Analyze That

monet-irises-monets-garden.jpg
My analysis was chosen from Kimberly Evans blog. She had an image from my favorite painter, Claude Monet. I have always been a big fan of his and currently have two of his paintings in my home. (replicas obviously). I like the way that his paintings look so much different when you are up close compared to when you are far away. This particular image is of a garden, which i am assuming was his big garden that he kept and made many paintings of.
In this painting there doesnt appear to be alot of line use in the sense that nothing seems really straight. But he does use expressive line, similar to Van Gogh, in that it is loose and free. The garden path and his row of flowers seem to fade away in a slight curve and from our point of view even though there are no visible lines, they are perceptually there. This use of line in the painting is through contour lines.
The space in the image is of the two point linear perspective with a diagonal recession. The image seems to fade to the right at an angle but it does not recede to a single point. And because the vantage point fades to the right and is not a straight focus to the viewer it is considered a diagonal and not frontal recession.
The color in this and all Claude Monet paintings is what really sets them apart from other works of art. As an impressionist painter his use of different shades and colors really attract the eyes at different angles and distances. His paintings and this one particularly are abstract when you are up close. Monet painted his paintings outdoors so that he would be true to all colors in natural light. This use is called perceptual reality. This image has a cool feel to it almost like the garden is completely shaded. The flowers in front are a little bit darker whereas the value and tint of the flowers gets lighter towards the center and right end of the painting. I believe that the color scheme in this painting is an analogous scheme because the temperature stays consistent and the hues seem to neighbor each other on the color wheel.
This painting appears to be full of visual texture because of the way he paints. Up close it appears to be very think in stature. If you get close to one of his paintings you can see the thickness in areas where he has shaded.
When you look at this painting there is no main focal point. Its like you are smack dab in the middle of his garden at any time. The only thing that tells a story of time is the age of his garden.