Water in Monet's Art

"These landscapes of water and reflection have become an obsession." - Monet

Introduction

If you've heard of Claude Monet, you've probably seen paintings of his infamous water lillies. They are not the main focus of this post as countless people already talked about them and I wouldn't be doing it enough justice. This post, however, is about Monet's love for water more generally. And moreso, my love for Monet's work involving water.

Water, what's so special

Recently, I was going through Monet's pieces and the ones that kept catching my eye were ones that involved bodies of water, his seascapes. They are calm, vibrant, and extremely intricate. It is genuinely fascinating how he makes colors work together in this way. I also quite enjoy the visible brush strokes on some of these, they create some sort of texture that works really well with water.

These textures were usually created by him allowing the paint to dry then superimposing more layers and brushstrokes creating a rough texture that usually depicted waves, rocks, etc. And other times where he didn't even wait and painted over wet paint which I assume is what created some of his seamless blends between the blues of the water and the oranges and reds of the sunlight.

Monet was one of the first artists in the impressionist movement. Impressionism, in short, being the art form that involves capturing colorful moments, usually outdoors, with no specific subject in mind. Water is perfect for that. Take something that is always in motion and paint what it looks like in a single moment, deciding on reflections and shades that are infinitely unique.

I collected some of my favorites below but you can check out a lot more of Monet's art here. It is insane how many he's done and they're all so good.

Gallery

Conclusion

I chose Monet's water work because it is something I personally liked. I admire the rest of his work however this is the subset I found myself actually going back to look at again.

"I will do water, beautiful, blue water."