Claude Monet
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Claude Monet, in his "La Japonaise" and Jean Baptiste Greuze, in his "Young Woman in a White Hat", chose to create works that are, at their core, fundamentally similar to each other. Each selected - as have so many artists before and after them - to depict a beautiful young woman, a female figure that in many ways encapsulated the ideals of feminine beauty of the subjects' and the artists' generations. However, despite this similarity of subject, the two paintings initially strike us as far more dissimilar than similar to each other. This dissimilarity arises in some measure from changes that occurred between Greuze's facial portrait of his white-bonneted subject in 1780 and Monet's 1875 full-length portrait of a woman dancing with herself. It arises at least as much from the changes that occurred in art historical sensibility and philosophy during these same years. This paper examines both the eras in which these paintings were created and the changes that transpired between the two and argues that the two sets of changes (in ideal feminine beauty and in ideal painting style) should not be regarded as distinct from each other but should rather be seen as part of the overall social and cultural changes that transpired in France and the world during the century under discussion. The two painters, in seeking to create a portrait of a beautiful young woman, call on both the height of painting technique at their disposal as well as the cultural norms for female beauty.
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s meant not to draw the eye of the viewer to the technique involved: He is attempting to accentuate the beauty of this young woman rather than his own skill. Or, to rephrase this idea, he is attempting to prove his skill by creating an essentially seamless depiction of a certain type of young woman whose beauty was then very much in vogue. The paint appears just to have dried, or perhaps still to be wet. It lacks the slickness of a work in enamel, but comes far closer to enamel or porcelain than it does to modern painting techniques (or even Monet's painting technique) in which the texture of the pigment is accented and accentuated. Here the essentially nature of paint - which is that is looks one way when wet and another when dry - is violated.
However, while the work is relatively smooth and the thickness of paint relatively even (and relatively thin), a close examination of its surface demonstrates that Greuze's seeming artlessness is in fact only seeming. The paint is more thickly applied in some places. The highlights under the woman's right eye, on the left side of her mouth, in her left pupil, on her right shoulder above the seam of her sleeve - all of these places show thicker and later applications of paint. These were p
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Marie Antoinette, White Hat, Unlike Greuze, Monet Greuze, painting technique, monet's painting, greuze painting, Woman White, woman white hat, changes occurred, beautiful woman, changes transpired, portrait woman, white hat, painting woman, woman white,
Approximate Word count = 1556
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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