Reflections
on a Pond
A
Centennial Contemplation of Claude Monet’s Waterlilies,
1903
A fascinating aspect of impressionist art is that it
makes no pretense at creating a world in an illusory
space beyond the picture plane. Instead, the
artist attempts to duplicate, more or less
spontaneously and without intense concentration, the
patterns of color falling upon the retinas of his or
her eyes. There is no conscious effort to
produce a specific image, but rather to capture an
idea. The artist simply applies color to the
canvas in response to the patterns detected by the
eye when gazing at the subject. The picture
plane does not represent a window; there is no true
image within its borders. The artwork itself is
simply pigment on fabric, no more. It is
indeed, as early critics of the style complained,
incomplete.
Yet this incompleteness is no flaw. It is
intentional; there is a creative purpose to it.
It is the artist’s aim to engage the viewer, not
as a mere observer, but as a participant, to complete
the process, and thereby become an integral and
intimate part of the whole communication process of
art. It is not until the pattern of colors and
shapes filters through the sensory apparatus and into
the brain that it is transformed into something
significant. There, in the viewer’s mind,
the image materializes, and the scenery, objects,
people, and their activities finally emerge from it.
Magic!
Even more amazing, it turns out that this magic is
very much the form in which memorable scenes we
encounter in everyday life are stored in our
long-term memory, and also how we dream—not in
terms of microscopically detailed concrete objects,
but rather in terms of patterns of hue and shape,
light and shade. When we remember a scene from
years past, we do not recall the precise arrangement
of bricks in a wall, or the exact variety of
wildflowers in a meadow. What we recall are
general impressions of color, geometry, motion,
density, and the like, perhaps along with a few
details which happened to strike us as noteworthy.
Just as in recalling memories, when viewing
impressionist art we actively apply familiar
associations and ingrained concepts of space-time to
the perceived patterns. We do not simply
register an already existing image, but effectively
regenerate the subject in our minds. Indeed,
this is essentially what happens in the
“man-in-the-moon” illusion, when our minds
piece together a face out of nothing but lunar
mountains, craters, and plains too indistinct to be
made out individually. Perhaps because
impressionistic art corresponds so remarkably to
actual phases of human perception and memory, it
often evokes a feeling of comfortable familiarity,
even if the viewer has never seen the particular work
before.
A case in point is Claude Monet’s Waterlilies,
an impressionist plein air painting of 1903,
currently owned and exhibited by the Dayton Art
Institute. It is oil on canvas, approximately a
meter in width and a bit less in height, yielding an
aspect ratio of about 5 × 4. Its
genre is somewhat indistinct, combining elements of
both landscape and still life, and infused with a
mood of serene introspection. As one approaches
the painting, the view is of a dozen or more water
lilies of various colors floating upon a glass-smooth
pond, with a bit of foliage overhanging the top of
the image. Indeed, one can divide the essential
features of the work into these three components:
the branch, the lilies, and the reflecting surface.
There is no horizon; the entire background comprises
only the surface of the water. At the
bottom—nearest the viewer—it is dominated
by a muted purple, while near the top it blends to
ochre, yellow-green, and teal. Between
foreground and background, the placid surface is a
more heterogeneous assortment of muted blue, magenta,
brown, and green, suggesting the reflection of unseen
sky, shrubbery, and trees outside the direct field of
view. (Though subtle, these reflections are
crucial, for they define the pond’s very
surface. With neither reflections nor ripples,
the lilies would appear to be artificially stuck onto
a flat background, rather than naturally floating
upon a transparent liquid.)
Lack of a visible horizon affects the visual
perspective. If Waterlilies were a
classically representational work, its vanishing
points would be beyond the borders of the image.
The fact that perspective is not anchored to visible
points may give rise to a vague sense of
disconnection, between the world of the viewer and
that of the pond.[1] To
fathom the treatment of perspective in this work, we
must shift our attention to the water lilies
themselves. First, we note that, absent a
horizon line, the oblate plant groupings themselves
establish a horizontal reference. Second, the
plants diminish in size with apparent distance, in
accord with traditional linear perspective.
But perhaps most noteworthy, we observe that the lily
pads in the foreground are distinctly elliptical,
while those seen nearly edge-on in the background
become almost flat horizontal streaks. This
shifting of shape presents a kind of perspective that
might be described as lenticular, characteristic of
wide-angle photography. Although this device
is not at all uncommon, its prominence in this work
is elevated by the relative scarcity of traditional
linear depth cues.
