Claude Monet, Grainstack, Sun In The Mist

Claude Monet, Grainstack, Sun In The Mist

Claude Monet, The Grainstack, Canvas Print, Oil Painting Replica and High Resolution Image Download

"My paintings have gone to the savages."

Claude Monet complained when he learned how popular his paintings had become in America.

If you want to see most of the Haystacks series, you have to go to New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, Farmington, and Boston. When Paul Durand-Ruel exhibited the Grainstacks and Poplars series in his gallery, they captivated the French and sparked the interest of art enthusiasts from overseas.

"People don't want anything else from Monet; it seems he can't paint enough to meet the demand. Worst of all, they want Haystacks at Sunset! ... Everything he does goes for four, five, and six thousand francs to America," wrote Camille Pissarro to his son.

During that period, the person particularly close to Monet was his stepdaughter Blanche, who was a true guardian angel for him. She was the only one among his natural and adopted children who showed interest in and mastered painting. They would embark on a search for motifs together at dawn. Blanche would push a cart filled with unfinished canvases - the idea of working on different paintings at different times of the day was new to Claude. In his cart, there were canvases painted at six o'clock, eight o'clock, noon and afternoon, and at sunset, in mist and on a cloudy day. Blanche would select the right canvas, touch it with quick brushstrokes, and continue making changes until it transformed into an entirely new painting. It was such a great surprise to come across a canvas that he had been unable to find when he needed it the most.

As the viewer looks at this painting, they are drawn into a rural landscape. The main subject in the painting is initially the grainstack. As you move around the painting, there are numerous striking areas of light. The sunset creates a vibrant color impression around the scene. The sky is fading in the background as the sun sets.

There is still a small amount of blue hanging in the sky, and beneath that, a significant portion of the yellow color tone where the sun has set. As the sun sinks further, it creates a pink hue over the landscape. The sunset caused the colors of the grainstacks to darken. You can see that the remaining light is on the other side of the stack. In the background, there is a shadow cast, making the tops of the stacks dark brown and the bottoms a deep red. The grainstacks are never overwhelmed by the light. The Grainstack at Sunset, along with other grainstacks in the rural landscape and his series of paintings, shares many of the same characteristics.

Four years after Durand-Ruel's grainstack explosion in America, an Impressionist exhibition was held in Moscow. One of the visitors who came to look at the famous French art revolutionaries' works had recently been invited to teach Law at a university. Monet's Grainstack left him in astonishment and curiosity. The painting was certainly not understandable, but the emotions it stirred were much deeper, and it seemed more real than a traditional narrative canvas. He approached and read the title of the painting, Grainstack.

The successful lawyer, a 30-year-old, was about to give up the allure of a professorship. Instead, he would go to Munich to study painting. Fifteen years later, he would create his first abstract watercolor and his ideas would evolve into a theory of color and form as the true subject of pure art, known as art for art's sake. The lawyer's name was Wassily Kandinsky.

Monet's piles of grain taught me not only that he was a painter and why he painted that way, but also about France and what was going on during this period. His work is a beautiful representation of what life is like and what Monet lived in his own backyard.