Today's inspiration comes as a random unique opportunity that I got to attend. I was in Vegas yesterday for work reason and at the Bellagio's Gallery of Fine Art was a Monet exhibit.
Now honestly, I'm not a big Monet fan. I find most of the impressionists to produce work that I just can't really connect with. Caillebotte is one exception to that where I really do love his work. Monet and Renoir are in my "somewhat like" list, which is very short out the impressionists. So even though I'm not a huge fan, I had time to kill and this seemed like a nice opportunity. Boy was I glad I took it!
Most of the exhibit was just so-so for me. I'd say out of the 30 paintings, only 3 of them really were interesting to me. The one above though, Sunrise on the Seine really caught my eye. In comparison to most of Monet's other works, it's very subdued in color. However his use of color is astonishing and I really only could appreciate it by seeing it in person. There were subtle shades of red throughout the entire thing, but carefully placed so as to not be obvious. The whole composition moves and flows. The longer I looked at it, the more I enjoyed it. I even found myself changing viewing angles and seeing new things. At one point I was up very close inspecting the texture of the paint itself.
Am I now a fan of Monet, or even impressionism? No. Like I said, only 3 paintings really drew my interest. But I have a better appreciation for the brilliance of Monet. And for those paintings I did connect with, I caught a glimpse of what Monet was trying to convey. And in that, I feel more inspired to think about how I use color in my painting to tell a story.
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