StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

Poppy Field by Monet - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
The artwork chosen for this paper "Poppy Field by Monet" is a famous painting by Monet that is displayed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York which the author visited during vacations. The theme underlying this piece of art is Impressionism, which has widely been used in Monet’s artwork…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER97.5% of users find it useful
Poppy Field by Monet
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "Poppy Field by Monet"

?The work of art chosen for the purpose of this paper is the famous painting “Poppy Field” by Monet and is displayed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York which I visited during my vacations. The theme underlying this piece of art is Impressionism, which has widely been used in Monet’s art work. Impressionism is a genre of art (especially paintings) whereby the aim of the artist is to illustrate an impression of what he perceives from seeing various objects; it does not have a literal interpretation. More precisely, impressionists, such as Monet, have a deeper, rather vague, aspect to their paintings, which is reflected in their use of shadows, various angles of light, fog to name a few. A reflection of the Impressionist style is seen in Poppy Field whereby Monet depicts his perception through rough stokes of brush, vivid hues on a light colored canvas. The painting captures a spontaneous approach and depicts a snapshot of a scene that the artist has chosen. The most enthralling part of this painting is that it looks simplistic as opposed to complex; as if it were drawn with much ease. The painting depicts a typical day in Argenteuil’s summers (Murray). The most prominent part of the painting is the arrangement of various elements under consideration in the painting. The flat, horizontal flower bed is in strike contrast to the vertical stance of the trees. Furthermore, the striking green leaves stand in sheer contrast to the grass in the field which has been painted brown with a slight tinge of green as if it were dried. The essence of the painting is captured by the poppies that are painted vividly red with roughly six to seven random strokes of red brush at the bottom of the painting. To add to it, the sky stands in deep contrast to the rest of the painting with light blue hues and several scattered feathery clouds portraying a bright summer’s day. Monet has been more than just successful in outlining the sky with the aid of trees and the earth. The soil, although it encapsulates the largest space in the painting, gives an enthralling effect whereby its dark colors cause it to retreat and the white hues in the clouds cause it to become more prominent. Since the sky is in stark contrast to the trees and the soil, the ground and the trees drift the viewer’s attention to the sky. The perception of the artist is such that he controls the viewer’s eye movements by positioning the objects in a particular fashion. Hence, the viewer’s eyes first roll to the sky then towards the trees on the left side, and in the end towards the ground itself. It is a common mistake to think that because the ground depicts a lot of people that would be the most capturing position in the entire painting. In reality this is certainly not the case. Rather, the people become the most insignificant part of the painting, and that is simply because the people stand small in front of the greatness of the sky. At another instance also the painting demonstrates the insignificance of people by portraying three different people on the ground; the boy in the front who waves to the audience, and two women in the backdrop. Finally, the insignificance of man is further highlighted by the fact that the artist depicts a holistic view of man; he does not go into details and does not show the features of the boy of the women, in an attempt to merge them with the rest of the scenario. The boy is merely a figure and the artist does not even give the slightest hint of where his features ought to be. Furthermore, the hues used by Monet are bright ones, such as yellows, blues and greens; however, they tend to be not so bright or appear somewhat faded out by the scorching rays of the sun. We can, therefore, confidently say that the painting captures at length the sentiments of experiencing a typical summer’s day. Perhaps a significant aspect of this painting was that the outlines were thinned; the painting articulately depicted a melodrama of colors, a colorful fusion of brightly colored hues all blended together in an eloquent fashion. The inexplicably large patches of clouds in the background depicted Monet’s love for visual notion; hence this piece of art remarkably sets high standards for the Impressionists (Murray). Although the picture clearly depicts the artist’s perceptions and motives, the painting draws its first step towards abstraction which forms the bulk of art today. The painting is a blend as well as a stark contrast between two sets of hues; the reds and the blues/greens. The painter has not explicitly painted things; in fact, the objects are suggestive of various perceptions. Monet has yet again proven his association with the Impressionists with this painting by showing his alliance with the three primary sets of hues: the reds, blues and yellows. He then blends these colors into another bright pallet of secondary colors including green, orange and purple. It is this sound knowledge of colors and their unique blends that draws similarity between Monet and his other Impressionist counterparts. The contrast between what are perceived as ‘hot’ colors and ‘cold’ colors is rather quite suitably captured by the artist as the reds contrast fiercely against the blues. The distance downward of the ground is further enhanced by the smaller magnitude with which the house and trees are drawn; the primary colors are at symmetry with secondary colors because the ‘red’ poppy field is in symmetry with the ‘blue’ sky. The position of the sun on a summer’s day is also remarkably captured by the artist as the rays of the sun are seen emerging from the top left of the painting. It can be undoubtedly claimed that Monet love for showcasing the interplay between various bright hues of the field and the bright sunlight is evident here. The ease and beauty with which Monet has managed to strike a balance between the fresh, bright palette and dull hues of the sky is commendable. He has remarkably and rather, beautifully demonstrated a typical field in the French landscape. His love for poppies, however, lies at odds with the disgust of farmers who condemn poppies for destroying their fields. The underlying theme of this painting surrounds around the greatness of life rather than the concentration of the crowd. Figuratively, it depicts the sheer power of nature and the insignificance of man when compared with nature. Overall, the painting seems to be a classic piece of art, in line with conventional norms of artists; Claude did not recognize it as a work of art since these were one of his earliest attempts (Murray). It appears that the strokes of brush are rather randomly drawn; that they have been led astray in a rather simple composition. Furthermore, the flowers themselves lack depth and do not possess the depth that they ought to; as a result the scope for depicting appropriate tints of light becomes limited. However, the artist explores here a single object (the poppies) in various contexts. To conclude, this piece of art particularly drew my attention for most of the reasons mentioned above; it stood in stark contrast with the other more sophisticated paintings which required some cognitive analysis. Unlike its counterparts, this particular painting demonstrated the beauty of simplicity and increased my interest in Monet’s work especially because of the manner in which he managed to bring out the best of nature in his paintings. He had demonstrated, through this painting that nothing can be as powerful, simple yet complex as nature and that man bore little significance in front of the beauty of nature. This figurative meaning, as I perceived from the painting, increased my love for Monet’s work and drew me closer to nature where I could find peace amidst the hustle and bustle of life. References: Murray, Elizabeth. Monet's passion: ideas, inspiration and insights from the painter's garden. Maldon: Pomegranate Communications, 1989. Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“Gallery Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words”, n.d.)
Retrieved de https://studentshare.org/visual-arts-film-studies/1392134-art
(Gallery Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 Words)
https://studentshare.org/visual-arts-film-studies/1392134-art.
“Gallery Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 Words”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/visual-arts-film-studies/1392134-art.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF Poppy Field by Monet

