However successful from an artistic and historical point of view, the painting was a worldly failure. Manet made fun at it. But a few years later when he had come to understand Monet's style and adopted his brilliant colouring, Manet bought this picture for himself.
During the disorder of 1870-71 Monet fled, first to London, where he studied the art of Constable and Turner, then to Holland and Belgium, where he was interested chiefly in landscape. On his return to France Monet's style changed radically: he dissolved the object. In Impression - Sunrise, Le Havre, he demonstrated that colour belongs not to the object but to the moment of the visual experience. This was hard for his contemporaries to accept.
In 1873 Monet set up a floating studio in a boat on the Seine. The world passing before his eyes formed a continuous stream of experience, from which he singled out moments, recorded in series.
At the financially disastrous third Impressionist exhibition of 1877 Monet showed eight canvases devoted to the railway. In the Gare Saint - Lazare in Paris, of 1877, Monet depicted a locomotive drawing cars into a station. The iron-and-glass train shed offered to him a tissue of changing light and colour, dominated by blue and silver, but touched on the ground with tan, green, rose and gold. The Impressionists eliminated black from their palette and the shadows and the massive black locomotive were painted in blue. The people in Monet's picture are spots of blue; the puffs of steam are bubbles of blue and pearl. The locomotive's bumper is red, and this is the only bright colour in the picture. The fleeting effects that absorbed Monet's attention could not pause long enough for him to paint them. A picture like this was the product of several sessions.
By 1880 Monet's paintings were beginning to sell and he threw himself into the work with a passion as if nature were at once a friend and an enemy. He painted on a beach during a storm to ascertain the height and power of wind-driven waves, one of which swept him under (he was rescued by fishermen).
To achieve his effects Monet had to work systematically in series. By the 1890s, still faithful to Impressionist principles when others had long deserted them, Monet brought with him daily in a carriage, to the place chosen to paint, stacks of canvases on each of which he had begun the study of a certain light effect at a given moment of the day.
Monet painted series of cliffs, of haystacks, of poplars bordering a river, of the Thames in London, and the Grand Canal in Venice. But the most impressive was the series of views of Rouen Cathedral. This building an example of Flamboyant Gothic dematerialisation of stone appealed to him as an analogue of his own Impressionist insubstantiality. Systematically he studied the effects of light and colour on the lacy facade. In 1895 he exhibited eighteen views of the facade and two other views of the Cathedral. Monet's moments had, in the process of being painted, become the work of art.
The painting known as Rouen Cathedral in Full Sunlight represents the moment just about noon when the low winter sun is still striking the southern flanks of the masses masonry, and has not yet entered the west portals, illuminated by reflections from the square in front. Dazzling as the cathedral paintings are, Monet was discouraged by the impossibility of registering with his hand what he saw with his eyes.
In 1899 Monet began a series of water landscapes that occupied him till his death twenty seven-years later. These late pictures are the most magical of all. He won his battle with nature by annexing it. He constructed an environment that he could control absolutely, a water garden filled with water-loving trees and flowers, and crossed at one point by a Japanese footbridge. Here in the gigantic canvases he submerged himself in the world of changing colour, a poetic fabric in which visual and emotional experience merge. Abandoning the banks the aged artist gazed into the water, and these paintings show a surface in which the reflections of sky and trees blend between the floating water lilies. In Monet's last works the stream of experience has become timeless. Monet symbolically conquered time.
Make sure you know how to pronounce the following words:
Claude Monet [Pklþd mouPne]; Impressionist [imPpreSnist]; photographer [f@Ptogr@f@]; retrospect [Pretr@uspekt]; Normandy [Pnþm@ndi]; Japanese [dÆ{p@PnÖz]; Flamboyant [fl{mPboi@nt]; Gothic [Pgoïik]; Cathedral [k@PïÖdr@l]; Le Havre [l@P'hÓvr@]; Rouen [PrüÓn]; Seine [sein]; Thames [temz]; caricaturist [Pk{rik@,tju@rist]; locomotive [Pl@uk@,m@utiv]; instantaneous [,inst@nPteinj@s]
NOTES
Impression - Sunrise, Le Havre - "Впечатление Восходящее солнце"
Women in the Garden - "Женщины в саду"
Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris - "Вокзал Сен-Лазер в Париже"
Rouen Cathedral in Full Sunlight - "Руанский собор в полдень"
TASKS
I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.
