Arguably one of the greatest artists the world has ever seen, Claude Monet painted various images that could be interpreted many different ways. A French impressionist painter during the Nineteenth century, Monet focused on nature and real life moments. Art history scholars have argued for years about the motivation and inspiration behind the works of Claude Monet. Steven Z. Levine tries to combine the life experiences of Monet and his family with psychoanalysis of the artist and other renowned painters of the era. Levine effectively argues that Monet’s mother, father, wife, and children all helped to influence his work, but the main force driving Monet was the id, or Monet himself.
Levine begins by giving the reader a brief history of the French artist Claude Monet. He tells of all the deaths and troubles in Monet’s family and how his father and mother each played an influential role in the artist’s life. Monet’s mother encouraged him to paint and although she died at a young age, her motivation stayed with him. Monet and his father turned out very similar to each other. His father married his thirty-year younger mistress after having a child out of wedlock after Monet’s mother passed away. Monet later also married his mistress when their child was at the age of three. Levine also discusses the deaths of Monet’s family members stating, “Who by then had buried his parents, two wives, a stepdaughter, and his first-born son, Echos all, sat in his garden and watched the reflections on the surface of his pond come and go.” This imagery of a man sitting alone on a riverbank perfectly captures the argument of Steven Levine. The author claims Monet, while having a family, lived a life of solitude that carried over into the inspiration of his work.
Levine mentions the psychological work of Sigmund Freud and his thoughts of Leonardo de Vinci in the lines, “Without directly speaking of transference or countertransference in 1910, the fundamentally tritemporal modalities of analysis with which he was much concerned in his technical papers at just this time and in which present narration, past retrospection, and the radical futurity of the wish are unconsciously and intersubjectively mobilized.” Levine compares Freud’s admiration of da Vinci to his love for Monet. He also uses the words of Freud to explain to the reader how the events in Monet’s life unconsciously found their way into Monet’s paintings just as those of da Vinci.
Monet lost many members of his family starting at an early age. He ended his life alone after essentially living in solitude. These experiences appeared in the beautiful paintings of Monet. Although the images painted do invoke feelings of serenity and bliss, they also convey a feeling of solitude, as if one stands alone in nature. Levine argues Monet painted these images not for his mother, father, children, or spouses and mistresses, but rather for himself. He found art as a means of escaping and channeling his life alone into something grand.
Levine, Steven Z. "Virtual Narcissus: On the Mirror Stage with Monet, Lacan, and Me." http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_imago/v053/53.1levine.html
Picture: http://www.artinthepicture.com/artists/Claude_Monet/water_lilies.jpeg
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