Stay Snuggly Warm for Winter Walks, A Fun Art Activity for Creative Kids

Winter walks need the right clothing. When you looked at Monet’s painting, The Magpie, in my last post, did you think about what you would have to wear to enjoy that winter day?

The Magpie, 1868, Claude Monet, Musee D’Orsay, public domain

This post will include 3 things:

1. A short story about the woes of getting 20 kindergartners ready to go outside in the winter… but why it’s worth it
2. A fun art activity about hats, mittens, and winter pictures
3. Some suggestions for related curriculum connections to enjoy

Story

“Where was that boot?” I knew the child had arrived in boots, but I had crawled under every table and it was nowhere. I finally gave up and searched through our spare bin for a boot to fit her small, stockinged foot, so we could go out for recess.

Each child had a cubby, so you’d think it would be easy to match each child to their outdoor clothing. Not so. Twenty kindergartners can quickly create an infinite number of mismatched mittens, boots, and lost hats. Chaos often reigned, along with tears. Lots of tears–sometimes mine .

When I graduated college, I took a position team-teaching with an experienced kindergarten teacher. Kindergarten was half day, and we taught one group in the morning and another in the afternoon. So teaching time was at a premium. Despite that, this teacher insisted we take children out for a recess. Even if it was cold and snowy. (and in Maine it often was)

About three days into the first cold week of winter, I asked (okay, grumbled!) why we took so much valuable lesson time for recess in the winter. Wouldn’t it be easier to just let them play in the block corner? She just smiled.

And as she knew I would, I soon began to notice the joy on children’s faces as they played outside. Sticky snow inspired snowmen. They loved to taste snowflakes on their tongues, and even in snowsuits and boots, they jumped in snow drifts and chased each other around the playground. When we came back in, the wiggles were gone, and most settled down to do a little more work.

No matter what age we are, we all need those breaks to get out the wiggles. Outside sights and sounds refresh us mentally, physically, and spiritually. But we need snuggly clothing to enjoy wintry weather.

So here is our art project. A child’s happy face with a hat and mittens opening up to reveal a picture of something they enjoyed outside on a winter day.

A Fun Art Activity

Supplies

• Sturdy white paper
• Pencils
• Scissors
• Ruler
• Crayons and/or water color paints and brushes
• markers

Directions (Although there’s lots children can do on this projects, an adult or older child will need to do the original measuring, cutting, and drawing)

For an adult

1. From the white paper, cut a strip 18” long X 6” wide
2. Measure 9” in to find the middle
3. From that point measure 3¼” over twice on each side of the middle mark and draw lines ( which leaves 2¼” left on each side)
4. Fold on these lines as shown in the pictures (the inner folds toward the center—they should meet there—and the outer folds outward)
5. Next draw a template for a mitten and one half of a child’s face topped with a hat. (see the picture)
6. Using the mitten template draw a mitten on each side of the outer fold (turn the template over for the second mitten
7. On the folds beneath the mittens, use the face template to draw half a face on each side. (See the picture)
8. Cut away some of the paper around the mitten so it is still attached but has the mitten shape. (see the picture)

For Children

1. Draw designs on the mittens and eyes, nose and mouth on the face ( just one eye and half of the nose and mouth go on each side)
2. Do the designs in crayon and fill in the spaces with water color paint (this is called crayon resist, because the waxy crayon resist the paint) you can mix your paint colors and paint right over the crayon designs.
3. On the space inside, attach a photo or draw a picture of something you enjoyed seeing outside this winter
4. When finished and dry, refold the sections so the mittens cover the child’s face until you open it all up.This makes a great picture to put up on the fridge or a card to send to grandparents!

Helpful Hints

• Children may use just crayon or marker for this activity
• If using the crayon resist method, have children outline all shapes with crayon, even if they don’t color them in. This makes it easier to paint within the lines of the hat, mittens, etc.
• I left my face uncolored except for rosy cheeks, so that children can choose the skin color they’d like. Most large boxes of crayons now have many skin tones available
• Help children mix enough water and pigment to be able to paint a whole space. (this is what the cover of paint sets is for) But not so much water that no color shows and the paper gets saturated.

