Claude Monet at Rouen Cathedral
In his next major series, the artist tackles a Gothic masterpiece.
This is the second essay in Claude Monet: The Art of the Series.
In 1895, a young Wassily Kandinsky was perusing an exhibit in Moscow when he came across a painting of haystacks. It was a strange artwork. The artist used feathery brushstrokes that gave what would otherwise be mundane stacks of grain a hazy character, as if the painter had glanced quickly in their direction while the sun was shining in his eyes.
Kandinsky was blown away. “Previously, I knew only realistic art,” he later reflected:
Suddenly, for the first time, I saw a “picture.” That it was a haystack, the catalogue informed me. I could not recognize it. This lack of recognition was distressing to me. I also felt that the painter had no right to paint so indistinctly. I had a muffled sense that the object was lacking in this picture, and was overcome with astonishment and perplexity… But what was absolutely clear to me was the uns…
