The Struggle for Artistic Vision

Beyond external challenges lay internal struggles that were perhaps even more difficult. Monet battled constantly with his own vision, never satisfied, always pushing further. He was his own harshest critic, destroying paintings that failed to meet his standards. Friends reported seeing him slash canvases in frustration or throw them into the pond at Giverny.

The challenge of capturing transient effects—the goal at the heart of his art—was inherently frustrating. Light changes faster than paint can be applied. By the time a particular effect was half-captured, it had already transformed into something else. Monet's series paintings represent one solution to this problem, but they brought their own challenges of maintaining consistency while capturing variation.

Weather added another layer of difficulty. Monet painted in all conditions—blazing sun that made his canvases too hot to touch, rain that diluted his paint, snow that numbed his fingers. He had himself tied to rocks to paint stormy seas. He worked with icicles hanging from his beard. This physical discomfort was the price of capturing effects that could only be seen under extreme conditions.

The technical challenges Monet set himself grew more extreme with age. The Rouen Cathedral series required him to capture the same stone facade under dozens of different light conditions. The London series meant waiting for exactly the right fog effects. The Water Lilies demanded he create coherent compositions from reflections that shifted with every breeze. Each new series brought new technical problems that had to be solved through experimentation and persistence.