Variations

• Use colored paper for your base and draw and cut out faces and mittens from white paper. Once these are colored, cut the mittens out and the face apart and glue onto the folded base paper. You will still have to measure and cut the base paper as explained above.
• Make a real pompom of yarn for the hat (you’ll actually need 2 pompoms!)
• Use some cloth to make a scarf

Cleanup Tips

This is not a very messy project, but certainly a supply of paper towels and a plastic tablecloth are helpful if you decide to paint.

Curriculum Connections

• Look up how sheep are raised and cared for and learn about how their wool is turned into yarn.
• Watch a video of sheepdogs in action.
• Watch a video of someone knitting mittens and hats.
• Research about the Industrial Revolution and how spinning and weaving were among the first processes to be mechanized.
• What were some good outcomes of this mechanization, such as cheaper goods?
• What were some bad outcomes for the workers who flocked to the cities to work in the mills? such as child labor.
• What are some new, man-made fibers that help keep us warm today?

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Molly and I hope you enjoyed this art activity and will be able to don your own snuggly hat, mittens, and scarf and get outside to enjoy God’s creation!Next post will be children’s books about winter! Don’t miss it! Sign up to receive the Picture Lady posts by email.

 

 

 

 

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Winter Snow, Winter Color, Winter Quiet

In his many winter snow scenes, Claude Monet showed that winter has lots of color! In 1890, in a field near his home in Giverny, Monet began his first series—painting the same 2 or 3 grain stacks to capture how light changes the color of objects, even snow!

Haystack, Morning, Snow Effect, 1891, Claude Monet, Boston Museum of Art, public domain

Monet thought he could do it in just a few canvases, but he ended up with about 30 paintings in the series. Each day he trundled out to the field with a wheelbarrow full of unfinished canvases that he switched as the light and weather changed.

When winter came, Monet paid the farmer extra money to leave the stacks in place so he could paint them in winter. He painted early and late and once complained that the winter sun set so quickly it was hard to capture its effects.

People immediately loved the grain or hay stack paintings, and their sale allowed Monet to buy his home in Giverny. People still love them—in May of 2019 one sold at auction for a record-breaking 110.7 million dollars.

This post is about an earlier winter painting by Monet, The Magpie.

The Magpie, 1868, Claude Monet, Musee D’Orsay, public domain

Done in 1868, its quiet beauty shows how Monet was experimenting and developing his style, especially his use of color in shadows ( an earlier winter painting has black and gray shadows). The Magpie also shows the technique he was developing to capture fleeting changes while painting en plein air (outdoors). The post includes:

• Information about the painting
• Activities to help you and your children enjoy and understand the painting
• A kid-friendly devotion

The Painting

In these early years the official French salon rejected most of Monet’s paintings, and he sold very few. But in 1868 he received a couple commissions and was able to rent a house on the Normandy coast.

He wanted to paint the famous cliffs there, which he did. But The Magpie shows there had been a heavy snowstorm and Monet probably couldn’t get to the cliffs. Instead he painted this scene, probably close to the house he was renting.

(when it’s not traveling as part of special exhibits, The Magpie lives at the Musee d’Orsay in Paris. Its website doesn’t allow you to enlarge the painting, but this link will take you to one you can enlarge as you move your cursor around to see details)   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Monet#/media/File:Claude_Monet_-_The_Magpie_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

• In the painting the sun is low in the sky, casting long shadows across the sunlit scene. The painting’s brightness is accentuated by the dark tree trunks, branches, and the wattle or woven wood fence. Monet paints the deep snow with patches or dabs of paint, his emerging technique for capturing the changing light. In the middle ground a long light rose-colored building with reddish chimneys, is the only truly warm place in the painting. In the background is the sea.
• Look closely at the sky to see yellows and reds and blues and violets. And when you look at the snow, especially in the shaded areas, you’ll see violets and blues and even some yellows and pinks.
• The focal point of the painting (the area that draws your attention) is the magpie sitting on top of the fence.

