PaintingAll Blog

In the 1880s and 1890s, Monet worked on “series” paintings. Monet painted the same subject again and again, but every one of his series paintings is different, for each subject was depicted in varying light and weather conditions. The viewing is impressive, when the series group together. However, Monet’s paintings are scattered in collections around the world, it’s usually only in special exhibitions that his series paintings are seen as a group.

Grainstack, Sun in the Mist	Grainstack in the Morning, Snow Effect
Grainstack in Overcast Weather, Snow Effect	Grainstack at Sunset, Winter
Grainstack at Sunset

(Note: for more paintings of Monet’s haystacks series, please view at www.paintingall.com by searching the keyword “monet stack” or click here.)

In October 1890 Monet wrote a letter to the art critic Gustave Geffroy about the haystacks series he was painting, saying: “I’m hard at it, working stubbornly on a series of different effects, but at this time of year the sun sets so fast that it’s impossible to keep up with it … the further I get, the more I see that a lot of work has to be done in order to render what I’m looking for: ‘instantaneity’, the ‘envelope’ above all, the same light spread over everything… I’m increasingly obsessed by the need to render what I experience, and I’m praying that I’ll have a few more good years left to me because I think I may make some progress in that direction…”

Tags: Claude Monet

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 at 11:29 am and is filed under Painting of the Week. 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.