Friday, September 11, 2009

Water Lilies in the rain

Water Lilies, Claude Monet. 1914-26. Oil on canvas, (right side of three panels), each 6' 3/4" x 13' 11 1/4". Now on view at the MOMA.

It was a cold, wet day out today. With snotting interspersed with gusts of wind. Perfect, I thought, for crawling deeper under the quilt and sleeping half the day away. Or Perfect for braving the subway and the city streets with only one goal in mind: Monet's Water Lilies. When I finally arrived and ducked into the shelter of the MOMA it was bustling. There were so many tourists and New Yorkers coexisting, practically on top of one another, all for the sake of seeing some art on a gloomy Friday afternoon. It should have been borderline annoying but it was kind of spectacular. I thought to myself, people in this society still care about art and this proves it as I looked down from the staircase and smiled at the camaraderie below.
I enjoyed the very small room I tucked into for the temporary exhibit but only because it was member's only and does not open to the public until Sunday. I have seen some of his water lilies before but it has been years and I was giddy. I was ironically excited for the calm I knew they would bring over me. Up close when you look at all the paint, all the layers of color and texture from all the years they were painted, they are impressively chaotic. And then when you are done trying to peer through all the paint and done trying to make sense of it and you step away and you sit down on the cushy bench behind you, you find yourself staring at emotion, but it makes sense. The emotion takes over everything. All the busy thoughts you had clouding your brain, what groceries you need to buy on the way home, gone. To me the emotion the paintings evoke are dependant upon your mood that day. The paintings can appear to be melancholy themselves because you are feeling particularly sad that day and you are bringing that perspective to the work before you. My sadness went away while I was staring into the aqua pools and pink brushstrokes, they absorbed it. This moment the paintings and I shared was like having a sympathetic ear to talk to. Monet knew life was about living and seeing the beauty in the world around him and you can see this in his paintings, his own offering of beauty to the world.


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