(From
"Reminiscences of Monet from 1889-1909" by Lilla Cabot Perry from The
American Magazine of Art, March 1927, Vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 119-125.)
"Les Îles a Port-Villez" by Claude Monet"
"Claude Monet's philosophy of painting was to paint what you really see, not what you think you ought to see; not the object isolated as in a test tube, but the object enveloped in sunlight and atmosphere, with the blue dome of Heaven reflected in the shadows.
He said that people reproached him for not finishing his pictures more, but that he carried them as far as he could and stopped only when he found he was not longer strengthening the picture. A few years later he painted his 'Island in the Seine' series. They were painted from a boat, many of them before dawn, which gave them a certain Corot-like effect, Corot having been fond of painting at that hour.
As he was showing them to me, I remarked on his having carried them further than many of his pictures, whereupon he referred to this conversation and said again that he always carried them as far as he could. This was an easier subject and simpler lighting than usual, he said, therefore he had been able to carry them further.
This series and the 'Peupliers' [Poplar] series also were painted from a broad-bottomed boat fitted up with grooves to hold a number of canvases. He told me that in one of his 'Peupliers' the effect lasted only seven minutes, or until the sunlight left a certain leaf, when he took out the next canvas and worked on that. He always insisted on the great importance of a painter noticing when the effect changed, so as to get a true impression of a certain aspect of nature and not a composite picture, as too many paintings were and are.
He admitted that it was difficult to stop in time because one got carried away, and then added: 'J'ai cette force-la, c'est la seule force que j'ai! [I have that strength, it's the only strength I have!]' I give his exact words, they show his beautiful modesty, as great as his genius."
To be continued
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