Was I Wrong About Monet's Water Lilies?
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Looking at Monet's Water Lilies through a video by Great Art Explained.
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I think you'r right in a way that Monet's water lilies don't carry much meaning, but I don't agree that making art for arts sake is anly less valid. i think it speaks greatly about the artist's love for art and the world. To make something that is meaningles yet beautiful is like looking at a sunset, nothing much to it, just a sun going down and yet so beautiful you just wanna look at it forever. There may be no meaning in such art but it is still of great importance.
Well said.
If they were a war memorial, that would be admirable but it wouldn't make them great art. Have to admit I like them as just light on water and flowers.
The meaning in paintings are not always known to the artist. Sometimes they're the last to know. The unconscious is very powerful. Paintings have there own ideas and want to be expressed. Sounds crazy but it's true.
@@mazolab People will say you're crazy but I like the way you're thinking.
@@TillyOrifice I'm guessing because you've had enough experience to know it's true.
Art is conversation. Some conversations are just different.
Duchamp's fountain opens with a weighty question, "What is art?" and peers into you for an answer, but sometimes you dont want to have a heavy conversation.
Sometimes its nice to sit down at the park bench with an old man, who loves his wife very much, talk to you about the garden he has been cultivating, and wax poetic about how the morning light falls on his beloved water lilies.
I'd say that such a conversation is more than just nice. I can't imagine anything more important and profound than long life, loving marriage, gardens and morning light. I'd say that simple and humble appreciation for truly good things is just about the most important thing anyone can have (aside from the fear and love of God, and I'm not sure that this is a very different thing). Good gracious, I think this video has made me realise why I love this painting so much. Even if it has nothing to do conceptually with the War, it still encapsulates everything worth fighting for.
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.”
― Ursula K. LeGuin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
I truly get what you're saying. And i partially agree. The problem is that for a lot of us - art lovers talking about art - we don't have the real notion of the actual world for the majority of people around the world. For most people, life is a never-ending struggle. So, is it a crime to contemplate beauty for the sake of beauty? Of course not. But we have to take care, bc there's the real risk of being detached from the realities of the world. And that's why pain and evil are the most commom themes in art: art is an incredibly powerful tool to change realities.
@@eversonalmeida9866 im an artist and i totally agree with the quote.
@@Sandvich18 omg. This! This is the perfect quote to encapsulate what I think. I can’t help but compare this work with Picasso’s Guarnica. Picasso is also someone that wanted to be detached from the war. Except he took it as a personal challenge, almost umbrage. And so, came up with an aggressive, violent, guttural work. Almost showing off. Almost as if he had something to prove. That he was capital M “Man Enough “ to bring the unflinching horrors of war to canvas. It’s not the right word but it almost luxuriates in its depiction of the violence. And fair enough, he did it. Yes, war is gruesome. And violent. But then what. The violence doesn’t go away once the blood stops flowing, the smoke clears and time passes. And somehow, in the midst of that, “stupid” happiness must continue, for life to survive.
I 100% agree with her on this but I’m pretty sure this quote is not from Omelas.
@@alarcon99Picasso was a big supporter of the Republicans he was definitely not trying to be detached from the war.
I got to go to l'Orangerie years ago. The Water Lilies weren't my favorite, it wasn't going out of my way to see them, I was going to see the sculptures and check out other impressionists, but I thought I might as well. I still wouldn't say they're my favorite paintings, but the exhibition is one of my favorites that I've ever been to. Being in that room hits really different than seeing images or reproductions of them - it's so quiet and serene and deeply melancholic in a way I don't quite know how to put into words. I was far from home in a strange city completely on my own for the first time, and maybe that moment of deep stillness just happened to be what I needed in that moment. It's been about a decade now, and I still think very fondly of that experience. It wasn't profoundly life changing, but I left that museum subtly changed in a way that's stuck with me.
They may not carry profound meaning or a strong message about anything, but standing in that room feeling what I felt and thinking about how much paint and how many years he spent "just painting flowers"... something about it lessened my paralysis around art. It didn't have to be so ~serious~ all the time, I could just make something pretty because I liked it and it made me feel better, and I think it's really important that there's art to remind us of that
this was my exact experience!
This was my experience also. I was totally taken aback by how beautiful and peaceful they were. From being somewhat indifferent to them to entering the room and being struck by them in an experience that was almost spiritual.