Activities to Help You and Your Children Enjoy the Painting

Before doing any other activities, ask children to tell what’s going on in the painting and what tells them that. Then have them to tell what else they see. Enhance observational and verbal skills by rephrasing words and adding new vocabulary. Help them see nuances of color in the sky and snow.

1.This painting is great for describing what we’d hear and see and feel if we’d been there with Monet. Here are some good questions to help children imagine what it would be like:

• Have you ever been out after deep snow and noticed how quiet it is?
• Have you ever walked in the woods after a snow and had snow plop down on you from the trees overhead?
• What would you need to wear to be comfortable in this scene?
• Would you feel the cold seeping into your feet even through your boots? Can you imagine how cold Monet’s fingers must’ve gotten as he tried to paint this?
• Would the fence feel rough or smooth?
• Do you think the snow would be warm and sticky enough to make a snowman?
• Do you see how Monet has created a rhythm of shadows across the painting in front of the fence?

2.It could also be fun to make up a story about the magpie. Here are some story prompts:

• How long has he been sitting on the fence?
• Where was he before?
• Is he looking around for food or is he resting?
• Is he quiet or singing?
• What other creatures might live here?
• Look up information about magpies to see how they survive winter.

Devotion

Our everyday lives are busy and often noisy, and cold winter days aren’t always inviting, but taking a walk on a winter day and be refreshing for our bodies, our minds, and our souls.

So take a walk with your children. Help them be especially observant with some of the following suggestions:

• Have them stand still and listen, then tell what they hear
• If it’s quite cold, can they see their breath hanging in the air as they speak
• Study shadow shapes and colors on the snow.
• Look at the sky and describe the colors and clouds
• Look for bird nests (they show up more without leaves on the trees).
• Look at different tree shapes (these also show more in winter)
• Observe animal tracks. If you go out soon after a new snow, you may see rabbit or squirrel or even deer tracks. Take photos of these and look up how to tell the difference between rabbit and squirrel tracks.
• Many birds stay around all year, so it’s fun to watch them and observe their winter habits. Use a field guide to identify species.

After your walk come inside, make some cocoa, and gather to talk about your walk and what you’ve learned.

1. Discuss with your children all the things they saw and heard on your walk. Read Ecclesiastes 3:11 “He has made everything beautiful in its time.”
2. Talk about the variety and beauty of clouds, trees, types of nests, and tracks in the snow. Describe the type of snow you walked in. Talk about and look up why some birds go south and others can survive cold winters.
3. Read verses from Job, chapters 38-39 (especially 38:19-22 and 24-30) and talk about God’s wisdom, creativity, and continuing care of all He has made.
4. Discuss the ways you saw God’s hand caring for plants and creatures while outside enjoying the quiet of a winter day. (Suggestions: snow covers and protects plants from the cold; squirrels and rabbits have thick, furry coats for warmth; red cardinals and black-capped chickadees eat seeds that are still around in the winter)

Just as the quiet winter day helps us see God’s hand in creation, taking time each day to be quiet with God can help us know Him even better. God is our heavenly Father, and He wants us to come to Him and talk to Him in prayer about all the things going on in our lives. He wants to talk to us, too, through His word that helps us learn about Jesus and His love for us.

What do you enjoy most about winter and how does it point you to God?

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Molly and I hope you’ve enjoyed this winter painting and the devotion about it! Come back soon for a related art activity, curriculum connections, and children’s books about winter!

Children’s Art Project for Mother’s Day, Inspired by Monet’s Love of Flowers

photo taken in Monet’s garden at Giverny

Monet loved flowers. Moms and Grandmothers do, too , so here’s an easy art project for children to do for Mother’s Day.

Monet’s garden at Giverny is as much a work of art as his paintings, and he often cut flowers to paint when the weather prevented him from working outdoors.

