Claude Monet, “Meules”: Masterpiece of Light, Color, and Nature

Claude Monet, the father of Impressionism, is considered to be among the most important painters of the 19th century. His work has redefined landscape painting, particularly his series-focused approach to capturing the changing light and atmosphere. One of his most celebrated works, known as either “Meules” or “Haystacks,” achieved this objective. Painted between 1890 and 1891, these canvases form one of the most striking studies of the relationship between light, color, and time, and reveal how much Monet was fascinated by the change that nature had undergone with different conditions.

The “Meules” series by Monet not only stands out for the mastery of color and form but is one turning point in modern art. This series depicts that Monet could look through the real and paint the transient effects around him, marking one of the many grand shifts artists took toward capturing nature.

Let’s dwell further on the meaning of “Meules”, how Monet created this effect, and, for that matter, what keeps art lovers fascinated to this very day, more than a hundred years from the date these paintings were born.

Who Was Claude Monet?

Claude Monet was born in Paris in 1840 and is considered one of the founders of Impressionism. With modest conditions at the beginning of his career, little by little after pestering the spirit of nature in his paintings received widespread applause. Not like the majority of his colleagues, Monet didn’t aim at historical scenes or idealized figures, while his focus was on how light and weather conditions could transform a simple landscape.

His practice of painting en plein air allowed Monet to note and catch minute changes in light and atmosphere. The practice of painting en plein air gave him the ability to paint nature with all its nuances. Indeed, his series paintings, where he painted the same subject several times under varied conditions, took his commitment to exploring light and color in nature to a whole new level.

It is one of his most famous series, and it really marked quite a significant point in his career, making him the master of Impressionism.

The Story Behind “Meules”

The “Meules” series is a collection of 25 paintings featuring stacks of harvested wheat-that is, haystacks-in the fields around Monet’s house in Giverny, France. These haystacks were only a common sight in the French countryside, yet Monet turned them into signs of the ever-changing beauty of nature.

Monet painted these scenes over several months-summer of 1890 into the following winter. He wasn’t looking to paint the haystacks themselves but, rather, the way they were affected by different weather conditions, times of day, and season. Ultimately, he felt that it was light, not form, that presented the true subject of his work.

Each of the paintings from the “Meules” series represents a uniquely captured instant. With the golden light at dawn, in the silhouette against an afire sunset, or blanketed with snow, haystacks turn out to be secondary in light and color raiment.

Monet’s Techniques in “Meules” Series

Monet approached the series “Meules” in such a way that was revolutionary for his time. The loose and free stroke gives an almost abstract quality to the paintings. He used thick, textured layers of paint often to point to the changing light. Complementary colors-opposite on the color wheel-must also have been an important way for him to emphasize the vibrancy in the scenes. For example, the warmth of the haystacks is often set against cool blues and purples in the surrounding sky and shadows.

In most of the paintings, Monet sets the haystacks off-center to send the viewer’s eye traveling across the canvas and take in the surrounding atmosphere. His layering of paint, applied sometimes in quick broken strokes, mimics the shimmering effects of sunlight on the fields.

This very characteristically Impressionist approach allowed Monet to catch light in its fugacious nature and in the time flow. The haystacks, although static objects, tend to move and change shape as the light around them changes. This is indeed the very core of impermanence in Monet’s “Meules” series.

Why “Meules” Is Considered a Masterpiece

What makes this series of “Meules” by Claude Monet so inimitable is not only the brilliancy in technique behind each painting but the resonance it emits on the emotional side. No other artist compares with Monet’s nuanced ways of transferring the transience of time, the moments of now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t. The haystacks, metaphors in themselves for the cycle of life and harvest, become much more with the different skies and seasons they are depicted under.

The bold move of Monet was to paint the same subject repeatedly but under different conditions. Up until then, most artists were doing single compositions, and Monet knew the world is transient and so should be art. The “Meules” series really transformed his career in the direction away from single paintings into larger, more cohesive bodies of work that investigate time and light in depth.

Rather, they call upon the viewer to pause and contemplate time and the beauty of its passage in nature’s seasonal cycles. The “Meules” series by Monet is more than a collection of landscapes-it’s a meditation on change, memory, and the transient moments of life.

Record-Breaking Auction Sales

The “Meules” series also does not lag behind in the modern art market. On May 14, 2019, one of the pictures of this series “Meules” (1890) was sold at a record sum of $110.7 million at an auction house of Sotheby’s. Thus, the new world record was established for selling an Impressionist picture, which underlined the strong topicality and value of Monet’s works.

This is not only the price of the quality of the painting but also a reflection of the historical importance of the series “Meules” in the development of modern art. Collectors and museums around the world consider the series as a crucial moment in landscape painting history, where Monet had pushed beyond the boundaries of what art could say.

The Importance of Light and Time in Monet’s Work

Throughout his practice, light and time formed a theme to which Monet returned time and time again. Maybe the most direct working out of this theme is his series “Meules”. Once Monet said: “For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment; but the surrounding atmosphere brings it to life-the light and the air which vary continually”.

In “Meules”, changing light is the main protagonist. Whether he captures the soft, diffused glow of morning, the fierce noon, or the cool shadows of evening, Monet evokes the atmosphere of the moment through color and texture. He worked on several canvases at the same time, running from one to another as the light changed continuously, in a race against time as the fleeting qualities of the scene before him disappeared.

It is this obsession with light and the manner in which it dances upon the natural world that gives depth to “Meules” such as this profound work. Monet’s attention to the transient nature of light adds one more layer of depth and meaning to these simple haystacks.

Monet’s Legacy Through the “Meules” Series

Indeed, the legacy of Claude Monet and his “Meules” series reaches way beyond the Impressionist movement itself: it is through Monet’s use of light, color, and atmosphere that paths for future artists were paved-for the Post-Impressionists and Abstract Expressionists who would start pressing the boundaries even further with regard to traditional notions of form and composition.

The series “Meules” has become, somehow, the icon of the genius of Monet. In this work, he captures the ability to contemplate the extraordinary in the ordinary and to transform everyday banalities into deep manifestations of time and space. They remind us of how fragile nature is and its beauty, even during instants when we least expect it.

Monet’s “Meules” still inspires creators and onlookers, reminding us that art, just like nature, is in constant flux. It calls upon us to observe the world around us more closely-to appreciate the slight, transient changes, to appreciate beauty in the most transient moments of life.