Claude Monet and His Evolving Palette

During the 19th century, France underwent conflicts and shifts because it was governed by Napoleon Bonaparte as First Consul. The Napoleonic Empire caused France’s political system to be unstable. During this time, Romanticism began to manifest itself, giving rise to the preference of sentiment and nature over rationalism. Civil uprisings and social class inequality gave way to the neglect of Realism and the arrival of Romanticism. Romanticism began taking over the visual arts and literature. In spite of ruthless disapproval from the art community in France, Impressionists, a group of painters interested in modern life, went against the norm of art and took an interest in landscapes and ordinary subjects.

An Impressionist was concerned with loose brushwork, unmixed colors, open composition, lighting, everyday subject matter, etc. They rejected emphasis on contours, which was paramount in painting during that time period, and leaned more towards depicting the transient nature of images. Claude Monet, one of the Impressionist painters, was primarily interested in how light adapted throughout the day. From 1866 to 1893, Monet shifted from employing a palette of vibrant colors in his art to a palette of pale colors in order to portray movement through his emphasis on lighting.

Claude Monet, The Green Wave, 1866-67, Oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 29.100.111

In this painting, Monet mainly applies a darker palette, contrasting the rich colors to the soft grays that he employs. The smooth brushwork highlights the raging waves surrounding small sail boats. While some of Monet’s paintings, like the Regatta at Sainte-Adresse, depict the tranquility of nature, this one seems to have an emphasis on the composition’s contrasting colors and movement. While it doesn’t have loose brushwork and unmixed colors like The Manneporte does, it gives the viewer a sense of rhythm and motion. At this time period, it seems like Monet wasn’t as interested in using lighter, unblended colors to accentuate movement and lighting.

Claude Monet, Garden at Sainte-Adresse, 1867, Oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 67.241 

Vibrant, rich, and saturated colors are seen throughout the consistent composition of this painting. Three distinct layers exist, accentuating the distance that exists in the painting. The terrace surrounded by plants is close. The ocean is the middle ground and the boats are far away, indicating that Monet employed linear perspective. This painting immediately calls attention to the vibrant colors and linear perspective while The Manneporte calls attention to the movement and experience of the picture. This was painted 16 years prior to The Manneporte. As time progressed throughout those sixteen years, Monet experienced a shift from lively colors depicted in this painting to natural lighting demonstrated in The Manneporte. He seemed to have painted the Garden at Sainte-Adresse for the viewer to long for the serenity of the place while The Manneporte focuses on the viewer having an experience with movement.

Claude Monet, Regatta at Sainte-Adresse, 1867, oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 51.30.4 

Ordinary subject matter is seen in this painting—the shoreline, boats and people are scattered throughout the open composition, indicating that this is a real place Monet visited. In the same year that he painted the Garden at Sainte-Adresse, Monet used a lighter palette in order to paint the Regatta at Sainte-Adresse. One can already see the shift in color when comparing both paintings painted in the same year. His shift from energetic colors to faint colors is perhaps due to a developed interest in motion and illumination.

Claude Monet, The Manneporte (Étretat), 1883, Oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 51.30.5

There’s an emphasis on light and blended colors in order to produce an experience of movement. The emphasis on light points to the changing qualities of the images in the painting. Monet’s priority was to go against the norm of shapes and lines and fight for abstraction and motion. As he went against the norm, he began experimenting with different colors and brushwork to determine the best way to create movement to accurately convey his experience at the island of Étretat. Because he experimented, his older paintings in the 1860s like The Green Wave or the Garden at Sainte-Adresse were rich and bold but not as naturalistic as Cabins of the Customs Watch or The Manneporte. 

Claude Monet, Ice Floes, 1893, Oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 29.100.108 

Monet’s small yet visible brush strokes call attention to the abstraction illustrated in the painting. His purpose was to focus on color and light instead of lines and contours. He creates an atmosphere of invisibility and mystery through his color choice. As the years passed, Monet’s palette became lighter and lighter. One may take a look at Monet’s The Green Wave and question why light colors took precedence over rich colors in Monet’s artistic choices and why contours didn’t matter anymore. Monet’s color choice dramatically shifts from 1866 to 1893.