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Waterlilies
He arranged several large canvases around his studio and worked on them simultaneously. |
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Some were six meters by one meters, some were even bigger,six meters by two meters. Due to the scale of the canvases,he could not work on them out of doors, but used his smaller earlier canvases as reference material and also relied on his memory.
These paintings were to be exhibited in two oval galleries in the Orangarie in Paris, often side by side, in the same sequence in which he arranged them while working in his studio. Monet destroyed many unfinished canvases, but from those remaining, it is possible to know how he approached these paintings. Using a large brush he would paint in the main shapes and patterns, and put in the dominant colours. The paintings in sequence related to each other through the patterns and rythms set down at this stage. He would then work on the different areas of tone. Having applied a flat opaque layer of colour to a surface primed with white, he then applied translucent glazes and subtle variations of colour mixed with white to enrich the canvas surface and produce atmospheric effects. Some areas were overworked and thickly encrusted with paint. This then was balanced out by delicate areas of thin paint. Dark shadows were balanced by vibrant singing highlights which expressed his sense of the beauty of colour.
The outer room of the Orangerie contains paintings of free-floating lily flowers surrounded by water in which the sky is reflected. The inner room paintings portray weeping willows, branches and trunks, as well as the flowers. This gives them a more rigid composition. His knowledge of how to create atmospheric effects built up over years of experience, was put to full use here.
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