Palazzo da Mula at Venice 1908

Claude Monet's "Palazzo da Mula at Venice" is a blurry dream made with oil paint. You can almost smell the water! Monet's mark-making here is all about this process of dissolving form, it’s like, how little can you do, to get the most feeling? Look how the blues and greens of the water seem to vibrate and shift, mirroring the building's facade, a simple layering of brushstrokes create an almost dizzying effect. I’m drawn to the lower centre, where the green and blue strokes thicken, you can almost see him digging the brush in, and it creates a sense of depth, as though you could put your hand right in the canal. It’s like, he wants to both show you the surface and pull you into the depths, all at once. It reminds me a little of Turner, that same interest in light and atmosphere, but Monet takes it a step further with his broken brushwork. For both, it’s less about perfect representation, and more about capturing a fleeting moment, an impression.