Why does this painting make some people cry? Claude Monet's 'Water-Lilies' | National Gallery
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- Опубліковано 26 сер 2024
- Dr Ayla Lepine, the former Howard and Roberta Ahmanson Fellow in Art and Religion, meditates on the theme of peace in Monet's 'Water-Lilies'.
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I wish we got to the point where the first thought in every human beings mind when they wake in the morning was “I want nothing but peace for everyone and myself today and I will seek it.”
Mahatma Gandhi
When I visited the National Gallery I noticed many people gathered and settled around this painting. It's interesting to learn what many are experiencing from it and why. I personally had a weird, negative feeling from the painting, but this video helped me understand my experience. I think the painting frustrated and frightened me because I couldn't make out what was happening. There weren't any clear frames of reference to visually hold onto so I felt like I was free falling while looking at it. I now understand that I was experiencing fear of the unknown and loss of control. It frightened me the way death frightens me.
I think that Monet is probably my favorite painter. He wasn't just a master of light, but of atmosphere, as well.
Despite the calming effect of many of his paintings, Monet was anything but calm in his personal life. He was often filled with doubt and torment and destroyed more than a few of his paintings. It would be fair to say that Monet worked very hard to bring you the serenity you crave. You can thank him later.
I saw one of Monet’s waterlily paintings in New York. It was in a room by itself. I sat facing it and cried. I don’t know why. But “transcendence” is a word that came to mind. This talk is spot on.
I love how gallery directors take works of art and present them in a way that in itself is a work of art. I love this idea and I really enjoyed the virtual gallery!
Thanks for watching!
When you brought up the enduring generational trauma caused by war I sobbed. My grandfather experienced horrible things during the war and right after in defeated Germany and the hunger winters. WW2 changed him to a point where he became abusive towards his own family and ultimately towards me. His aggression worsened with age and the progression of his bipolar disorder and as a kid my father never managed to fully shield us from him. That's why I still suffer from the pain inflicted on him during wartimes years after he passed away.
this presentation is like a therapy session! very calming!
I was 13. It was French class. We were being shown slides of French art. Claude Monet’s Impression, Sunrise came on the screen. I cried. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It changed how I saw art, and music, and the world.
I love listening to Dr. Lepine’s voice.
Dr Lepine and The National Gallery have just gifted us with two extraordinary, moving pieces of pure art: that beautiful painting and that wonderful, peaceful lesson.
Thank you, because in this world full of painful nothing, beauty and eloquence are so much needed❤
I agree with you...much needed!
The color of this painting is so much better when it is recorded behind you. I love you quoting Sister Wendy. And the Buddhist story of water lilies, coming up from mud...as Monet pulls this beauty up from the mud of pigment. Thank you for a lovely talk on transcendence. Brava.
The only time I ever wept or got teary-eyed and emotional in front of a painting was when I saw Andrew Wyeth's paintings in person.
Thank you, Dr Lepine for such a wonderful presentation of this beautiful painting. Thank you to the National Gallery for posting this online for everyone to experience and benefit from.
You are very welcome ❤️
When I was 15 I had to make decisions about college and was uncertain, grappling with my catholic girl school bgd. and my desire to escape that and further my art ability and hope of becoming a Artist. One morning when crossing a small bridge I paused and the water below sorted itself in to this Monet painting. I gasped and felt like God and Art were showing me the Truth. I was on my way to Mass, instead I stayed on that bridge sure that the experience I was having was transcending any time I ever had in the church. All these years later I retain the image and the feeling.
Wonderful presentation. I would love to hear more from Dr. Lepine.
Thank you, Lisa! You can find another video with Ayla here: ua-cam.com/video/waF07KshWDk/v-deo.html
This was wonderful. Thank you so much! I’m 65 years old, not exactly young. I am young, however, in learning and growing as an artist and finding my unique voice in the art I create. I can only hope that I may create at least some art, even one piece, that even comes close to giving people who see or buy my art, the kind of experience of peace, beauty and closeness to the “Divine” that Monet gave to the world all those many years ago.