I think painting stuff you love is exactly what makes for great art
*THE TRAIN CARRYING WOUNDED TROOPS* back from the front line runs through Monets garden at Giverny.
Ive been there and its a very small and intimate railway track. He would have heard the soldiers scr34m and I think they are a response to war, the human response of trying to find solace and distraction in beauty.
Thank you I didn't knew that, that's an important addition
@@saradosiggi5287 Yeah I think if you have troop trains running through your garden its GOING to affect you.
Why can’t they be made to help the viewer feel at peace? Why can’t that in itself be a worthwhile endeavor and experience? Just as you were able to overcome the sun being in your face with the focus to continue your train of consciousness and just like he was able to overcome the pain of his son being in his face to carry out his efforts I believe there’s an important inherit value in what he accomplished and it’s not just “beauty for the sake of beauty”. There is, in those lilies, at its core, a sense of nationalism, a sense of nostalgia for how it was. But also a sense of hope, for had he wanted to simply do an exhibition in a circular room of “beauty for the sake of beauty” he could have drawn a garden party full of the impressionistic beautiful people he’s so famous for. No he chose his focus to be more closed off, more “inner” more reflective. This exhibit very much reminds me of Van Gogh’s The Haystacks and I can get lost watching it endlessly. Much like, for me, it feels to spend time in the garden. If I’m lucky I will have some tomatoes or peppers but often times I’m not, it can be the weather or my inability or a hundred other factors, but I’m not a farmer. I’m a gardener. I garden for the sake of gardening and my mental health. It’s wonderful for us that constantly have 2 squirrels and a rabid raccoon in a duffel bag in the attic of our minds, constantly fighting it out to find yourself focused and at peace and that’s what Waterlilies does for me. I think he perhaps had hoped to provide the same for others with incessant battles of their own.
it does that for me too. "beauty for the sake of beauty" isnt actually meaningless, because its not about the beauty.
Great video (as always) - Merci 🙏I’m still convinced that these particular works are connected to WWI, but I think the most interesting part of the story is the bromance between Clemenceau and Monet. I’ve been back several times after I made the video and there is something about these waterlilies in particular that gets me. I’m not a big fan of Monet’s aesthetic tbh but I find L’Orangerie intensely moving to this day. I think hearing the cannon fire and fighting AS he was painting them, knowing his son and stepson were at the front, must have had some emotional effect on his work. Then again, it could just be his garden 🤷♂️
I love that I don’t always agree with your interpretations of art. It’s good to hear different points of view and that makes me rethink mine. I don’t think art that is beauty just for beauty’s sake is less important than other art. Sometimes we as humans just need something to lift our hearts or invoke serenity and that can be healing.
I skipped seeing Monet's water Lilly paintings at Naoshima Island in Japan the first time I went because I thought it wasn't interesting. The second time I went I removed my shoes, donned my paper slippers covering my socks - and I was really blown away by how moving these paintings are. For me, it was like meditation - I stared at them and drifted with the water.
I had an unexpected reaction to water lilies in L’Orangerie, unexpected to myself as a student of painting with a much more contemporary and conceptual interest in art. I had seen Monet many times before and I always enjoyed it but not as something special, rather as some nice paintings of nature. But the water lillies in L’Orangerie blew my mind in person, I was totaly overwhelmed by emotions and I cried, unable to calm down. I had two ideas in that moment, the immediate tought was that all theory lost its meaning in front of that surface, it was so simple somehow, it felt effortless - it might have been the cool color palette and the surrounding space that had that calming effect on me. The other one was that Monet, despite not being religious might have used a metaphor here, it was a very down to earth depiction of heavens, no kitsch, angels or deity, just a simple reflection of the skies. I think they are more meditative rather then decorative, the manner in which it is done isn’t decorative. And I think they have nothing to do with the war, he painted water lilies from 1897.
I feel out of all the arguments I've seen in these comments, this is by far my favorite. It encapsulates a feeling that I, as an artist myself, have felt while seeing art that has mastered something that I thought would be foolish to pursue. Especially poignant if it's something I wanted to do myself, but didn't for one reason or another.
Peaceful, not boring.
