The Role of Memory and Synthesis

As Monet aged, memory played an increasingly important role in his artistic process. While he continued to work from direct observation, he also worked on paintings in the studio, refining and synthesizing his impressions. This combination of immediate perception and reflective memory created works of greater complexity and depth.

The Japanese Bridge series of 1918-24, painted when Monet's vision was severely compromised by cataracts, represents the extreme of this synthesis. These paintings, with their explosive color and turbulent brushwork, seem to emerge from internal vision as much as external observation. They capture not just the appearance of the garden but the accumulated experience of decades spent observing it.