Monet and Me

Monet and Me
That Sky Shape in the Trees
by Bruce McMillan

I painted a series of paintings in my back fields in different seasons. I was intrigued by a certain shape of a sky space in the trees. It was prominent in my watercolors. After this, while researching art in various Monet series, I stumbled upon his Morning on the Seine (Matinee sur la Seine) series of twenty-two paintings. I was amazed that he'd also been intrigued by that same unusual sky shape in his trees. It was a focus in each one of his of his series of twenty-one paintings. I was astonished.

On different continents and over a hundred years apart, Monet and I had both been drawn to the same fluid moving shape of the sky in a break in the horizon's trees. This shape is the focus of our art, independently seen and unknowingly painted in every one of our series of paintings.

1
Matinee sur la Seine / Morning on the Seine
Claude Monet (1840-1926) French
Oil on canvas, 36" x 32" (w x h), 1897
Painted in Giverny, France
Christies London auction
sold $18,500,000 USD (14,397,500 GBP)

These are four of the twenty-two canvases Claude Monet painted of Matinee sur la Seine (Morning on the Seine) in summers of 1896 and 1897. The setting was a brief journey from his home, taking the artist just a few moments to get there, where the Epte tributary feeds into the Seine River in Giverny.

2
Matinee sur la Seine / Morning on the Seine
Claude Monet (1840-1926) French
Oil on canvas, 37" x 32" (w x h), 1897
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

Looking upstream on the Seine into the rising sun, on the left is the Giverny bank and on the right is the Ile aux Orties, a small wooded isle. Trees on both sides dominate the scene, those on the left Giverny bank are full.

3
Matinee sur la Seine / Morning on the Seine
Claude Monet (1840-1926) French
Oil on canvas, 36" x 35" (w x h), 1897
White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
NW Washington, District of Columbia

Monet usually started his paintings on the bateau-atelier, his specially designed studio-boat, , which he left anchored mid-river for the duration of the summer, rowing out to it each morning in a skiff, before completing the paintings on dry land in his studio.

4
Matinee sur la Seine / Morning on the Seine
Claude Monet (1840-1926) French
Oil on canvas, 36" x 35" (w x h), 1897
Christies NY 2017 auction sold $23,375,000 USD

The art critic Maurice Guillemot, who came to Giverny to interview Monet in the summer of 1897, described one early-morning session: "3.30 a.m. His torso snug in a white woolen hand-knit; his feet in a pair of sturdy hunting boots with thick dew-proof soles; his head covered by a battered brown felt hat, with the brim turned up to keep off the sun; a cigarette in his mouth (Monet) pushes open the door (of Le Pressoir), walks down the steps, follows the central path through his garden and comes to the river. There he unties his rowboat moored in the reeds along the bank, and with a few strokes reaches the bateau-atelier at anchor. A local man who accompanies him, unpackages his stretched canvases and the artist sets to work."

5
The Sky Arrived

in the back fields behind my home in Shapleigh, Maine painted plein air May 27, 2021, 18" x 14" (w x h), watercolor and ink on rough extra white watercolor paper, framed, $900. Also online HERE.

Also used as the postcard to promote Maine Audubon's 2021 Brush with Nature plein air event.

6
Summer Sky Summer Field

on a ponds walk behind my home on July 1, 2020, painted July 6, 2020, 10" x 8" (w x h), watercolor and ink on rough extra white watercolor paper, framed, $300, also online HERE.

Also used in Carol Douglas' Watch Me Paint art class posting, "How did you get that color?" featuring my watercolors and my palette concluded with an assignment for her students to paint from my painting.

7
Fall Sky Space Study 1

with autumn foliage in the iconic field behind my home painted October 30, 2022, 10" x 8" (w x h), watercolor and ink on rough extra white watercolor paper, framed, $300, also online HERE.

8
Fall Sky Space Study 2

with autumn foliage in the iconic field behind my home painted October 30, 2022, 10" x 8" (w x h), watercolor and ink on rough extra white watercolor paper, framed, $300, also online HERE.