If you're overwhelmed with the complexity of chaos, it's nice to see or make something representing simple and calm. A beauty to simply appreciate. To just be and perhaps enjoy, not overthink. I think that is very meaningful.
The option to think about a deeper meaning or to write something off is always there.
The stillness amidst a cacophony is one of the purest expressions of something meant to make you feel. The water lillies embody that stillness, and filling every angle of a round room with them is a comprehensive way to convert the space into the same contemplative quiet that you need in order to step away from the busy, loud, violent, hectic world outside of the lily pond. Sometimes the most profound way to make a statement about peace isn't to make a Guernica, it's to cultivate a place where someone can sit in the center of silence or natural sound and find peace and just be still.
Because the water lilies are decor I think the history behind the paintings is more intresting. Watching a man paint these simple pleasant flowers while trying to ignore the atrocities of war.
Well also I think it is a more conscious "turning away". Monet clearly indicates that he is not ignorant of the suffering; he is disgusted by it. His act then becomes similar to the arhat who decides to leave the world of material happenings to meditate on the reality he is most intimate with, that is just as important - perhaps more - but is not seen or understood by a world caught up in bloodthirst.
Nowadays we often value the ethical luxury of avoiding war and oppression to be more impactful and important than the ethics of the spirit, or at least doing what comes most passionately to you with both vigour and humility. These lillies are probably better for not being a mere stand in for lives lost in WW1, they are not a symbol just standing in for something else Monet wasn't a part of, and painfully not so.
While I agree the work of the Orangerie is not a response to war, I DISAGREE with the assertion that they are mere decoration and that they are there just to "look nice".
Yes there are surface aesthetics, "art for art's sake" considerations going on here (true of ALL art, no?), but what is going on (whether Monet himself knew or not) is a psychological meditation on our existence: The pond reflects what is above and conceals what is below, allowing just the pads and flowers to peek through. Occasionally we see the darkness of the water's depth, but are unable to gauge how deep, or even what is going on inside. For that matter the reflection of the sky can be equally abstracted (not in the artistic way, although it is). We might discern whether it is a nice clear sunny day, or a few clouds in the sky but it is not altogether known to us.
I used to hate Monet, but after having seen these I realize they are about us, and not about color and paint and texture. They are a bit like Casper David Friedrich's Wanderer, except WE are the wanderer and the pond is our fog.
I think the concept of trying to capture the beauty, essence and/or feeling of a beautiful/memorable/“perfect” day, flower, or anything else is completely worthy. No further explanation is needed.
I think it's a very context heavy painting.
I imagine being a mother, father or a close relative who lost a loved one in the war entering the exhibition and feeling in peace. Like it's a Gap to relax before dealing with the reality again.
It's probably not a hidden display of the horrors of war or a comment class or whatever, but is a Chunk of history, and very pretty.
When i look at it, it makes me love painting and the paint itself. I just think it's neat
I love this interpretation! Maybe as it was a therapy for him it was meant to be kind of a therapy to others too.
as someone who loves Rothko, i see them as somewhat similar they are both vast fields of colours that pulls emotions out of the viewer. but thats my thoughts. he could have ignored but his deep feelings seeps in, i know it does mine.
I have never understood the notion that 'beauty for the sake of beauty' is somehow a bad thing. They don't need to have a deeper meaning, and I absolutely reject that being 'nice' is not meaningful. If you look at a picture and think 'I like that', then it's meant something to you. It doesn't have to be something you can write a thesis on, it can just be beautiful.
We become too entitled in search for deeper meaning in every art that comes across us. Yes, artworks with deep meanings are valuable and applaudable, but some artworks are meant to be appreciated on what they are and not what they are not. There's no devaluing to that.
I was blown away by Monet’s “Water Lilies” when I saw them when I was a teenager at the St. Louis Art Museum. I was transported and was made to feel at peace by experiencing them. I love them.
A most delightful treatise. Through all my years, I drew and painted (and managed a career in playing the piano on a restaurant/hotel level), so I didn't study the visual arts more than a 2-week seminar, learning that I was a mere beginner. The paintings I produced were so raw and incomplete that I don't regard them as more than exercises. The water-colours I painted for occasion cards and little gifts were okay, and they were ''decorative''. I suppose that's why I respond to the lilies with more admiration - I love decor! Of course, fine and good art leaves me breathless, but I find I can approach embellishment with more understanding and aesthetic. Your case is made beautifully - Claude grooved on his garden in times not unlike ours, where I 'fess to grooving on embroidery, lace-making and drawing, all with the heart breaking for this silly world.