1. The first exhibition of the Impressionists was held in 1872.
2. In Impression - Sunrise, Le Havre, Monet demonstrated that colour belongs not to the object but to the moment of the visual experience.
3. At the third Impressionist exhibition in 1879 Monet showed ten canvases devoted to the railway.
4. By the 1890s Monet had long deserted the Impressionist principles.
5. In 1899 Monet began a series of seascapes that occupied him ten years.
6. The fleeting effects that absorbed Monet's attention could not pause long enough for him to paint them.
II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?
1. Where was the first exhibition of the Impressionists held? Why was this exhibition greeted with public derision? What picture gave name to the whole movement? What does it represent? What did this revolutionary painting intend to correspond? What did this revolutionary painting intend to correspond?
2. What did Monet constantly observe in Le Havre when he was a boy?
3. What did Monet submit to the Salon in 1867? What is depicted in this painting? What did Monet establish in this painting? What was hard for Monet's contemporaries to accept? What was Manet's attitude to this painting?
4. Where was Monet during the disorder of 1870-1871? What did he study there?
5. What did Monet set up in 1873? What did Monet depict in the Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris? What offered to Monet a tissue of changing light and colour? What colour did the Impressionists eliminate from their palette? Why was the Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris the product of several sessions?
6. Why did Monet have to work in series? What series did Monet paint? What appealed to Monet? What did Monet exhibit in 1895? What does the painting known as Rouen Cathedral in Full Sunlight represent?
7. What are Monet's most magical pictures? What do they show? What battle did Monet win? What environment did Monet construct? What did Monet symbolically do?
III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:
a recently vacated studio; public derision; a revolutionary painting; an instantaneous glimpse; to observe ships; the unending stream of time; to devise new methods; to record the immediate impression of light on smth; to establish a new Impressionist subject; successful from the artistic point of view; to single out moments; landscape painting; to record in series; a lacy faзade.
ii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:
удачная с художественной точки зрения (картина); недавно освободившееся ателье; презрение публики; пейзажная живопись; ажурный фасад; новаторская картина; написать серию работ; наблюдать за кораблями; бесконечный поток времени; разработать новые методы; создать новый образ; момент восприятия света; запечатлеть непосредственное отражение света.
ii. Make 'p questions of yoir own with the given phrases.
iv. Arrange the following in the pairs of synonyms:
a) to establish; to demonstrate; impressive; flank; derision; streak; blob;
b) to show; to found; moving; lateral edge; contempt; stripe; a huge lump.
IV. Here are descriptions of some of Monet's works of art. Match them up to the titles given below.
1. In this painting Monet demonstrated that colour belongs not to the object but to the moment of the visual experience.
2. In this picture the new Impressionist subject - the moment of experience in light was established.
3. The iron-and-glass train shed offered to Monet a tissue of changing light and colour, dominated by blue and silver.
4. The painting represents the moment just about noon when the low winter sun is still striking the southern flanks of the massive masonry.
a. Rouen Cathedral in Full Sunlight
b. Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris
c. Impression - Sunrise, Le Havre
d. Women in the Garden
V. Translate the text into English.
Клод Моне является истинным главой школы импрессионистов. В его произведениях воплотилась основная идея импрессионизма - идея света и воздуха. Мир Моне с его растворяющимися предметами постепенно лишается материальности и превращается в гармонию световых пятен.
Моне нередко писал один и тот же вид в разное время суток и в разное время года. Таковы его серии "Стога" и "Руанский собор". Беглыми, как будто небрежными мазками Моне создавал впечатление колышущегося от ветра поля или полной движения улицы Парижа. Он мог запечатлеть и знойное марево летнего дня, и влажный снег французской зимы. Все схвачено как бы случайно, но увидено зорким взглядом художника.
Моне прошел все этапы: он знал нищету, непризнание, насмешки, затем приобрел известность, переросшую в триумф. Моне пережил свою славу. Он был свидетелем того, как устаревали его идеи, которым он был верен до конца жизни.