This project is an excerpt from an earlier post of mine about Renoir, another Impressionist who loved flowers!

Art Project for Mother’s Day

Supplies:  sturdy paper, pencils, crayons, scissors, glue, cheap watercolor set, brushes

Directons:

1. With a green crayon draw curving stems as if coming from a narrow vase in the middle at the bottom of the paper. (See illustration) (If your child is very young, you can draw the stems so that the bouquet isn’t too small)

 

2. With crayons of a variety of colors, draw the outlines of ‘flower’ shapes (daisies, circles, spirals, etc.) among, and at the end of, the stems. Leave coloring them in to the next step—painting.

3. Now, just like the Impressionists, paint blobs of paint right over the crayon ‘flowers’. Blobs work because the wax of the crayons repels the water color and shows through. (Encourage children to use small amounts of water to mix paint. Otherwise the colors get pretty watery)

4. While the flowers dry, trace on another piece of paper around each child’s hands (have them spread their fingers apart a little). Include a few inches of their arms. (use colored paper or children may color these and add rings, watches, etc.)

5. Cut out the hands.

6. Glue the hands, fingers interlaced with thumbs up, at the bottom of the painting as if they are holding the bouquet! (the fingers interlace more easily if the hands come together at an angle)

Voila!    Write Happy Mother’s Day across the top and give to Mom or Grandma!

Other Things to Do

• Visit Monet’s gardens online at   http://giverny.org/gardens/fcm/visitgb.htm
• Visit art museums or go online to see Impressionist collections and see how many have flowers in them. Many American museums have at least a few, because Americans were among the first to buy their work. here’s a link to the Impressionist collection at the Art Institute of Chicago.   https://www.artic.edu/collection?style_ids=Impressionism
• Look at works by Mary Cassatt online. An American Impressionist artist living in Paris, she not only introduced many of her friends to Impressionist art and encouraged them to buy these works, but she painted many lovely works of mothers and children together.

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Don’t miss the next kathythepicturelady post with funny Molly photos.

On the Trail of Monet’s Cathedrals and Haystacks: Devotional

interior, Gothic cathedral, author photo

Stone—heavy, durable, hard to carve into blocks or statues. Part of a Gothic cathedral, though, it can soar to great heights, as well as form thin, decorative tracery around rose windows.

Chartres, one of three rose windows, author photo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notre Dame de Paris, flying buttresses, author photo before the fire

Built all over Europe in the Middles Ages, these vast churches have defied wars, storms, and fires, as we’ve so recently seen with Notre Dame in Paris! Inside, its stone columns still run up and fan out to someday support a new vaulted ceiling. Outside, Notre Dame’s flying buttresses still arch back against the cathedral and will again, we hope, counter the outward thrust of a new roof.

Sainte-Chapelle, Paris, author photo

 

Thinner stone walls could hold huge windows of stained glass, opening up these cathedrals to a beautiful light that some have called heavenly.

The stained glass and statues helped generations of mostly illiterate people learn the story of redemption.

 

When Monet painted the Rouen cathedral series,

Rouen Cathedral, Facade and the Tour d’Albane, Gray Weather, Claude Monet, Rouen Museum

the cathedral had stood solidly in that same spot for over 700 years! So he was able to return after a year to finish the series.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hay—light, perishable, blown to and fro by the wind. It grows for a season and is then easily cut and formed into a plump haystack to dry. Although necessary for feeding livestock, hay stacks don’t soar toward God or let in heavenly light to tell God’s story.

detail of haystack painting by Monet, author photo

They aren’t permanent either. Monet began his haystack series in the fall, but continued so long into the winter that the farmer needed the hay to feed his cattle! Monet had to pay the farmer to wait while he finished his paintings. 

Imagine that farmer walking away fingering the francs in his hand, but shaking his head over the strange ways of artists!

So if asked which has more spiritual worth, a cathedral or a haystack, most would choose the cathedral.

