Blog @ the Nelson-Atkins

In an earlier post, we discussed x-rays of Claude Monet’s Water Lilies. Let’s continue our examination with a closer look at Monet’s brushwork.

Paint can be thin, fluid and drippy or it can be as thick as cake icing. Its thickness and texture impact the appearance of the final painting. For example, during your next visit, compare the thin, wash-like paint of Eugène Delacroix’s Christ on the Sea of Galilee (Gallery P29) to the thick dabs of paint on Vincent van Gogh’s Olive Orchard (Gallery P32).

Water Lilies by Claude Monet contains multiple layers of paint with varying thickness. His brushwork is energetic, confident and attention-grabbing. Using detail images, I’d like to share with you two ways Monet applied paint: wet-over-dry and wet-into-wet.

An artist can create different visual effects depending on the amount of time that passes between paint applications. Much of the paint on Water Lilies is applied wet-over-dry, meaning that paint was added on top of a dry paint layer.

(Detail from the lower right quadrant of Water Lilies)

To better visualize this type of painting, let’s take a closer look at one of Monet’s paint strokes in the image above. When Monet applied the sweeping, white paint stroke in the center of the image, his paint skipped across the bumpy textures of the dry paint below. As you can see, the resulting paint stroke, applied wet-over-dry, has an interesting, rough, tactile quality.

Conversely, wet-into-wet painting occurs when paint is added on top of a layer that is still wet. The paint colors intermix on the canvas and produce a very different appearance. When Monet applied bright red to the base of the water lily flower in the image below, some red paint mixed into the white. In this same area, notice how the purple paint on the outer edge of the flower swirls and blends into the white.

(Detail of a flower on the upper right quadrant of Water Lilies)

There are many ways to enjoy art and thinking about the materials and painting process is a favorite of mine. Sometimes it is nice to relax and admire some swirling, flickering paint strokes—and there is a bench conveniently located in front of the Monet in Gallery P31…