VI. Summarize the text
VII. Topics for discussion.
1. Impressionism.
2. Monet's principles and methods of painting.
3. Monet's artistic heritage.
An extremely gifted member of the Impressionist group was Camille Pissarro (1830-1903). He was the most careful and craftsmanly of them all. His companionship and advice provided a technical foundation for Cezanne, who called him "humble and colossal". Pissarro is both in the scrupulously painted Boulevard des Italien, Paris - Morning Sunlight, of 1897. With infinite care he recorded the innumerable spots of colour constituted by people, carriages, omnibuses, trees, windows, and kiosks in this view of one of the great metropolitan thoroughfares, whose activities provided the subject for many Impressionist paintings. Impressionist artists often worked side by side painting the same view of a street, a cafe, or a riverbank at the same moment of light and atmosphere, and it is often only the special sensibility and personal touch of each painter that makes it possible to tell their works apart.
The sparkling Les Grands Boulevards, of 1875, by Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) shows how much latitude remained for individuality in treating a similar subject at the height of the collective phase of the Impressionist movement. Renoir, the most exciting and active of the group, has not bothered with details. He has captured a moment of high excitement as we look across a roadway from the shadow of the trees to the trotting white horse pulling a carriage filled with people in blazing sun. Warmth, physical delight, and intense joy of life are the perpetual themes of Renoir. Trained at first as a painter on porcelain, he later studied with the academic painter Charles Gleyre and soon made the acquaintance of the Impressionist group, with whom he exhibited until 1886.
The best painting of the Impressionist highest point is Renoir's Le Moulin de la Galette, of 1876, depicting a Sunday afternoon in a popular outdoor dancing cafe on Montmartre. Young couples are gathered at tables under the trees, or dancing happily through the changing interplay of sunlight and shadow Characteristically, there is no trace of black, even the coats and the shadows turn to blue. One could scarcely imagine a more complete embodiment of the fundamental theme of Impressionist painting, the enjoyment of the moment of light and air. Although he later turned toward a Post-Impressionist style, Renoir never surpassed the beauty of this picture, which sums up visually the goal he once expressed in words: "The earth as the paradise of the gods, that is what I want to paint".
Make sure you know how to pronounce the following words:
Camille Pissarro [k@Pmil piPs{rou]; paradise [Pp{r@daiz]; Auguste Renoir [þPgjüst r@PnwÓ]; perpetual [p@Ppe¶u@l]; Post-Impressionist [p@ustimPpreSnist]; thoroughfare [Pïör@fe@]; companionship [k@mPp{nj@nSip]; acquaintance [@Pkweint@ns]; Montmartre [m@nPmÓtr]; boulevard [PbülvÓ]
NOTES
Boulevard des Italien, Paris - Morning Sunlight -"Итальянский бульвар. Париж"
Les Grands Boulevards - "Большие Бульвары"
Le Moulin de la Galette [müPl{n d@ lÓ gÓPlet] - "Мулен де ла Галетт"
Charles Gleyre ['gleia] - Чарльз Глейр, швейцарский художник, в студии которого собирались импрессионисты
TASKS
I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.
1. Cezanne called Renoir "humble and colossal".
2. Pissarro, the most exciting and active of the group, never bothered with details.
3. Impressionist artists often worked side by side painting the same view of a street, a cafe, or a riverbank at the same moment of light and atmosphere.
4. Pissarro was the most exciting and active of the group.
5. At first Renoir was trained as a sculptor.
6. Pissarro exhibited with the Impressionist group until 1886.
II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?
1. How is Camille Pissarro characterised?
2. What is depicted in the Boulevard des Italien, Paris - MomingSunlight?
3. What provided subjects for many Impressionist paintings? What is the fundamental theme of Impressionist paintings?
4. What is the best painting of the Impressionist highest point? What does it represent? Did the painter manage to surpass the beauty of this picture?
5. What were Renoir's perpetual themes? What were Renoir's goals? What did Renoir picture in Les Grands Boulevards?
6. When did Renoir turn toward the Post-Impressionist style?
III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:
an extremely gifted painter; the Impressionist group; to provide a technical foundation for; to record spots of colour; a great metropolitan thoroughfare; to work side by side; to paint the same view of a street; at the height of the phase of; the Impressionist movement; to capture a moment of high excitement; to make acquaintance; to surpass the beauty of the picture.
ii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:
никогда не превзойти красоты картины; работать бок о бок; запечатлеть наиболее волнительный момент; очень талантливый художник; широкая магистраль крупного города; писать один и тот же городской пейзаж; обеспечить технической базой; зарисовывать пятна цвета; наивысший период творчества; познакомиться.