I'm Brazilian and I'm a big fan of your channel, it would be very interesting if you made a video about the artist Cândido Portinari!!! Here in my country he is very famous, but I believe he deserves more recognition in the world for the political content of his works and criticism It is an unequal society as it is in Brazil
Monet's paintings literally dance off the canvas. His use of light might be unsurpassed.
The Water lilies are sublime!
I think that an important aspect of Water Lilies is seing them in real life. It's a work of art that has a greatness that can't really be percieved through images, reproductions or photographs. I personally find it's immensity and somber mood is quite striking and standing in front of its thirteen meter canvas is an experience that evokes emotion rather than thought.
great video about art, history and society. i think the paintings could be a great ironic piece about war because he was using it to avoid any thoughts of the war. it's grotesque because it is grand and beautiful and escapist.
Monet was very old when he made them and partialy blind. I am allways fascinated to see a great old master working at such an age with such a disability. To me the water lillies are not an image of waterlillies. It is his lifelong exploration of light and they are a wanderfull coda for Monet search of color, light and air. They are like the clowds. Some dubbed them as abstract and there is something to get of it in abstract painting. They have also Picasso museums all over, there was a simmilar panorama by Raul Dufy in another museum. I love the old masters and to see how they look at the world as old people. We are all getting old and to me it is interesting how someone ends his artistic life, to see it through his eyes. The story you say is old and arround for ages. That story is almost the first to hear when one heads to the lillies to see them. It must have been diferent before, because now this great museum is hosting many other great works. And Monet lillies are a great coda for the historic periode he represents. Without those people we - the artists of the present and the future will be orphans. The story of his son annoying him is of course sad, but I don't see anything unusual in it. It is the story of million others that received their relatives after a war. I do appreciate that you mentioned the french nationalism and the use of the lillies to boost it, but at the end of the day - they are just lillies. And they survived the WW2 that was caused pretty much by the roothless french and british peace conditions. The lillies may be used for that but they did not suggest any vengence. And I hardly would see any glory in them. Just peacefull water and air.
I guess we can technically say they are about WWI, just from a "I turn away from this massacre" perspective rather than a thoughtfull homage :p
I agree they are not there to make you think, but they are definitely there to make you fell. It makes me feel
The paintings are utterly beautiful. I don't get why it has to be anything more than that. You can feel just how much he cared, how much they made him *feel*. By the painting.
When are you gonna do Zdzislaw Beksinski???
I could understand if paintings of _poppies_ were to be interpeted as a reference to the war. But *_water lilies??_* That makes no sense!
Look at the rest of Monet's work. His obsessive exploration of the emotional impact of light and colour *_IS_* it's "meaning". A painting doesn't have to be "about" something.
I don't agree. I also, in another sense agree.
I have not been in the room, so I can only write anecdotally.
I have heard of people who have gone into the room, meaning only to check it off the list of
"things to see in Paris", but who found themselves spending a few more minutes or,
in the case of one person, hours, looking at and sitting in the company of these paintings,
and getting overwhelmed with a range
of unexpected emotions.
running the gamut from grief to elation...
such a reaction may say more about the mental state of the observer, which is part of being
an aware spectator/consumer of whatever that thing is that compels creation in us,
that we call "art".
Art for art's sake, creating and sharing beauty just to be beautiful is as fully valid as art with a more intended and deeper meaning. There is enough ugliness in the world that to be reminded, even if just for the moment you take to look at a painting of flowers, that there is beauty, that there are things worth struggling for, that sometimes just being, is enough.
As much as I also find value in art that is not simply l’art pour l’art, sometimes I’m just so fatigued with thinking, finding layers, and research the context that I find art that just strikes me for its beauty very appealing. I’m also sick of the cult of the ugly.
Plus, lately I am increasingly skeptical on art with meaning, particularly if it is political.
Can both interpretations be right? Artists are not always 100% conscious as to why they do things. Maybe while he was painting/escaping, in his state of flux was an unconscious reflection on the losses of war.
I enjoy seeing you in your video essays
I enjoy the impressionists as overexposed to them as we are, I still like them.
