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Claude Monet (artist) French, 1840 - 1926 The Cradle - Camille with the Artist's Son Jean, 1867 oil on canvas Overall: 116.2 x 88.8 cm (45 3/4 x 34 15/16 in.) framed: 150.5 x 122.6 cm (59 1/4 x 48 1/4 in.) Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon 1983.1.25 |
Monet was one of the young artists in Paris during the 1860s who was strongly influenced by Manet, becoming a part of his avant-garde circle at the Café de la Nouvelle-Athènes. The broad strokes of color and abrupt juxtapositions here are reminiscent of Manet’s bold, innovative manner of the 1860s. In this early work, Monet uses blacks and grays to create shadows, but soon black will all but disappear from his palette.
In 1867, when this was painted, the World’s Fair in Paris introduced Japanese woodblock prints to a wide audience. They had first appeared in France in the 1850s, packed around imported porcelains, and now enjoyed a huge vogue. Monet himself became an avid collector. Many years later, after he moved to his last home at Giverny, he hung the yellow walls of his dining room with them. Their distinctive style was an important influence on many impressionist painters. Here that influence is evident in the unusual angle Monet has chosen—as if we peer down into the cradle—and in the abruptly cropped figure of the woman. Bold areas of pattern, in the bedclothes and canopy, for example, divide the composition and seem to flatten the space. Monet abandoned this painting before finishing it, however; in the lower right, especially, we see only his initial thoughts.