I heard Monet cried when they removed his cataracts and he finally saw what he had been painting all that time looked nothing like what he had intended.
God Bless Sister Wendy….my first introduction to art history as a young college student and I was gob-smacked by her ability to make me take the first steps to think about the works she presented…FYI…..her vow was of silence as I understand it….she was given permission once and once only to make her ‘beloved series’ on PBS before slipping back to her station of silence….Remarkable…..also in the Christian world this is the second week of Advent…..the week of Peace…l.thank You all for your work….
Lovely presentation. I wish everyone could have the experience of being with these paintings in an almost empty room. Seeing them online or in print is one thing, but your nervous system interacting with being immersed in that color and light is magical.
This is the most beautiful and interesting comentary of this work that I have ever heard. Thank you. I am an art teacher making a PhD in Art History.
I stood in front of one of Monet's paintings of Water Lilies at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and wept. I thought I knew why then, but now, I have a deeper understanding of what I was experiencing. Thank you.
As Paul Cézanne once said, “Monet is only an eye-but my god, what an eye.”
The National Gallery really is a blessing. So glad that access is still free for everyone.
A painting has never made me cry. Real life photos on the other hand, have. But there’s no doubt that Monet created beautiful art.
Since I was young( in my early twenties) Monets paintings captivated me like no other. I fell in love with his art. To me there is almost has a magical and mystical quality to it. Something you can meditate on. As with all impressionistic paintings it also has different depths to it. By moving closer or futher from the paintings, you observe different aspects and feelings. Truly MAGICAL.
Her manner of speaking and explaining is so beautiful. You can feel her passion for her vocation! More, please!
I'm not especially moved by this painting. I love Monet. His morning haystacks absolutely blows my mind.
Maybe I need to see this painting in person. I have been moved powerfully by paintings twice in my life. I have it in me to feel a painting.
Monet continues to be one of my favorite artists. Even when he was blind, his use of color and light is awe-inspiring. For a subject that is so full of nothing, this painting contains multitudes.
Thank you. It does nothing for me, but I love to hear about what art can do for some.
Art is to me an emotional transfer from the Artist to a visual sharing in the chosen creative medium with the viewer.
The perfect video for this time in the history of the Western world and the season. Thank you.
I feel I have just been on a beautiful retreat.
It is so wonderful to feel my breathing taking me to peace.
Thank you, Rae!
Thank you. You, and Monet, changed my day for the better
It's our pleasure, Inga
Dr. Lepine, you have such a lovely voice!
Soft and calming, it definitely matches the painting.
I came to learn about the art, but I very much stayed just to listen. 💗
Our presenter is clearly knowledgeable, and conveys a deep understanding of the art and of the artist; of the visitors to the gallery, as well.
So very gentle and profound. I only wish my mother were still alive to enjoy this.
Because of it’s beauty.
I knew a painter, who has since passed, and some of her paintings would bring me to tears. There is another contemporary painter in the UK (I’m in the States) who’s paintings brought the same response and I was lucky enough to be in the same online painting group. It’s both humbling and encouraging to be around people with this talent…and to be able to witness them in action and their finished work.
I’ve seen Monet’s painting’s in person, sat with a pair of high quality binoculars (I’m sure the other museum patrons thought I was nuts) and studied his brushstrokes. It was very educational.
The color of light, the multitude of warm and cool tones complimenting each other and tender transparencies allowing us to see the underside, there is no need for an end, only a moment captured perfectly.
Thank you, Dr. Lepine, for your profound insights. While working in hospice, I often used art as a means to encourage self-expression for those patients and the grieving who found it difficult to verbalize their experiences. To me, this is how one begins to see transcendence. It sparkles whenever love begins to become real in new ways. It did here in Monet's noble mission. Transcendence sparkles in the gift of tears provoked in observers when touched by the love of the Holy Spirit, who inspired him. And I've been so privileged to discover the transcendent in my patients as they face the unknown with courage and dignity they didn't realize they had. It's always found in miracle of love.