Maybe all they meant to people whose lives bracketed the war was triumph of continuity and a hope for stability that might but wouldn't endure.
Never knew Monet was not liked by art snobs.
Interesting! But art is vast and encompasses all of human experience. Not all art has to make you think. Some of it is allowed to give you a little peace and enjoyment--and possibly space for reflection--in an often relentlessly ugly and cruel world. Thanks for challenging us, anyway! Much appreciated
I wonder if you visited l’Orangerie and saw the paintings. You obviously have the right to think of the paintings as you do, and certainly, without knowing the supposed relation with WWI, they didn’t seem so vacous to me. My experience with this paintings had nothing to do with war, and was more on the meditation way. And they moved me very much. Maybe works of art are something different and independent from what their creators meant and have a life of their own, or maybe works of art are just something different for any beholder.
Bottom line: I wouldn’t like to be without this paintings in the world.
I've just been to see Waterlilies at York museum
A video that once again shows how subjective art is - because each and everyone of us is different and all of our brains react to an artwork differently. To me the Waterlilies are not boring at all. They capture the silence and magnificence of nature. They feel spiritual and sacred like Arvo Pärt's songs. They are not loud but quiet. And therein lies their power. They concentrate a certain human experience. It is not an experience of war or revolution, it is not an exciting political message or ideal. It is something we can experience when we mindfully observe nature.
It is not exactly Monet’s fault-although you could say that it runs parallel to his admission that the water lilies paintings are decorations-but it is disturbing that those pieces have become the refuge of people who don’t really like art.
i dont think good or even competent paintings that are 'about' something important can escape 'looking nice' anymore than color for color's sake retinal art. guernica is a very stylish painting. i bet one can paint very striking images evocative of or directly about any given of the ongoing genocides that would successfully make you think and feel, give it 30 years it will make it into a beautiful coffee table book
Can I just honestly and with duly respect note that the settings of the last two videos (this one and anatomy of a fall) are very unnerving? Not to be impolite but seeing the narrator in these settings looks both not so seriously and also annoying.
Still love your videos, sorry
He is still remembered and discussed almost 100 years after his death...will you be?
Your view on art comes off very cynical makes me sad :(
Here in France, these paintings are called "Nympheas", literary word for water lilies, a title Monet chose for one of his earliest work on this subject in 1897. It gives them some pomp and an (unvoluntary?) greco-roman flavor.
Maybe looking back on his life he realized the sweetest moments weren't in the lap of material luxury, but instead were found in the garden? Maybe he wondered how we could be so intent on slaughter when there is peace and beauty on offer all around us. The Water Lilies are the opposite of the hellscape of WW1. Maybe he reflected on the beauty emerging from mud? The solace and peace of the garden is meditative and healing. it was for the artist.
From the perspective of a professional artist, Water Lilies have had a huge impact on how i perceive (and think of) art, even in my own field of music. They will have a comeback soon, when hyper-intellectual and ironic/provocative art (from not very intellectual artists especially) becomes old-fashioned. There's enormous courage and dedication to philosophical depth of meaning in these paintings, handed to us by Monet. I saw this and felt it, even prior to dwelling in their history (or at least that history which was documented). A lot is left unsaid about these particular series. Calling them "art that goes with the furniture" is truly the pinnacle of today's condescending expression of self-righteous opinion. Sometimes, it's better to keep opinions to ourselves, as they can often age just as well as milk in the sun. Art is in the eyes of the beholder, sure, but so is the beholder himself responsible for overcoming the challenges of withholding own judgment prior to thorough engagement with the essence and spirit of the artists (- particularly the deceased ones, those who actually shaped western culture as a whole). Maybe even sometimes waiting - for possible maturity of own understanding, would not entirely be a bad idea.
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*Watched 🎧 ➡ pressed 👍🏻 ➡ pressed 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 to the comments from others* ✅
Why does "great art" have to hold some momentous or grave meaning? Can't great art also be a celebration of the beauty of the mundane?
Who cares? The paintings are beautiful, all his paintings to me are beautiful, and that's good enough for me. Putting so much emphasis on what it means is all well and good, but sometimes it's enough to be nice.
