re: #161 CuriousLurker

I haven’t done a puzzle in ages.

The first time I saw some of Monet’s “Water Lilies” paintings in person I was shocked to see that they were enormous. Not only that, but if you tried to get close to them, then the image would dissolve into brushstrokes—you could see plenty of color & texture, but forms were completely lost.

He must’ve had to make a few strokes, step a good distance back, make a few more strokes… pretty amazing. It would drive me bananas. I wonder why he did that, forced you to move back… Do any of you know?

Part of his technique had to do with his near blindness from cataracts. He saw things the way he painted. Everything was broken into light refractions. So he saw things in small bits of light and would have to study them as such, and as he pulled back away form something he would get an image. I think his sight also had much to do with why he worked so large. Also, a major part of the whole idea of impressionism is that everything is made up of bits and pieces if you look at anything so closely as to lose the whole. Sort of like a digital image made of pixels. Blow a digital image up and all you see are little pieces of color blocks/pixels. Then as you pull back everything comes into focus by joining all the parts into a whole. It is difficult to explain in a small description. But I have always loved impressionism because of the fact that much of what we see is little pieces (cells, textures, etc.) that all join together as one when viewed from a distance. Our eyes complete a full image of all the parts of what makes everything into a whole. Digital images are very impressionistic.