The term "Impressionism" was born in satire after Claude Monet's Impression, Sunrise premiered at Felix Nadal's salon in 1874. Critic Louis Leroy stated, "A preliminary drawing for a wallpaper pattern is more finished than this seascape," but artists of the time gleefully adopted the term, as it succinctly described the haste and attitude in which they attempted to "capture the moment." As the de-facto father of the movement, Monet was fascinated with the various ways in which light influenced color and the view of a subject, and mastered this combination to create accurate portrayals of changing time and seasons. However, the most impactful art is an intersection between technique and substance, and Monet's Haystacks series (1890-1891) fails in the latter.
Monet set up his canvases at various times of the day in his backyard in Giverny, France, in order to capture two ordinary haystacks at dawn, dusk and midday during summer, winter, and the following spring. The summer pieces (second and fourth, above) are filled with oranges and greens as the sun casts yellow light over the haystacks. In the winter pieces (first, third and fifth, above), Monet paints the subdued light and gray skies of the season, as well as the way snow reflects soft purple and blue shades of color. The spindly trees in the once-lush background, painted in a dark purple-brown that matches the part of the haystacks that haven't been covered in snow, complete the look of dead earth. In the spring piece (sixth, above), the landscape is only half-dead, still dark but beginning to turn green again. Monet's eye for and ability to capture the combined effects of light and color are impressive, since lighting is often the bane of many visual artists' existences, but something is missing.
The six paintings on display at the Art Institute of Chicago are part of a 25-piece series, which begs the question: were 25 paintings necessary? Six certainly weren't, as the least repetitive pieces are the first three, and the rest are just plain boring. Monet's mastery of his technique is evident, but are these paintings memorable? If you thought of a piece of art that affected you emotionally or intellectually, would you think of Monet's Haystacks? This series brings to mind another technically astounding painting, Georges Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, which is mindblowing in its intricate use of pointillism, but otherwise forgettable. Haystacks has little to no emotional depth, and after staring up-close at the paintings and walking away, they will leave your mind until the next time you see them. Monet's pretty landscape study is a perfect example of artistic craft, but at the end of the day, these less-than-fascinating haystacks fall flat.
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