Yet in the summer of 1806 the prayers of five Williams College students did soar up out of a haystack to God and helped begin the American mission’s movement that sent 1000s of men and women to spread the gospel throughout the world. There had been recent Christian revivals in America under George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, and others, but up to this time, no one had considered taking the gospel to other parts of the world.

But Samuel Mills, a student at Williams College, had begun to pray about it. And on a Saturday afternoon in August he and four other students gathered in a field off campus to discuss and pray about missions to foreign lands. Williams College is in the postcard-pretty Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts. Vibrant autumn foliage soon gives way to winter snows, so by August haystacks begin to dot those fields around the town and college.

That August Saturday in 1806 a thunderstorm rolled down out of the mountains and lightning crackled over the fields, sending the five students under a haystack for shelter. They continued praying, and the Haystack Prayer Meeting, as it came to be called, continued weekly after that.

Within just a few years, Mills, along with other students, had helped encourage the founding of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions which sent the first American missionaries to India in 1812. One of those, Adoniram Judson, was a friend of Mills from when they both attended Andover Theological Seminary. Mills also help found the American Bible Society and The United Foreign Missionary Society.

Monet made beautiful paintings of the fleeting, superficial changes that light brings to haystacks and cathedrals, but the objects aren’t really changed, and even stone cathedrals don’t last forever.

But when God’s light comes, it can even transform a haystack into a cathedral in which His heavenly light illumines and leads regular people, like college students and us, to take the gospel light to our neighbors, and around the world.

Then these people of God become temples of the Holy Spirit, and they will live forever!

Are there people in your neighborhood or others you keep in touch with who need to receive the light of the gospel?

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Molly is taking a much deserved break from photo shoots, but if you sign up for  Kathythepicturelady posts, you’ll soon see some of the funnier photos from her Molly-in-France series!

The next post will be an Impressionist-inspired kid’s art project for Mother’s Day. Don’t miss it!

 

 

On the Trail of Monet’s Cathedrals and Haystacks: Rouen

In the afternoon we tore ourselves away from Monet’s sunny garden to make our train connection to Rouen to see the cathedral that Monet painted so many times.

As we waited on the platform of the little train station, the weather changed. Wind brought clouds and the first rain of our trip. It continued to rain while we were in Rouen, a city on the Seine River not far from the Atlantic. I didn’t mind, though, as one of Monet’s cathedral views is in the rain, and he actually liked to try to capture the effects of rain and fog.

On this rainy Sunday few people were about, and no sun lit up the exterior of Rouen Cathedral or pierced through the stained glass that remains. It’s slim Gothic pillars still soar up to its high vault, and outside it wears its age with dignity and lacy beauty. And some parts of it are really old!

There has been a Christian church on the site of Rouen Cathedral since Roman times. Since then it has been partially destroyed by wars, fires, and storms many times, and just as often been rebuilt. The Vikings destroyed the early church and then rebuilt it when they settled the area.

 

The first (Viking/Norseman) Norman duke, Rollo, is buried under his effigy in the ambulatory.

Effigy of Rollo

For many, many years Rouen continued to be Norman/English land, and Richard the Lionheart’s heart is buried under his effigy next to his ancestor, Rollo.

Effigy of King Richard

 

 

 

 

The cathedral was rebuilt in the new Gothic style in the 12th century, but  fires and storms caused more rebuilding in the 13th century. Then in the 1400s, the façade was made over in the highly-decorative Flamboyant Gothic style, so that today the cathedral still looks like it’s wearing a garment of stony lace.

In WWII Rouen was a major supply depot for the Nazis, so the city and the cathedral were heavily bombed. The cathedral suffered several direct hits that caused much destruction. It was repaired, but in 1999 a storm toppled a huge pinnacle weighing many tons, which crashed through the roof and into the choir. When you look up you can still see the repaired place where it came through.

