Sunday, April 24, 2011

Broken Color and Monet's flickering colors....

Claude Monet is credited with developing the Impressionist  painting style- a style that changed the world of art and eventually led the abstract art we see so much of today.
His technique is called "broken color" and uses overlapping  layers of scumbled or dashed clean colors. The colors, often complements, are placed together to visually blend into a new color as the viewer observes the image. The technique creates a lively, flickering effect.

Monet used his knowledge of color with painting techniques to capture a brief moment in time- the "impression" of what you see before you. He often worked outdoors, painting for a short time before changing canvases for the next "moment". After several days or weeks of working in the same location for the same brief moment, he was able to develop a completed image.

Here is a link to more info on Monet...

Check out the samples here to see his style...
The artist

"Impression, Sunrise", 1872,  oil on canvas

"Water Lilies",1920-1926, oil on canvas

"The Japanese Bridge", 1918
Monet in the bridge (painted above), in his gardens...