I wonder why art has to be “shocking” to be meaningful? To me it’s kind of like an FM radio “shock jock”. Intriguing the first couple of times, then more offensive, then repulsive, then, finally, just boring. Monet said he wanted this work to be a memorial of sorts to the tragedies of WW1. A lot of people who who have commented about actually being in the room report feelings of peaceful melancholy, something they weren’t expecting. So maybe he was successful in portraying his feelings as an old man watching one of the most absurd tragedies in history unfold. Compare that with Otto Dix’s Trenches, his personal interpretation of war he experienced. (I watched your video on that too…super job). Dix’s is much more jarring, whereas Monet’s is more strong feelings of melancholy watch the world go mad. Regardless, good video…made me think.
Let me preface this by saying I’m not much of a Monet apologist, never was a big fan of his….but in my eyes, this is Monet’s contribution to his country during a time he felt powerless.
Each person will try to add what they do in their own way to the war effort or to their nations struggle. So what he could do is paint, and paint, the things he enjoyed. His ponds. “His water lilies.” What he stared at daily. This is what he knew. This is what he lived daily. And maybe wanted others to know. To experience. That’s what he left.
The baker contributes by giving bread. The musician by playing music. The teacher by continuing teaching. The artist, by continuing to make art.
It gives hope to those who feel things will never be the same again. And maybe they won’t. But the greatest thing he left people is it THE lilies…but him being true to his self. He didn’t start painting the horrors of the war, and not be true to himself. Sometimes we want others to react how we would react. This is what you’re missing. And great art explained also, or maybe he couldn’t explain it well.
His lilies, reminds us how foolish we humans are. Nature still there. No matter how much we try to destroy it. It will continue. Look beyond the moment. Remember it. The lilies in a way are eternal. I think he knew that. Actually powerful. He left us a reminder of that.
Btw, the lilies are still there! Cheers!
- 0berly
Ohh I love so much these conversations about the value of the beauty itself (which is JUST beauty, without any meaning)... because there are no defined, correct answers to these questions!
I am also not convinced when it comes to the deeper meaning of Water Lillies. I feel like we always want to find the meaning for the things which sometimes are JUST what they are, without any deep background or interpretation. But this is also absolutely fine. For me just beautiful is also a value. Maybe less interesting than beauty with meaning... but still it is kind of a value that I appreciate.
Thanks for the video! As always, very thought-provoking. I love your content!
It had not occurred to me that Monet's water lilies were anything more than an exercise in aesthetics; especially as the blood-red leaves of the opium poppy have become symbolic of the savagery of war. Especially since Monet had conceived of the lilies so many years before the events of the first World War.
I wouldn't definitively claim that these paintings held as little value as others have stated; I believe they hold some significance in the field of aesthetics. Even if only by adding a pond to the field whose style could be used to cast doubt on the matter of an adjoining field, epistemology perhaps, where the overlapping, inseparable lilies could represent the difficulty of obtaining knowledge, possibly questioning where the subject stops and the object begins.
Monet's water lilies, to me at least, seem unwilling, perhaps in their lack of focus, unable, to capture the horror of war, and of the first World War in particular.
I think, for this reason, the unapologetic poetry of Wilfred Owen is more worthy of memorializing the war; wherein these lines from 'Apologia pro Poemate meo', challenge the reader with eyes unflinching:
'I too, saw God through mud, -
The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled.
War brought more glory to their eyes than blood,
And gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child.
[...]
'You shall not hear their mirth:
You shall not come to think them well content
By any jest of mine. These men are worth
Your tears. You are not worth their merriment.'
I've been privileged to see 3 of his water lily paintings. One in San Francisco, Manhattan, and St. Louis. I only recall enjoying the one in San Francisco. To each their own. I much prefer the Rouen Cathedral series.
You make some good points, but I cannot dismiss such beauty as meaningless simply because it seems to carry no meaning beyond itself. Art for its own sake-- beauty for its own sake must be reason enough sometimes. Perhaps we are sooiled by all the choices we have to choose from. Enough! Texting is criminally inadequate. Such discussions are best accomplished sitting around a table and drinking heavily.
Great analysis, as so often. Thank you. I have always seen the Water Lilies as an expression that rose from the ongoing artistic toggle of influence between Japanese woodblock prints and western Art - not so much the accessible and mobile Ukiyo-e, but rather the more contemporary and exclusive Shin Hanga - it being a meditative celebration of reality’s tranquil elements. In that light, Clemenceau’s report on forty-four lovers might convey a message suggesting at least a hint of a soul present in Monet’s Grande Décoration at the Orangery.
