Monet's Exploration of Light

Claude Monet was a French painter who is considered the father of the "Impressionism" style of painting. In the 1890's he began a series of paintings that depicted haystacks over and over again - but the interesting thing was that the paintings were not about the haystacks, but rather an investigation of how the light during different times of the day, or different seasons of the year, changed the way those haystacks looked.

In some ways, he probably had to choose a boring subject such as a haystack, so that the viewer would not be enthralled with the subject but instead focus on how the light was affecting the color. For example, an early morning summer sunrise makes a light and color much different than the middle of the day in the winter.    

Below are a few examples of Monet's haystacks - what would you guess would be the circumstances under which he made these paintings?

Artsology decided to apply these ideas about light and color to our own little project; click here to see "My Monet Experiment."

If you would like to learn more about Monet, you may want to consider these books: