San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk 1908

Claude Monet daubed and dabbed this painting, San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk, with oil on canvas. There’s something so poetic about the way Monet built up this scene with these short, flickering strokes of oranges, blues, and yellows. I imagine him standing there, squinting at the Venetian light, trying to capture that fleeting moment when the sun dips below the horizon. You can almost feel the cool, damp air and hear the gentle lapping of the water against the buildings. The silhouette of the island is more felt than seen, like a memory fading at the edges. It’s a testament to Monet’s ability to distill a scene down to its most essential qualities. He shows us how colour and light interact with one another. Painters like Monet are constantly in dialogue with one another, building upon the innovations of their predecessors while pushing the boundaries of what painting can be. For me, painting is a way of expressing something that can't be put into words, and in this work Monet just really gets to that.