artist tuesdays

So this is my clever idea for trying to become a better blogger.  Every Tuesday I will enlighten you with one of my favorite artists.  Painters, photographers, basket weavers, anything.  I’m an art history minor, so this works out well for me, don’t you think?  Anyway, as a debut, I must share one of my very favorite artists of all time:

Claude Monet.

He is a master. I cannot even describe the impact this painter has had on my life. He is about 85% of the reason why I’m even an art history minor to begin with.  I’m so obsessed that I even paid $18 for a Monet-themed planner with a new painting every week.  $18 for a planner.  Now that’s love.  Anyway, my parents have a poster of one of his paintings depicting the Japanese bridge in his Giverny garden that I used to look at all the time when I was little.   I couldn’t figure out how to pronounce “Giverny.” Giv-err-nay?  Jhi-vair-nee.  There we go.

His paintings fueled the Impressionist movement in Paris and spread throughout Europe in the early 1900s. In turn, I am completely obsessed.  There’s an organized chaos to all his work.  Up close, it’s a smattering of random color strokes that don’t make sense.  Take a few steps back and suddenly colors seamlessly meld together to create a scene of sailboats floating in a bay at sunrise.  I’ve seen his work the the Musee d’Orsay, Musee L’Orangerie and the MOMA, and it has really defined the way I see art.  I hope you someday get the opportunity to see his brilliance in person because it will, without a doubt, make you fall in love with everything he puts on a canvas.

Water Lilies at the Musee L'Orangerie

Impression, soleil levant

Thinks he's so clever...

Bridge Over a Pond of Water Lilies

Crazy brushstrokes

"Régates à Argenteuil"

In love.