During winter 1880-1881, Claude Monet, the founder of French impressionist painting, painted seven bouquets of different flowers: Dahlias, Mallows, Asters, Jerusalem Artichoke flowers, Chrysanthemums, Red Chrysanthemums and Sunflowers. The current paper focuses on the Bouquet of Sunflowers (1881) painting that represents an alternative to expensive flowers but offers the same satisfaction. The Bouquet of Sunflowers is an oil on canvas (39-3/4×32-1/8 inches) housed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
As the painting is an example of impressionism movement the general characteristic of the latter should be given. Impressionism in painting is the late 19th-century French school that attempted to depict transitory visual impressions, often painted directly from natural world, and by the use of pure, broken color to achieve brilliance and luminosity (Impressionism, in Painting, 2007, p. 23645). Impressionist artists paint the ordinary scenes that lie in front of them.
The Impressionists were interested in everyday sights found on nearby streets, in the quiet countryside or inside cafes and theaters. They usually completed a work on a single occasion, unlike most painters of the time who first made sketches and then went back to their studios to complete a picture. The Impressionists focused attention on the light effects – the way light was reflected from objects, rather than on the solidness of the shapes themselves (Hubbard, 2001, p. 23).
The painting under consideration depicts a vase of sunflowers on the table. Oil paint is put on the canvas in short strokes, with little color mixing. The bright unmixed colors that prevail are green, orange and red. In spite of the shade that the vase casts the painting completely lacks black and gray tones. The shade and the voluminousness of the vase and the sunflowers give an impression that one sees it with one’s eyes.
Personally I when look at the picture become filled with joy. I remember at once different occasions when I presented a bouquet to somebody or was presented with it myself. Looking at the picture I start to realize that no extraordinary flower can be as natural and real as sunflowers. They seem to absorb the sun energy and now share it with the viewer. For me this bouquet of sunflowers represents something clear and bright, something that, intentionally or unintentionally, one strives for.
Through the use of colors that nature is full of and the accents made on the light that illuminates every flower the painter managed to present the bouquet as the gift of nature, or to be more exact, the gift of the sun itself. The painting is intended for the viewer to think over the importance of nature in people’s life. Apart from the well-known truths about the role of nature the latter can also touch the deepest corners of the viewer’s hearts and encourage one for some deeds.
“I paint as a bird sings,” Monet once told a friend (Rauch, 2004, p. 53) His Bouquet of Sunflowers proves this. The painting seems to be done so easily and masterfully rendering the power of nature that one looking at it cannot but admire the beauty presented.
References
(2007). Impressionism, In Painting. In The Columbia Encyclopedia (p. 23645). New York: Columbia University Press.
Hubbard, G. (2001). Impressionism. Arts & Activities, 130, 23-24.
Rauch, M. C. (2004). Rocks at Belle-Isle, Port-Domois Claude Monet. School Arts, 103, 53-56.