The Field by Lord Dunsany

Analysis of ‘The field' by Lord Dunsany: Lord Dunsany in his short story, The field has portrayed a strong imagination of his surroundings and life of London.... In his short story, The field, Dunsany speaks of the horror and fear of modernism that was the basic element of London's busy life and he fears that this life would dominate the beauty of the hills and people would start forget to appreciate the beauties of nature.... While reading the passages of the The field, one forgets the hardships and miseries of his life....
3 Pages (750 words) Essay

Monets Life and Works

The paper "monet's Life and Works" focus on the fact that Claude monet, also known as Oscar-Claude monet or Claude Oscar monet, was born on November 14, 1840, in Paris, France.... monet was the leader of a French art movement group called the "Impressionists".... In 1883 monet leased a house in Giverny about 50 kilometres beyond Paris.... Bearing in mind how all these painters elaborated their strongly personal manners relating to the new imaginative ideas, one notices that the new aspects appeared most frequently in the work of monet to be captured by the other Impressionists including them as ideas or as explicit methods and applying them in their own ways (monet biography, repropaint....
10 Pages (2500 words) Essay

Using Drug Profits in Afghanistan

central ethical issue of using mycoherbicides in Afghanistan's poppy plants needs further research.... From the paper "Using Drug Profits in Afghanistan" it is clear that critical thinking analysis provided the opportunity to develop an author's analytic abilities in terms of linking ethical theories and concepts to practical and contemporary applications....
11 Pages (2750 words) Essay

The Poppy Appeal Case

The essay "The poppy Appeal Case" discusses the facts involve the Guardian has published a 1,000 word piece written by Simon Bigot headed 'Let's not celebrate Britains role in the drug trade'.... Today in 2010 most inner-city youngsters associate the red poppy with the production of opium, morphine, and heroin.... But is this something we should celebrate each year by supporting the poppy Appeal?... Until the BRITISH LEGION gets its act together, we must boycott the poppy Appeal....
9 Pages (2250 words) Essay

Philosophy as One of the Greatest Disciplines

Any field or discipline has a philosophical orientation developed to improve its efficiency.... Philosophers are better placed in their field of interest, be it politics, economics, or any other related field.... eligion is another field of philosophy that has been widely discussed with the likes of Karl Max, Sigmund Freud, and other related philosophers reviewing the field....
2 Pages (500 words) Essay

Does Money Buy Happiness

Though the philosophers in the field agree on the difficulty associated with the idea of understanding the true definition of happiness, they have come up with a few parameters which may help in explaining the concept.... This research paper "Does Money Buy Happiness" discusses the increase in wealth or money that significantly increases the happiness indicators, on the other hand, it can also be argued evidently that happiness doesn't necessarily increase at the rate the wealth increases....
6 Pages (1500 words) Research Paper

The Opium Poppy

This term paper "The Opium poppy" focuses on an addictive narcotic drug that contains alkaloids such as papaverine, codeine, and morphine.... The opium poppy has a complex history.... The opium poppy has both negative and positive effects of opium poppy upon human society.... The negative effects of opium poppy include terrorism, wars, international politics, crime, addiction and dependence, health problems, and negative economic issues, and the positive effects include the manufacture of drugs and for homeopathy....
9 Pages (2250 words) Term Paper

Gardening Does Not Interest Many People

The paper "Gardening field" states that forgiving people is hard and forgetting even harder but the author learned to forgive people and put himself in their shoes.... his idea got me into the gardening field.... He understands people's actions more these days and gardening also taught him the virtue of patience....
5 Pages (1250 words) Essay
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us