Claude Monet. The Poplars 1891

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 647.

Oil on canvas

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

In 1891, Monet was fired by the motif of a line of poplar trees not far from his home. Famously, he paid to have the trees, which were scheduled for logging, temporarily preserved so that he could paint a series of studies of them. The contrast with the density of the haystacks series must have appealed to him, their solidity giving way to slender filaments.

The effect of the present picture particularly, the right-hand side is of a giant brushstroke, like a piece of enlarged Japanese calligraphy. Although one of the simplest of the series colouristically, and among the most thinly painted, Monet exacts an extraordinary dramatic energy from the sweep of trees.

Edgar Degas. In the Wings (Dancers in Blue) c 1898

Pastel

Pushkin Museum, Moscow

In 1886 Degas had written, 'one must do the same subject over again, ten times, a hundred times. Nothing in art must appear accidental, not even a movement.' He had depicted dancers in the wings since the early 1870s. In the Rehearsal of the Ballet on Stage, one can see variants of the poses used in this late pastel: the dancer with her arm stretched against the scenery; one adjusting her clothing; another bending to adjust her shoe. In the later work, the dancers are less individualized, and they suggest the essence of a group of women preparing to appear before an audience rather than a specific scene. The stagelights gleam on elbows or shoulders, bathing the intense blues in an unearthly light. There are three photographs thought to have been taken by Degas that show the dancer with outstretched arm, and another showing her adjusting her dress. They reduce the body even more radically to head, shoulders, jutting arms only tenuously attached to bodies, and a shimmer of fabric. In the pastel, Degas's emphatic lines and smears of colour show that these bodies are no more real than the painted scenery.

Part 1 Glossary

6. You will now listen to a poem, which inspired an artist to draw a picture. Listen to it and guess, which picture of these contained in this part it could refer to. Explain what gave you a hunch[2].

I have worked all day today,
I will work all day tomorrow,
Troubled sleep is no relief,
More like a chance to breath,

And what will I have
To show for my efforts?
Headaches, brain damage,
Stress and a broken marriage,

Money is fluid,
Impossible to hold,
There is no way to stop it
Flowing in and out of my pocket,

I am driftwood buffeted by the sea,
And from my voyage so far,
I'm empty tired and sore
As I drift on towards the shore.

7. Translate the sentences into English incorporating the vocabulary of the previous exercise.

She broke into voluble and perfect Italian. Some inscrutable scribbles are sometimes passed as art. Abbey walked to the microphone, poised and smiling. I was baffled by what I saw, convincing myself that there must have been something was ignorant of. The window looked out on a sublime view over tropics and sea. Among the local exposition we came across some lame attempts to follow in the established trends. He is planning a multi-million dollar music extravaganza. For emphasis the artist used juxtaposition of the beautiful on the background of the ugly. He is my alter ego - we go everywhere together. Modern artists use a variety of media to render their vision of images, their feelings and ideas.

8. Match the following parts of word combinations from the text. When in place, cite their context in the text to the class.