Claude Monet’s Ultraviolet Eye
Cézanne said that Monet was “only an eye - yet what an eye.”
The two paintings you are looking at are from Claude Monet’s 1922-1924 series The House Seen From the Rose Garden. If the French impressionist icon was known for one thing, it was his focus on color over form in the creation of textured, emotional landscapes.
Later in life, he developed horrible cataracts that made the colors that had inspired him for decades nearly impossible to perceive. The clouded lenses prevented him from seeing anything but reds and yellows.
In 1923, he underwent cataract surgery and had the lens removed from his right eye, resulting in a condition called aphakia. Through this lens-less eye Monet could now see deep into the blues, and perhaps into the ultraviolet range (usually obscured by our lens), barely able to focus using special eyeglasses.
The paintings above are of the same scene. The red and yellow version is painted as seen through his left eye, limited to the wavelengths allowed by his cataract. The painting on the right is deep blue and violet, as seen through an eye with no lens. Who can imagine how those colors appeared to his eye while being mixed on his palette?
In one sense, the surgery handicapped Monet from full creative perception. But at the same time it provided him with a perspective that perhaps no other artist had. More, and links to a book about color perception, at Download The Universe.
Bonus: Photography through the UV lens. See the world like a bee!
(ht to Carl Zimmer on the story of Monet’s lens)
I’ve loved Monet’s paintings ever since I saw one of the Waterlillies at the Cleveland Museum of Art. This post gives me some insight into his late paintings. I’ve often wondered how he could create such beautiful things when he could hardly see.