Visited MOMA in New York about 30 years ago: three huge panels in a dedicated room. Absolutely wonderful experience. Similar feeling to experience of Van Gogh’s cherry blossom.
Thank you for sharing Monet's beautiful work and the wonderful presentation.
A very grand piece of art. I cannot imagine working/painting such a piece because you can't be up close to it and paint and still see the entire canvas. That's amazing! As a hobbyist painter, it would be impossible for me to create something so cohesive yet so large.
I could listen to Dr. Lepine talk all day. She's the peaceful voice to go with that peaceful work of art.
Beautiful.
Concise and profound exploration of this painting, and the power of art and beauty.
Thank you, Dr. Lepine!!!
I never found myself a fan of Monet until watching this. Now all of a sudden I get it. This was an astounding look at his work. Thank you.
Thank you for this video... nearly 50 years ago, as a young adult on the usual lengthy journey from 'the antipodes', I ended up in the final room of the National Gallery. I was astounded, and spent an hour sitting in front of the artwork. Many was the time I would make a visit to see it yet again. I recognised the image immediately, and it set me on a path of memories of the time and event. About 15 years ago, I made the long journey to Giverny, but still remembered the effects of seeing this wonderful painting.
One of the best reflections on a master work. And Dr. Lepine has the clearest diction! It would be nice if every presenter could speak that fine.
It's like looking at a mineral specimen, a fascinating crystal formation. All those colors, textures and shapes. And you're in awe that nature created it.
Cried before a Monet in New York, I was overwhelmed by it's beauty & the work of a genius.
A wonderful piece of video. I hope this lady presents more art videos. It would have been better for me to have dwelled more with the painting rather than the 30 seconds. Thank you. Love and peace. Tim
Hi Tim, thank you for your comments. You can find another video with Ayla here: ua-cam.com/video/waF07KshWDk/v-deo.html
We also have a series of 5 minute meditations that you might like here: ua-cam.com/play/PLvb2y26xK6Y7xkYtKteFDu5KyE1sTy2jJ.html
Thank you very much for this incredible lesson, but also an amazing way to stop and learn to see. I've been to The National Gallery sometimes, I've stopped in front of that sketch of Monet (and had the luck to see others of that enormous piece) and it has been always a new and profound experience. Thank you so much for this video!
It looks like a clear pond with waterlilies, the sky and the trees around reflecting on its light blue surface. It radiats peace
I love Monet; studied him. Years ago I saw his works on Hay Stacks at the LA County Museum. I cried. Being in the presence of the beautiful work a Master created overwhelmed me. An experience to never forget.
Wonderful presentation and lovely comments here! Thanks to The National Gallery and thanks to all the posters here 😊
Her voice is incredible
Fantastic talk, Dr Lepine. A very powerful painting.
Thank you so much for such a gentle exploration of what peace can look and feel like, illustrating so evocatively Sister Wendy's description of what peace means on an individual level, and how it is to be found in ourselves. So looking forward to the pairings.
The scale, the use of colour and, as you say, the peacefulness of immersing ourselves in Nature. Being a part of Nature, not apart. ❤️ Considering it is one individual's view of Nature it is incredible how someone with failing eyesight was able to capture the diversity of life in this huge canvas. From his back garden It extends beyond the frame. He could not capture it all, but he captured a great deal. It is elemental with the fundamentals of Life. ❤️ Nine lessons. I feel there should be carols too.
I wonder how many people look to artwork for or with an emotional response, how many seek to study the technique, and how many seek a combination. I was a Fine Arts major back in the day. I can certainly say that life experience and time changes how we view the world and art. One thing I do know is that we may have different motivations or responses to art, but we all have an appreciation. Even though Monet was an atheist, I am glad to see he was included in a religious inspired show.
I’ve cried in some of the best galleries.
