Seeing as.
And simply seeing.
From being an object of ridicule, Claude Monet has become almost a household name. People will tell you that they love Monet's Impressionism; they will have parasols, tea towels and mouse mats emblazoned with his frothy clouds and radiant sunsets.
Which is fine.
But it means that we have completely lost the radical and dangerous edge to the paintings produced by this French artist.
The very word 'Impressionism' was flung at Monet in derision when he exhibited his Impression: Sunrise. To the critics it looked unfinished; mere sketching, without form or structure. But Monet had little interest in following classical forms or patterns. His practice was to take his easel outdoors and paint what he actually saw. This is nothing like as easy as it sounds. Whenever we see something, we invariably see it as something. This includes the colours we see. What colour are shadows on snow? Grey? No. They are pink and blue and yellow and, yes, various shades of grey, but it was Monet and his group which pointed this out to us.
This wonderful canvas - Ice Floes on the Seine, painted in 1880 - is a good example of Monet's dissecting eye. Stay with the image for a moment, and you begin to realise that here are the colours one actually sees on a frosty sunlit morning. For many people, this will be an uplifting experience.
But the artist is also challenging us. Monet confronts us with the truth of what we actually experience; a truth which might be hidden from us when we bring our assumptions and pre-judgements to a scene. Yet again, for many this will be a liberating confrontation: the truth is shown to be so much more than we had first imagined.
