Cecilia Beaux, A Visit with Monet

"Portrait of Mrs. Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes
(Edith Minturn)" by Cecilia Beaux

Cecilia Beaux wrote about a special trip to France: "Before I left, one, to me, highly memorable event had occurred. Mrs. Lilla Cabot Perry was painting at Giverney to be near Monet, and would take me to see him. 

No sun and weather could have been more fortunate for a visit to the specialist in light than we were blessed with. We found him in the very centre of 'a Monet,' indeed: that is, in his garden at high noon, under a blazing sky, among his poppies and delphiniums. He was in every way part of the picture, or the beginning and end of it, in his striped blue overalls, buttoned at wrists and ankles, big hat casting luminous shadow over his eyes, but finding in full volume the strong nose and great grey beard. Geniality, welcome, health, and power radiated from his whole person. 

There was a sleepy river, lost in summer haze not far away. The studio, which was a barn opening on the garden, we were invited to enter, and found the large space filled with stacked canvases, many with only their backs visible.

Monet pulled out his latest series, views at differing hours and weather of the river, announcing the full significance of summer, sun, heat and quiet on the reedy shore. The pictures were flowing in treatment, pointillism was in abeyance, at least for these subject. Mrs. Perry did not fear to question the change of surface. 'Oh,' said the Maitre nonchalantly, 'la Nature n'a pas de pointes.' ['Oh, Nature is not made up of points.'] This at a moment when the seekers of that summer had just learned 'how to do it,' and were covering all their canvases with small lumps of white paint touched with blue, yellow and pink. 

But they had not reckoned on the non-static quality of a discoverer's mind, which, in his desire for more light, would be always moving. For Monet was never satisfied. One could push the sorry pigment far, but not where Monet's dream would have it go, imagining that by sheer force of desire and will, the nature of the material he thought to dominate would be overcome. For the moment, when actual light gleamed upon it, fresh from the tube, it had the desire effulgence, but it could not withstand time and exposure and maintain the integral urge of Monet's idea."

To be continued

(Excerpts are from Cecilia Beuax's autobiography "Background with Figures.")

A movie from 1915 showing Monet chatting and then painting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT2Ksapq3Zw