On the one hand, I agree with the central thesis of this video essay.
One should not create meaning in a piece of art on behalf of the one who created it. That’s taking “death of the author” a step further and projecting thoughts or traits onto them that don’t belong to them.
But taking this another way: Monet lived in a world that now is lost to us forever. He lived in a world where the rich and powerful still valued the natural world, or a cultivated, curated version of it. He lived in an age of runaway industrialization and the expansion of capitalism. The idea of spaces existing purely to be beautiful was disappearing. Spaces were increasingly commodified and utilitarian. By the time Monet died, such gardens were losing funding or were being turned into event spaces, or were being turned over entirely to erect living spaces. He didn’t live long enough to see climate change but if he had, I think he would have been even more distressed by that than by the Great War.
His works might one day be the only evidence we have left of a world where greenery and calm and beauty were permitted to simply exist. A world where ponds still have insects skating across the surface, and fish flutter about in the shade of lily pads, and willows drape their boughs lazily downward to gaze at their own reflections. In another 100 years, or even another 50, there might be no one left to behold a water lily. Let alone a painted one.
Since you are young as are most of your viewers as well I will speak for the old, including, I think, Monet. I see much of what I love being wantonly destroyed. The ugly and brutish live on and on and the best people I know are dead or near death. In the face of that you cling to what little beauty survives, usually in nature. Clouds, sunsets, goldfinches gathering seeds from a sunflower, the tiny flowers of partridge berry are what I see and value. If I could paint, those are the things I would paint. Old age also teaches one about humility...
It's good to bathe in art sometimes, lik e sunlight. It doesn't have to be meaningful, just meditative. Like Georgia O'Keefe flower paintings, they don't mean a thing, except in a strange way they do. Also I believe we do not look closely at the natural world, and Monet looked. It's taken us a while to follow his eyes.
I think we are overthinking a painting of water lillies
Because. It's a painting of water lillies.
And you were right, that's boring. He did it just to paint it like when you see a pretty mountain or something and paint it, it doesnt mean anything. It is the type of art you hang up in a dentist's office.
My grandma has a bunch of paintings like that.
I think there is always more meaning than people think to this type of art, not so much by way of the artists intentions, but by way of what the art represents in contrast with the world around it. Monet water lilies mark a cultural shift, in which, instead of the strange, boundary pushing, and experimental being considered 'in bad taste,' the ordinary, simplistic, and purely aesthetic is considered 'bad taste.' But I don't think there is such thing as creating art 'in bad taste' so long as the artists intentions are honestly to create art - whether to challenge or to look nice. In Monet's case, for me the water lilies represent his fragile yearning for peace amidst the war. While his yearning could most certainly be considered burying his head in the sand, it is something we can all relate to, and his water lilies represent an escape to fantasy. His escape was unsuccessful, serving as a lesson for us all, but his ceaseless childlike yearning for beauty and peace is something I could never in good conscience disregard.
Before this video and the one from great art explained, I saw the waterlilies series as introlude to abstract art. The reflection on the surface of the water reduces the theme above the horizon. I had the priviledge to see some of Monet's paintings in real life, usually in a row of paintings with other impressionists. They are so close to abstraction. The only thing that reminds you of the reality are the reduced lilies. I agree that the artist didn't paint about war, if anything, perphas he painted his perception of war. Could it be reminscence of the past? Scared to look above the horizon, as if there is only death waiting?
I absolutely loved my visit to the Orangerie. I reckon it's not the deepest series of paintings in the world, but I remember feeling this sense of calm wash over me when I sat in the room. I think it's tied to the size and arrangement. It's like the reverse side of the "sublime nature" paintings that leave you awestruck and insignificant. Nature can also make you feel at peace and content, and that's what these paintings did for me. So while I agree that they don't have a whole lot to say, I would push back against the idea that they aren't meant to make you feel.
I see Monet as a master of light who did amazing things as part of the Impressionist group of painters who were revolutionary in their time. Monet lived a long time and was old by the time his son died in the war - his paintings was his life’s work legacy to the world. Getting lost in them they appear almost abstract at times and create an overwhelming feeling of peace. His painting water Lilies at the National Gallery evokes people to tears the most out of any of the world’s paintings . However I thought much the same as you at your age, maybe your perspective will change as mine has. May there never be a WW3 and I hope we never have to live through it.