Today Rouen Cathedral is a mixture from all those times—some, like the North Tower, date back to the 1100s, while some stained glass and other sections are from the 1200s and 1400s. The middle spire or tower, made of iron, was installed in the 1800s, and, of course, repairs from WWII and the 1999 storm are even more recent.

Monet knew this cathedral well. He grew up in Normandy, a brother lived in the city, and it was just a short train ride from Giverny. As he thought about his next series, Rouen with its lacy exterior must have come readily to mind. He rented a room across the square from the cathedral and painted over 30 views of its façade over the next 2 years. Today a sign marks the spot from which he painted.

But as with every other subject Monet paints the light more than the cathedral. He studied how the cathedral changed with the sun’s angle and the weather. Some views show the sun rising behind the north tower. Others show the deep shadows produced by full sunlight. It’s an oblique view, although a few of the paintings are more face on.

The details of that lacy exterior would defeat most artists but Monet’s short, sketchy brush strokes give the cathedral a lacy texture just as his thick paint gave the haystacks a strawlike texture.

Rouen Cathedral, Facade and the Tour d’Albane, Gray Weather, Claude Monet, Rouen Museum

One of my favorites is the rainy day cathedral with its many tones of browns and creams. You can see the reflections on the wet cobblestones, just as we did.

When 20 of the paintings in this series went on sale, Georges Clemenceau, who later became France’s prime minister, was enthralled by them and bought one. He was a fan of Monet and wrote many admiring reviews of Monet’s work in his newspaper.

Activity

Find a permanent object or building outside that you can view for a week or so at all times of day and in different weather. Observe how light changes colors and shadows. Write down your obsevations or make sketches.

Molly is inspired and ready to paint!!

Are you signed up to receive the next Kathythe picturelady post? It will be an Easter post with more photos of the Isenheim altarpiece that I first showed at Christmas.

Later in April will be some devotional thoughts based on this whole Cathedrals and Haystacks series.

All photos in this post by the author

On the Trail of Monet’s Cathedrals and Haystacks: Giverny and the Haystack Series

Monet’s gardens at Giverny look like his paintings, with splashes of red and purple, dabs of blue, and whole patches of sunflower yellow everywhere you look. Some flowers tower over you, while others stretch out right into your face.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A wide path with plant-covered arches leads to the front door of the pink farmhouse with its green shutters.

A sunny yellow dining room and blue delft tiles in the kitchen invite you to come in and explore.

 

 

 

 

To get to the lily pond, we crossed under the road and followed a wooded stream that helped form the pond. The stream didn’t have enough water for Monet’s plans, so he built ditches to divert more water from a nearby river. His neighbors worried that there’d be no water for their cows or that Monet’s imported water lilies might even poison them, so Monet had to get approval from the town council to complete his lily pond.

Weeping willows overhand the pond, and water lilies crowd each other for room to grow. Between rafts of water lilies, reflections of the willows and other trees and flowers catch the sunlight. The Japanese bridge is really there in among the willow branches!

We found spots that looked a lot like paintings we’d seen in Paris. Here’s one of those next to a water lily painting by Monet from the Marmottan! 

 

 

Walking along the stream to the pond, we passed a field where cows grazed, a field similar to where Monet painted his haystack series in the fall and winter of 1890. Some of the haystacks painted in the winter were Monet’s favorite. In the spring Monet exhibited 15 of the haystack paintings with great success.

He painted in the same field, so the composition in each of the haystack paintings is similar—one or two conical haystacks seen against the strong horizontals of trees and houses in the middle distance, with another horizontal line of hills in the far distance to form the horizon line with the sky above.

The far hills, the roof tops, and the haystack shadows often contain the same colors and so tie all the parts together. In some of the paintings, the top of the haystack is silhouetted against the sky, and in some (as in this view) the slanted roofs of the houses in the middle distance clearly echo the slant of the haystacks.

Grainstacks-Late Summer, Giverny by Claude Monet

In this painting I photographed at the Musee d’Orsay the summer sun warms the stacks and highlights their texture made with thick unblended brush strokes. As in his garden, Monet doesn’t want to tame his brushstrokes to make a formal picture of a haystack. His purpose is to show how light changes what the haystacks look like in all kinds of weather and light.