“Water lilies” just has such deep childhood meaning for me from my childhood in England …walking on properties with water lily ponds and quiet warm afternoons and close family moments and stillness and contentment
It's fascinating how experiencing a painting in a second-hand way, through an image taken of an image, can be a completely different experience with each different image. The colors are so vibrant in the video image, but in the still they are much more muted and homogenous. It really makes me want to visit this painting, and in truth all paintings, in person, because there is this filter of the second-hand image that is going to change the entire experience. I suppose this makes a continued case for the physical existence of museums in the digital age, because even though anyone can see the painting, it's a different experience to really see the painting in person, unfiltered.
Oh yes, Dr. Wendy and her lectures!!! Loved them
sorry, I meant Sr. Wendy (typo)
Best viewed while listening to Claude Debussy's "Reverie". It's as if they were created for each other. I have the vinyl album of Eugene Ormandy conducting,and the cover is waterlilies.
I saw a monet at the St. Louis art museum when I was little. It was that moment that I connected with art and history. It makes me wildly happy and peaceful when viewing his work. His waterlilies works are my favorite works above all others.
This was an extremely beautiful video! Thank you.
I am so stumped to come accross this video. I have been blessed to admire a good amount of Monet's Waterlillies throughout travels, but the one that made me stop for 45 minutes and get emotional is, I believe, this very one, that was on display at the Tate more than 15 years ago.
I like all paintings of Monet. Once i was in Paris in some small one filled with giant paintings of lilies ponds. That was awesome
Awesome talk. Thank you
The motivation behind this work brought my respect and admiration for this incredible artist to a whole new level. What a wonderful human being and what an inspiration. Thank you for this lesson.
the most engaging storytelling from the presenter!! Enjoyed and learnt so much, thank you
My mom had a print of this along the wall next to her side of the bed in my parents bedroom when I was growing up, so I spent lots of lazy Saturday mornings staring at it. In the hall right above Dad's side was one of van Gogh's sunflowers, so I also spent a lot of time looking at that. My parents took us to a few museums, but my sister was a bit too antsy for that. I became an artist and she took every art history class that our university offered, way more than I took and she studied accounting, so they did something.
But I remember laying on their bed and just getting lost in the colors. Sometimes imagining frogs swimming under the big swathe of algae to pop up on different lily pads, then disappear again into the water. I think that was my favorite game. Or I'd just picture myself in a small boat floating peacefully on the water, wherever the current took me, stirring up the colors as the boat glided through, half paint, half reality the way children seem to imagine so easily and adults struggle with so much.
Amazing artwork and introduction ❤ thanks
for me art isnt really that deep, loads of monet's paintings are just stunning, gorgeous and use a lot of colours that remind me of happiness, everything is soft and yet theres so much going on in the paintings for you to look at, its really nice to just let yourself go over the whole painting and its very therapeutic. Just a mixture of happy colours and soft shapes that my brain likes seeing :) if i was overwhelmed or very sad and came to see stunning paintings that just reminded me that its not all that bad then id definitely start crying
Loved this presentation 🤍
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Spirituality and divine poetry: Wonderful.
He gave us the same beautiful gift he had. I can imagine he felt the same peace we all do when he sat in his yard. I am so grateful he shared what he was looking at.
I can already tell that painting could make me cry if I saw it in person
Wow😱😲 beautiful painting, i felt gratitude to see that than to cry 💙💚❤🧡💛
Maybe many don’t know but he was affected by cataracts most part of his life, so his art and depiction of his paintings is how a patient see the world and still transmitted the meaning of it.
Monet a favorite of mine. I smile - feel happy 🙃 wonder while looking at this canvas.
I guess the colours work on everyone differently. For me it is a peaceful calm beautiful early morning by the pond when the surface of the water is steamy. Monet was a great artist.
I had no idea that painting was so big, wow
Its alive, shimmering, magical, disturbing, blurry, trancending, breathtaking, boundryeless, glowing, etherical, perfect, dimentionel, heavenly, glorious and something undeniaeble and unspecific, like its perfect but also unfinish and have catched a spesific moment in time, who never ever comes back in the same order again, because the nature are changing and rearranging every singel condicion, of mist, wind, light, movement, temperature and so on, into a completly new scenario every second, and the time have frozen in this, one of a kind, scenario, and have an uniq mix of all the feelings I started to describe... Will never be the same again, and make me speechless and in awe and of the creator and arcitect behind this world.....Cant admire this art without being spirituell.....💜🙏💜
A wonderful and quite moving lesson - thank you!
