Multicultural perspectives in art pertains to an educational approach that celebrates the multiple heritages of artists and art students. By understanding the cultural context behind the creation of iconic works of art, we can move towards a more authentic understanding of the aesthetic traditions behind the creation of a work of art. It is through this educational approach that the work of Claude Monet is best viewed. Claude Monet is undoubtedly one of the most familiar and best loved of all Western artists. ‘His images of poppy fields, popular-trees, waterlilies and elegant ladies in blossoming gardens are familiar to people who have never seen the original paintings and may have never visited an art gallery; they have won a place in the
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Prior to the addition of Japanese influences to his work, Monet was a relatively conventional en plein air painter, as evidenced by his earliest surviving work, Landscape at Rouelles, painted in 1858. While this is an accomplished and tranquil vision, painted under the direct influence of Boudin, Monet soon learned that avant-garde critics were ‘absolutely opposed to the softly curving forms and delicately composed tones of Landscape at Rouelles. These critics were advocates for a new type of realism in painting, one that declared its radical artificiality even as it expressed the truth of the artist’s sensation.’ Although Monet was not entirely ready to be so bold as to find himself in complete imitation of the artificiality exemplified in Hokusai’s Manga, he managed to incorporate some of these aspects in The Pointe de la Heve at low tide, which was exhibited by the Paris Salon of 1865. This was the first time Monet’s work had been shown to the public, which may account for why this landscape is less radical in its abstraction that some of Monet’s other works. The Point de la Heve at low tide does incorporate a certain realism in the atmospheric effect of the heavy rain clouds and the detailed depiction of the headlands, which almost contradicts the abstraction of the dark silhouettes of the breakwaters, and of the beached boats which seem to cut across the painting. Combined with the thick, crunchy layers of paint that indicate to the viewer that they are examining an artificial surface, this general use of abstraction makes The Point an ultimately a more compelling work that Rouelles. Although The Point represents a move towards abstraction in the Japanese style by Monet, it was still not as radical as a work like Manet’s Departure from Boulogne Harbour, which consisted of flatly painted sea and sky competing with the
Prior to the addition of Japanese influences to his work, Monet was a relatively conventional en plein air painter, as evidenced by his earliest surviving work, Landscape at Rouelles, painted in 1858. While this is an accomplished and tranquil vision, painted under the direct influence of Boudin, Monet soon learned that avant-garde critics were ‘absolutely opposed to the softly curving forms and delicately composed tones of Landscape at Rouelles. These critics were advocates for a new type of realism in painting, one that declared its radical artificiality even as it expressed the truth of the artist’s sensation.’ Although Monet was not entirely ready to be so bold as to find himself in complete imitation of the artificiality exemplified in Hokusai’s Manga, he managed to incorporate some of these aspects in The Pointe de la Heve at low tide, which was exhibited by the Paris Salon of 1865. This was the first time Monet’s work had been shown to the public, which may account for why this landscape is less radical in its abstraction that some of Monet’s other works. The Point de la Heve at low tide does incorporate a certain realism in the atmospheric effect of the heavy rain clouds and the detailed depiction of the headlands, which almost contradicts the abstraction of the dark silhouettes of the breakwaters, and of the beached boats which seem to cut across the painting. Combined with the thick, crunchy layers of paint that indicate to the viewer that they are examining an artificial surface, this general use of abstraction makes The Point an ultimately a more compelling work that Rouelles. Although The Point represents a move towards abstraction in the Japanese style by Monet, it was still not as radical as a work like Manet’s Departure from Boulogne Harbour, which consisted of flatly painted sea and sky competing with the