Yet even as we move closer to examine Monet’s
technique, the illusion of water and vegetation
abruptly shatters into a seemingly random confusion
of strokes, swirls, slashes, daubs, and scrapes.
Suddenly we no longer see the scene, but the raw
medium. Viewed close up, from a distance of a
meter or two, the artist’s technique becomes
apparent almost at the very instant that the scenic
illusion is lost.
What appeared at a distance to be lily pads are, upon
closer inspection, horizontal streaks of pale green,
olive, and gray, most of them apparently swift brush
strokes. Dark accents, marking the shadows
beneath the curled edges of the pads, are deep
blue-green to purple. Many of these have a
ragged texture, and appear to have been executed,
either with a nearly dry brush, or perhaps with the
swipe of a palette knife after the underlying color
had hardened.
Likewise, the water lily blossoms are revealed to be
little more than heavy smudges of color. Although
within each grouping these multiple smudges exhibit a
vague uniformity—a similarity of color accent
and brush dynamics—there is no meticulous
representation of petals or other details, even on
the foreground specimens. Despite this, they
attain an illusion of substance and
three-dimensionality through the shallow relief
afforded by the thick application of paint. By
their colors, the clusters of blossoms clearly
distinguish each water lily plant as an individual.
Most vary from white to yellow or pink, blending with
undertones of green, the colors brightening
noticeably on those individuals lighted by direct
sun. However, even the lilies in the dappled
shade of the foreground are not to be denied their
share of glory, for the cluster nearest the viewer
displays a seductively bold, red-accented bloom that
bids the eye linger.
Lazily overhanging in the immediate foreground is the
tree foliage, which partially frames the view, and
also suggests that from a vantage point behind this
ephemeral screen[2] the viewer is
free to enjoy the idyllic scene without disturbing
it. The tree’s compound leaflets are
sinuous swirls of several shades of green, accented
with blue-black, and a bit of muted yellow where the
sunlight has caught this sprig or that. The
foliage seems curiously active in an otherwise still
scene, perhaps caught by a stray air current. The
small visible bit of branch supporting the foliage is
mostly dark; however, even this minor element at one
point teases the eye with a playful highlight of
burnt orange.
Yet while we examine Monet’s work at close
range, we are conscious, perhaps even annoyed, that
all we truly see is not nature, but paint, paint, and
more paint—rapid strokes here, a few clumpy
daubs there, an almost vicious swipe over there.
To transform this busy mass of pigment on canvas back
into the tranquil pond, we must step back. Two
meters… three… four… Ah! The
change is abrupt, and the sensation is visceral.[3] As the
eye loses contact with the technical details, the
brain simultaneously leaps to a different plane of
awareness. Instantly the paint vanishes, once
again swallowed up in the magical depths of that
tranquil pond, its mirror-smooth surface unmarred by
even a ghost of a breeze, the delicate lilies
serenely floating, almost hovering just above the
surface. Peace!
The
treatment of flowers and water in this work contrasts
markedly with that in a much earlier (1867) Monet
painting, Terrace at Sainte-Adresse (Stokstad
1021), in which both the flora and the fluid are
quite “busy.” This, along with the
depiction of human activity, contributes to an
entirely different mood. Although both
works are pleasant and agreeable, Terrace is
youthful, vibrant, congenial, a casual glimpse of
human activity; Waterlilies, on the other
hand, is serenely contemplative and mature, a subtle
and intimate communication between artist and viewer.
During his later years, Monet painted many views of
his property at Giverny, including several of his
“water garden” and its water lilies. Yet
of those which I have seen, this particular work
strikes me as both the most peaceful and the most
absorbing. Moreover, the illusory image of Waterlilies,
when it materializes in the mind, is surprisingly
realistic—extraordinarily so for an
anti-realist, impressionistic work. It reminds
me vividly of a lily pond of my own experience many
years ago, and transports me to a time of long, sweet
summers, good friends, and no worries.[4] Perhaps
because of that magical similarity between the
mechanism of impressionism and the intimate workings
of the mind, the art draws me in, binds me to itself.
It is good to know that a fellow human being, from
another place and another time, also knew and valued
that kind of tranquility, and reached out to touch
me and others with it.