I love how her glasses match the green in the painting
I first approached a panel of Monet's Water-Lilies in the Nelson Atkins in Kansas City, and I did indeed sit down and cry. I have synesthesia, so initially I chalked it up to being overwhelmed. This evening, many years later, I stumbled upon this video, and it's given me a eureka moment.
Is a deep composition full of spiritual insights
I can almost smell a summer by the lake when I look at Monet's water lilies.
Thank you so much for giving us this time for the spirit, in the presence of Monet’s beautiful gift to us.
I wonder how much Monet’s struggle with his failing vision contributed to the power and grace of his water lily paintings. By the time he made this painting his cataracts were quite advanced. It reminds me a little of Beethoven going progressively deaf through his career. By the time of his most sublime works that can bring me to tears - the Grosse Fugue, the 9th symphony - the sounds he wrote were completely of his imagination. Neither artist could well take in the natural world they lived using the sense that mattered most to them. Yet in their frailty, these artists created works that transcended their own limitations. It’s another thing to consider as we take in their wondrous art and gaze at our own mortality. What beauty might there might be in ourselves that can transcend it?
This was a beautiful presentation which touched me on many levels, even to a flash of finding an understanding my son somewhat better. Isn’t that what art is about? A deepening of ourselves on different levels? I can’t imagine anyone presenting this better than Dr. Lepine. She was almost like a natural extension of Monet’s expression in the painting. That may come off corny or pretentious sounding but it’s the only way I can describe how it felt to me. Unfortunately I don’t have the gift of articulation that Dr. Lepine has so forgive me please.
It reminds me of an old memory.
I really enjoyed the Monet Summer exhibition in 1987 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I may recall seeing that painting there.
I have a stretched canvas with some loose sketches hanging in my room waiting for my muses to tell me what to do. In this time of war and uncertainty I've felt that there is not much I can express...Lost in thoughts and sadness...My creativity has taken a toll. This little video from the National Gallery just brought me back from the dark...I know now what is needed on that white square to illuminate my days...Peace of mind, peace in acceptance of what comes in life...Peace. Just peace
Thank you for posting this marvelous video, which was so timely for me, and helped me better understand my own experience of Monet's work and genius. I visited the National Gallery and saw 'Water-Lilies' for the second time this past September, 36 years after my first trip to London. Since I was traveling alone this time, I was able to sit in the gallery for about 20 minutes taking in the work that was, at once, stunning and tranquil, marvelling over all of the colors that Dr. Lepine identified in the video. I lost myself in the blues, greens, and purples, and then I'd be awakened by the vivid reds of the flowers. While I looked and looked, most of the many other visitors who came to see the painting took a picture of it after a brief stop, then moved on. I took pictures of many paintings I admired at the National Gallery that day since I'm as much a product as anyone of a culture that drives us toward consumption, yet I couldn't and wouldn't take a picture of "Water-Lilies". The time I viewed the painting was sacred, meant to be experienced in that moment, remembered later.
At first it was a feeling of admiration of color combo that he chose but as I pondered the the subject I became aware that this is our minuscule vision of life. We don’t know exactly where we are in the grand scheme of things and we are so limited with knowledge about life. It gave me a feeling of sadness like there’s no escape of our reality. Reasoning is at best an art form.
I find Dr. Lepine's voice as soothing as some people find this painting.
This picture, for me, is a healing hopeful dream. But that's what I feel for so much of his work. His works are a gift to the world. Religion has nothing to do with it. It's about one human being's love for all of us.
...i've cryed when i finally saw Gustav Klimt " the Kiss" , in Vienna ,Albertina National museum... 🙏🏻❤️...and he Is not one of my favorites painters...but " something happened" . . 🌹
Thank you. I really enjoyed this episode & listening to Ayla Lepine insights & hope to hear more.