I think the scale and presentation make the Lillie's very special...love the giant scale
It may not persuade you to appreciate the l'Orangerie any more to know that I agree whole heartedly with you that Monet's lilies project no thought or idea on the visitor and convey no impact other than what the viewer might bring with them. I visited the museum last March and welcomed the calm amidst the tumult of pre-Olympic preparations, tourism and traffic. I suspect that for those few visitors who came in the period leading up to the second world war would have it's remote island among the activity in the park.
i think the water lilies in monet's paintings have as much meaning as the real water lilies in his own garden. they're meditative, intended to be sat with and enjoyed, and ultimately they're impermanent. real water lilies bloom and die in reality. imagined water lilies bloom and die in memory. i think monet's water lilies are kind of like architecture, in a way.
this all coming from someone who also finds the paintings pretty boring lol.
and honestly? the perspective he was painting from isn't one i agree with, but it is interesting and informative in its own right. he was a very privileged man, taking refuge from the conflict within his work. that says something, even if he didn't intend it, even if we dislike it. "i don't want to look my traumatized son in the eyes, so have some flowers," is a statement. it's tasteless, but it's meaning we can apply to it.
I know better than to argue personal taste but if you think lily ponds are a boring subject you need to pay more attention. Also the notion that an otherwise invisible pacifist agenda would somehow redeem otherwise “merely” decorative pictures raises the question of what to do with works whose intention was lost to time, which are probably the majority.
Why would „being beautiful“ not be a valid purpose of art? I think having smth simply beautiful to look at and to enjoy a good enough reason for it to exist
I think you already mentioned the meaning of the painting. It looks nice, and if it was made to dsitract monet then it was also made to distract the viewer from the problems. So in a way, the painting's purpose to distract is the real meaning
And also there are people that claims some kinds of art are superficial for many reasons and while they describe them, they really tell they are masterworks and why.
Saw the Water lilies , tend to agree
closing my eyes and barely opening them the painting become what Manet saw , he was nearly blind and painted blotches of colors
I've never truly liked Impressionism, as it always felt like 'art that goes with the furniture'. I prefer art that speaks to its subject, and 'beauty' isn't an absolute necessity. The art that, to me, speaks most effectively and honestly to the atrocities and horror of WWI, are the Expressionists. These paintings aren't always lovely or calming and many, most definitely, don't 'go with the furniture', but I prefer a Kirchner, a Dix, or a Beckmann to Monet. Just my opinion. :)
How I feel, and what I see, is infinitely more important to me than anything else. If I can share that moment with another person, that's nice too.
this obsession with meanings today has watered down the potential of what can be on the surface as Warhol said "its all on surface"
I'm curious if you've had the good fortune of seeing them in person?
I enjoyed my time sitting in the lily room in the Moma. It gave me the peace that I assume Monet (selfishly) felt.
Amazing vídeo, its great when you bring your own insights and opinions. Keep it up!
I just see life in Monet's water lilies, charming life in equitable paints.
Yes, you were wrong, as you are with many other things.
Se ele for "Boring" ele foi um dos melhores disto. Ele sabe dominar o tédio.
Beautiful works of art can be powerful and healing. ❤
I don't know who you are mister, but you are a legend.
I think they're overrated. Large for large sake.
A true painter will paint anything at the right time energy feel,
Great Art Explained's video is what changed my opinion of Monet for the better.
I agree with your POV
Beauty is enough.
Great Art Explained and your channel are my favorite Art Appreciation channels..
I truly appreciate your insight and your honesty.
This has me thinking about Monet's painting in a more complex way.. where it was once in an only superficial one.
I visited the orangerie a few years ago during COVID and it did feel like a war memorial. There was barely anyone there, it was dead silent in the whole building. The paintings are beautiful but they also create a mystic feeling that I couldn't explain until I watched this video. It was like the water was drawing you into this dark blue. It felt so sad, dreadful and boring with a hint of anxiety. I can see now how this feeling is how someone who lived during world war one must have felt. You are right that they are boring, but I think that's exactly what Monet was trying to achieve. "all quiet on the western front" in form of a painting
thank you