“A certain slant of light” - Claude Monet’s “The Magpie”
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“The Magpie” by Claude Monet, 1868-1869. Musee d’Orsay, Paris
It was late in my art studies when I discovered this masterpiece by Claude Monet. My immediate thought upon seeing “The Magpie” went to Emily Dickinson’s famous poem
There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are –
None may teach it – Any –
‘Tis the Seal Despair –
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air –
When it comes, the Landscape listens –
Shadows – hold their breath –
When it goes, ‘tis like the Distance
On the look of Death –
Perhaps because she writes of shadows and light -- also perhaps about the shadows and light on the snow from her window -- and Monet’s picture is so focused on the shadow of the fence on the snow -- that the comparison still lingers in my mind. A very good friend of mine tells me of his desolate feeling in seeing this painting because of the isolation of the little bird in the cold air. He did not know the Dickinson poem. His was a personal gut reaction.
I tell him that perhaps the artist here is “just” experimenting with the effects of light in nature, something impressionists were so fascinated by. But he has a point. A painting lives its life and has its beating heart within its beholder’s sight and understanding.
But was this painted in the afternoon? Monet wrote to a friend that painting snow scenes was more challenging for him because he lost the light so early in the winter. The long shadows of the fence suggest that it was afternoon, but we don’t really know.
Were the footprints in the snow Monet’s? Or had someone already passed by the scene before the artist started to paint it? Do the footprints heighten a viewers sense of isolation, as is the case with my friend? The human interaction had certainly been here, but it was now gone.
Monet did close to 140 paintings of snow scenes. “The Magpie” was an early one. The painting is more in the Realist style, and can be seen as a step in his developing Impressionist works. Here his brush stroke is more defining and his palette more restricting. His later palette in the snow scenes have a warmer feel, as he incorporates an explosion of color, his blues, pinks, and purples now being joined by rusty red, a center of yellow, and some vivid green, as seen here
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The Road to Giverny in Winter, 1885. In private collection.
here is a detail, showing that vivid green more closely
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There is a dramatic culmination of color in his Grainstacks series, in particular this work
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Grainstacks, Snow Effects, Sunset. 1891. Art Institute of Chicago.
At first the intense red-orange of the sky stuns the eye. Then you find contrast of his often used lighter blues with deep sapphire accents, which further dramatizes the moment he is capturing. There are several of his winter scenes of grainstacks, but this one, with its alternating cold shadow and a burst of the warmest of tones in the upper right of the canvas, has taken a big step further in his development of impressionist art.
The grainstack series completely engrossed the painter during the 1880 harvest in the fields near his home in Giverny, so much so that he put aside all other projects to complete the series. His aim was to show the transience of light throughout the change of seasons, but as he worked, weather and atmosphere changes, as well as perspective, were needed. This required him to work on 10 to 12 paintings a day starting pre-dawn so that every nuance could be captured. Later he would do for Rouen Cathedral what he had done in the grain fields of Normandy, producing thirty canvases of its facade. The sun wheel here http://www.learn.columbia.edu/monet/swf/ briefly (and ingeniously) shows this progression.
Monet’s last major project before his death in 1926 at the age of 86 was the massive “Les Nympheas” (water lilies), 1919. It is seen today in the magnificent Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris.
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= new reply since forum marked as read
French Impressionists and the English Pastoral school.
Constable's "The Hay Wain" is very fine. It's certainly a far cry from Bosch's triptych, that's for sure.
Also, check out Bruegel's "The Magpie on the Gallows" in contrast with Monet's "The Magpie." These are not so far apart; in fact the similarities are really striking, as well as the differences.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magpie_on_the_Gallows
Also, in folklore or nursery rhymes, the single magpie is a symbol of sorrow; and in concert a holder of secrets to be revealed in song. I’m not sure why, but it’s an interesting association. Actually, this entry from the online etymology dictionary might explain it:
the common European bird, known for its chattering, c.1600, earlier simply pie (early 13c.); first element from Mag, nickname for Margaret, long used in proverbial and slang English for qualities associated generally with women, especially in this case "idle chattering" (as in Magge tales "tall tales, nonsense," early 15c.; also compare French margot "magpie," from Margot, pet form of Marguerite).
Second element, pie, is the earlier name of the bird, from Old French pie, from Latin pica "magpie," fem. of picus "woodpecker," from PIE root *(s)peik- "woodpecker, magpie" (cognates: Umbrian peica "magpie," Sanskrit pikah "Indian cuckoo," Old Norse spætr, German Specht "woodpecker" possibly from PIE root *pi-, denoting pointedness, of the beak, perhaps, but the magpie also has a long, pointed tail. The birds are proverbial for pilfering and hoarding, can be taught to speak, and have been regarded since the Middle Ages as ill omens.
Whan pyes chatter vpon a house it is a sygne of ryghte euyll tydynges. [1507]
Divination by number of magpies is attested from c.1780 in Lincolnshire; the rhyme varies from place to place, the only consistency being that one is bad, two are good.
Also, from early Yeats:
THE MAGPIE
Over the heath has the magpie flown
Over the hazel cover,
Ah why will a magpie live alone
He waits for the lady and lover.
“What may be the sadness that ends your smile?”
She said, “my peace is o’er, love”
“I am going afar for so brief a while”
She said, “We must no more, love.”
They stood for the swish of the mower’s blade
As they went round the meadow,
And under him as he sang and swayed
Moved his meridian shadow.
“The ruddy young reaper he sings be glad
In the sphere of the earth is no flaw, love.”
She said, “He is singing all lives grown sad
He knows no other law, love.”
The grass and the sedge and the little reed wren
A sociable world were talking
And the water was saying enough for ten
As they by the stream went walking.
“The grass and the sedge and the little reed wren
Are saying it low and high, love,
There’s a feast in the forest and mirth in the fen.”
She said, “Ah how they sigh, love.”
He flew by the meadow and flew by the brake
She saw him over the flag fly
Down by the marsh, with his tail a-shake
Alone with himself the magpie.
“What may be the sadness that ends your smile?”
She said, “My peace is o’er, love.”
Ah who with folly from love beguiled
She said, “We must no more, love.”
(Early to Middle 1880s)
Response to CTyankee (Original post)
Response to panader0 (Reply #10)
Thanks, as always
Chills, thrills, and tears here!
Although they reveal to me my vast ignorance of the work. Still, I love them, and appreciate so much your work in bringing them to us...
K&R!
Beautiful
Happy Holidays CTYankee
The Magpie is one of my favorite Monet paintings. I love most of them and have several prints but the Magpie is about his best winter image that I can think of.
Thank You!
So glad you posted it!
One day I will sit in that room
You fill DU full of art in these posts.
Whenever I see one, I have to click through, because I know I am going to see something either remarkable or beautiful, or both.
My best to you and yours.
