The Stories of the Mona Lisa: An Imaginary Museum Tale about the History of Modern Art
You can’t see this Mona Lisa very well It’s just her reflection This is a painting by Claude Monet It dates from 1875 and is called Impression Sunrise I prefer the Leonardo da Vinci one That’s fine but you’re going to have to learn how to look at things differently How You’ll see Here everything is just color and light Monet didn’t worry about likeness but rather about the impression of likeness If you look again the drawing seems to have vanished Ah-ha That’s why he called it Impression Sunrise Exactly And this is the painting that gave its name to the great painting movement called Impressionism The Impressionists first exhibition took place in the studio of a photographer named Nadar Weren’t they angry with the photographers No the invention of photography was like a liberation for painters an 6 iMPressionisM ClaUDe moneT 1840 1926
opportunity to explore new things Why did he give the same name to two of his paintings Look carefully silly It’s not the same artist The other painting is by an Englishman named William Turner and was painted four years earlier So Monet copied him Monet saw a Turner exhibition in London and it obviously inspired him greatly In fact you could say that William Turner was the first of the Impressionists And Impressionism is Color and light Good job The day that Monet died one of his friends Georges Clemenceau who was also a French politician cried out No black for Monet Then he ripped down the colorful curtains that were in the bedroom where the body was resting and used them to cover his friend So as you see color and light is a philosophy that extends even beyond death William TUrner 1775 1861 7
She looks pretty against the blue sky This is Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh a Dutch painter who lived in France It looks like it’s made up of waves Van Gogh put his troubles and torments onto the canvas Is that how he saw the Mona Lisa We see just as much with our hearts as we do with our eyes Why did he paint if he was so sad Because painting made him feel better and less anxious took him away from his black moments as he used to say Ah-ha He put suns in the sky to make everything better Without a doubt He also painted sunflowers plants that look like the sun and are always pointing towards its rays The strange thing is that his self-portraits are done in the same reds and yellows as his sunflowers Did he want to be a sunflower I’m not sure he wanted to really be one But just like them he was always looking for the best possible light That’s why he moved to Arles which is a very sunny town in the south of France He was obsessed with light both exterior and interior As a young man he wanted to be a pastor so that he could preach about spiritual light to the men who worked overnight in the coal mines of Northern France Was he an Impressionist like Monet At that time almost everyone was The difference was that Monet painted what he could see whereas Van Gogh painted what he felt inside You could say that he was expressing his own impressions 8 imPressionism VinCenT Van GoGh 1853 1890
