ephemeral. He gives us the sensation of the instant, which is just born, which dies and come backs again… through our gaze…That’s the sacredness of art!

It is Monet who gave Impressionism its fullest expression. Théodore Duret, a French art historian wrote: “Monet is the most impressionist of all the Impressionists. It is him who has succeeded in fixing on canvas those fleeting appearances which painters before him believed impossible to reproduce with the brush.”

As the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to PLEIN AIR LANDSCAPE PAINTING, Monet went beyond what the logic intellectual eye sees. And doing so, then paved the way to 20th century Abstract Lyricism and Abstract Expressionism. He championed Bergson’s philosophy of “élan vital,” vital flux, immediacy and thinking movement, as well as Eisntein’s space/time relativity, reaching an atomic vision which totally opens our perception to new levels of experiencing and understanding the world around us.

The “ism” of Impressionism came to be thanks to Monet’s Impression Soleil Levant, Impression Sunrise, painted in 1872. I invite you to savor Claude Monet’s life, his love of food, his love of nature, his passion for painting. Bea invites you to rejoice in his vision, and celebrate his zest for life!

Donations:

MEMBERS $150

NON-MEMBERS $250

PAYMENT TO BE ANNOUNCED