The striking effects of Monet’s several paintings of the Creuse Valley in central France are achieved through complex, superimposed layers of color, as he combined bold brushstrokes with intricate passages made up of many small touches.
Title: Valley of the Petite Creuse
Author: Claude Monet (French painter, 1840-1926)
Date: 1889
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 65.4 x 81.3 cm (25 3/4 x 32 in.)
Current location: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Delayed by bad weather while painting his Creuse scenes, Monet hired workmen to strip the newly budded leaves from a tree in the valley so that he would not have to change his composition. | Source: © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Claude Monet | The Petite Creuse River 1889 | Art Institute of Chicago
Claude Monet began this canvas - one of three of the Petite Creuse - in April 1889 but only returned to it later that spring, by which time the landscape had changed considerably.
The oak tree, for example, was sprouting leaves, obscuring the view he had already established.
Rather than rework or restart the canvas to depict the current season, Monet hired workers to defoliate the tree so that he could re-create its earlier appearance.
Monet spent three months in the remote Creuse valley in central France beginning in early March 1889 after visiting the region for a few days with art critic Gustave Geffroy in February.
Despite bouts of poor health and bad weather, he returned to Giverny having painted 24 canvases.
These constituted the artist’s first planned and rigorously defined series of paintings.| Source: © The Art Institute of Chicago
Claude Monet | The Petite Creuse River, 1889 | Art Institute of Chicago
Claude Monet iniziò questa tela - una delle tre della Petite Creuse - nell'aprile del 1889, ma vi tornò solo più tardi quella primavera, quando ormai il paesaggio era notevolmente cambiato.
Alla quercia, per esempio, stavano spuntando le foglie, oscurando la vista che aveva già stabilito.
Invece di rielaborare o riavviare la tela per rappresentare la stagione in corso, Monet assunse degli operai per defogliare l’albero in modo da poter ricreare il suo aspetto precedente.
Monet trascorse tre mesi nella remota valle della Creuse, nella Francia centrale, a partire dall'inizio di marzo 1889, dopo aver visitato la regione per alcuni giorni con il critico d'arte Gustave Geffroy a febbraio.
Nonostante periodi di cattiva salute e maltempo, tornò a Giverny dopo aver dipinto 24 tele.
Questi costituirono la prima serie di dipinti pianificati e rigorosamente definiti dell'artista.| Fonte: © Art Institute di Chicago
Other Artwork from Claude Monet
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