MICROSTORY OF ART ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM Iconography of Sustainability

From the Gallery of Sustainability:

Monet:

(6.5.2022) Why reproducing some of the greatest hits of Impressionism here? Well, because French painter Claude Monet does belong into a gallery of sustainability. And this at least for two reasons: First of all: his Haystacks, which are not haystacks, but Wheatstacks (covered with hay), may depict something that could be referred to as an unspectacular subject, being only interesting for it being seen in various lights (of summer, of winter). But why are these ›stacks‹ still there in winter? Was it because the painter wanted them to be there (he cared to have an oak arranged without leafs, to get a ›oak in winter‹ effect)?
No, these stacks are still there in winter, because they represent the traditional storage method, used by peasants at the time: wheat was harvested, then dried (in stacks, covered with hay), and threshed only, when the threshing machines came by (which could happen as late as in the next spring). So what we see, is actually good householding. Caring for future provisions. Providing for bread (in the next year). Although, of course, it is possible to focus on the change of colors and light in these pictures only.
The second reason for including Claude Monet here, has to do with the effort necessary to give us his apotheosis of Water Lilies. As mentioned above, water lilies have to be looked after, and the general effort necessary to have Monet’s garden at Giverny arranged the way Monet wanted it to be arranged, was huge. There were several gardeners, there were several crises (inundation; storm), not to mention the initial crisis, having to do with the fact that the local people did not want water lilies imported into their neighborhood. So what we see in Monet’s pictures is also the result of staging nature. And if we think of the effort necessary to stage it, we may become aware that sustainability is seen in these pictures, but as the result of an effort, not necessarily thought of or visualized.

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