Grainstack detail

Activities

1. Go online to study the shadows of some of these haystack paintings. Notice how their shapes and colors change with the weather and time of day. In one winter scene the orange sky contrasts vibrantly with the complementary blue of the cold shadowy snow on top of the stacks, on the roofs of the houses, and on the line of far hills. In some paintings the stacks are silhouetted against a golden sunset with just a few touches of bright outlining from the low setting sun.
2. Cut out a small rectangular “window” from white paper and use it to concentrate on different areas of an Impressionist painting. Look at all the colors in a “green” field or a Renoir face. Feeling brave? Try painting what you see through the little window!
3. Two great picture books about Monet’s garden: Linnea in Monet’s Garden by Christina Bjork, is a classic and mentions visiting the Marmottan. The Magical Garden of Claude Monet by Laurence Anholt has a foldout view of the gardens.

 

Sunflowers and blue Delft are favorites of Molly, too.Next Kathythepicturelady post is about Rouen and its cathedral that has survived over 700 years of wars and weather disasters. Be sure and sign up to receive these posts!

All photos in this post were taken by the author.

 

 

On the Trail of Monet’s Cathedrals and Haystacks: Gare Saint-Lazare, Paris

After several days in Paris, we left for Giverny and Normandy, and we’d go by train as the Impressionists did.

Train in the Countryside, Claude Monet

In the late 1800s trains were changing life for people in and out of Paris. They allowed people living outside the city to come in to work. Weekend trains with double decker cars, as seen in this painting by Monet, took the Impressionists and other Parisians out of the city to relax at restaurants, and popular swimming, boating, and fishing spots.

Trains and train stations show up in a surprising number of their paintings.

The Railway Bridge at Argenteuil, Claude Monet, author photo

They were a part of the modern life that the Impressionists were determined to show. Which is why Musee d’Orsay, a former train station, is so appropriate as a museum for Impressionist art!

 

 

 

It is Gare Saint-Lazare in the northwest part of the city, where many of the Impressionists lived, that shows up in their paintings. Its trains took people to popular recreational sites along the Seine River as it flows northwest from Paris to the Atlantic. Monet would also have taken the train from there to get to and from small towns such as Argenteuil, and eventually Giverny, where he and his family lived.

Both Monet and Gustave Caillebotte painted this station. Caillebotte painted from the large bridge that crossed over the tracks behind the station and was more interested in architectural features of the bridge itself. Caillebotte’s painting, pictured below, is titled Le Pont de L’Europe.

Monet painted the station from many angles in a number of paintings done in 1877. His interest was, as always, the effects of light on his subject, and he even convinced the station supervisor to delay the trains and produce more steam than usual so he could paint these effects. In these paintings steam and smoke billow up in tints of blue and pink and gray to the glass and iron roof of Gare Saint-Lazare. Monet’s painting is titled La Gare Saint-Lazare.

Saint-Lazare is still the main station to travel from Paris to Giverny and on to Rouen and other cities of coastal Normandy, so we arrived at the station early on a Saturday morning.

 

Steam no longer fills the train shed, but people still hurry into the station to catch their trains. Along with many others, we grabbed a croissant and a cup of coffee on our way to the platforms. A babble of voices impatient to begin their journeys surrounds us. We’re ready, too. Now that we’ve seen the paintings, we’re ready to visit Monet’s home and famous gardens. On to Giverny!

Activities

1. Compare Le Pont De L’Europe by Caillebotte to Le Pont De L’Europe, Gare Saint-Lazare by Monet to see the difference in viewpoint and technique! (Both these are shown above)
2. Read an enjoyable picture book called, Claude Monet: The Painter Who Stopped the Trains by P.I. Maltbie. It has an author’s note, some reproductions of Monet’s work, and a list of North American museums with his work

Molly is all packed and ready to go!

Are you ready to recieve the next Kathythepicturelady post about our visit to Monet’s beloved gardens at Giverny?

All photos in this post were taken by the author.

 

 

 

On the Trail of Monet’s Cathedrals and Haystacks: Musee Marmottan Monet, Paris

Continuing on our Monet Trail, one morning we took the metro to a more residential area in western Paris. Blue sky and warm sunshine met us as we came up the station steps. As we scuffled through leaves on the sidewalks and picked up smooth mahogany chestnuts, we enjoyed the arrival of fall.

 

The Musee Marmottan Monet is near the Bois de Boulogne, where Degas painted his horse racing scenes, and where other Impressionists sometimes painted people picnicking or strolling beside lakes.

The Picnic, Claude Monet

The Bois de Boulogne was once part of a forest where French kings and nobles hunted. By the time of the Impressionists, it had become a fashionable park that had been part of Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann’s drastic modernization of Paris in the 1850s. This included, not only parks, but broad new boulevards and modern apartment buildings that displaced thousands of poor Parisians to the city’s outskirts.

It’s the Paris we see in Impressionist paintings–Paris from the Louvre by Monet and Le Pont de L’Europe by Caillebotte

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About this same time Jules Marmottan bought a former hunting lodge on the eastern side of the Bois de Boulogne, and he and his son turned it into a mansion with fine furniture and art. The son left the mansion and its art to the French Academy of Fine Arts, which opened it to the public in 1939.

Musee Marmottan Monet now houses the largest collection of Monet’s paintings in the world, many coming directly from the artist’s family, because Michel Monet, the artist’s second son, left the collection he inherited from his father to the Marmottan. Other works came from the doctor who was the personal physician of many of the Impressionists.

Although it doesn’t have the huge water lily canvases of Musee de L’Orangerie, it does have a number of large water lily paintings, as well works by other Impressionists.

And it hasImpression, Sunrise,

Impression, Sunrise, clause Monet, author photo

 the painting by Monet that gave the movement its name. In it Monet painted a sunrise over Le Havre harbor, showing how the water and the sun’s reflections on it sparkled and changed moment by moment. Sunrise was in the Impressionist’s first exhibit in 1874, and a magazine critic made fun of the paintings, especially Monet’s. The critic titled his article, “Exhibition of the Impressionists,” and the name stuck.

Seeing that painting at the Marmottan , and sitting surrounded by water lily paintings and wandering through the galleries to see other works was a delightful way to prepare us for our visit to Giverny, the inspiration for the water lily paintings that occupied Monet for the last 20 years of his life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

From my last post:   Here are the answers to the differences between the subjects preferred by some Impressionists

• Monet and Pisarro both favored landscapes, but when Monet included people, they were middle class people enjoying a walk or time in a garden. Pissarro painted country scenes, which often showed peasants at work in gardens and fields.
• Renoir and Degas preferred to paint people, but Renoir liked to paint happy people dancing or  dining at cafes. His women and children are dressed in their best. Degas painted a more work-a-day world of laundresses and poorer girls, who became ballerinas to earn a living.
• Morisot and Cassatt made moving and beautiful paintings of family members, especially of mothers and children. They may have wished to branch out more, (Cassatt once did paintings of bull fighters), but middle class women led a fairly restricted life at this time. They couldn’t roam Paris or the countryside on their own, as did the men.

Activities

1. Read about Baron Haussmann and his modernization of Paris. Look at Gustave Caillebotte’s painting, Paris, a Rainy Day and paintings of Paris by other Impressionists to see some of those wide boulevards and iconic apartment buildings
2. Look at some of Monet’s paintings that include water, one of his favorite subjects. It’s fun to see how he painted reflections in short dashes of color.

Molly enjoyed the cooler autumn weather, too.

Next up, the train trip to Giverny, going through Gare St. Lazare, the same train station that the Impressionists often used, and that Monet painted  a number of times.

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All photos in this post were taken by the author.