From Monet we have above all the theme of passing time. That is how it is usually thought of. Of course, what is meant is the development of the theme. As many point out, this happens not only and not precisely. Monet himself speaks of something he defines as “l’enveloppe”: the envelope, the dust, the haze. It is that space of air, which is not only air, and which lies between me and the subject. The very same subject can appear lighter, darker, cold, warm, sweet, sensual, gloomy, depending on the seasons, the hours of the day, the climate. We are focused on the eye, not on the state of the soul. Impression of vision, like a sketch, never expression. It is easy to think that time really passes over the subject, that life flows over it. And it does. However, this flowing needs to be influenced by the space that separates me from the subject. It is easier to grasp on rustic subjects (see the Haystacks), more interesting is to see that time also passes on the Cathedrals, that is, on stone, on constructions, on rocks. These too pay the haze, they too, the rocky constructions, the cathedrals, if placed behind the true subject, that is the atmosphere, become something pictorial: they lighten, they cool, they darken. They become and change in contact with vision. All relatively simple until we arrive at the Water Lilies. Michel Butor (Writings on Art) points out the point of view: an angel’s flight, just barely suspended. A very close perspective, a delicate and subtle vision but which is found bizarrely above the subject, where we would never be unless bending down, unnaturally inclined, looking almost as if falling. Imagine ourselves in a Michael Jackson position, unnaturally leaning but looking down on a pond. Something different and something more happens compared to the “envelope” we have talked about. It is as if the subject, which in a certain sense remains the background of the painting, attracted us, moved closer, here the planes begin to overturn, the world comes toward us. It comes to us, no longer the other way around, we are still now. This immersion, if brought to its extreme level, would turn into blindness, into pure envelopment, intoxicating us with love like in Paul Thomas Anderson’s film, Punch-Drunk Love. In the last period of his life Monet had to number the jars, because cataracts no longer allowed him perfect vision of color. Something similar to Beethoven’s deafness, it has been said. Not exactly, though. Music remains clean, written in the air. Imagined music, with notes and pauses, is the same as played music (is it?). Everything unfolds the same, as truth, not having matter. The symphony in Beethoven’s mind is rendered without verification. Monet’s composition instead is empirical and fugitive. It transforms into color around us and is enveloping matter. Just as the subject of the Water Lilies now is. And as it comes toward us it loses more and more verisimilitude. The painting reaches us through the eye and not from composition, not from mental abstraction, unless one seeks a zero degree, but the times are not yet ripe for the idea of zero degree. Given also the very low point of view I would say that a painterly informality ante litteram is instead present and well rendered. Now color is almost an assault on the canvas. The haze envelops us and we become part of it, the subject in the background takes its revenge, coming toward us, engulfing us, wrapping, covering us like a blanket. The world itself overturns. Between the lines appears Pollock’s dripped floor, the colors falling in his act of dripping paint from above, drops drawn by gravity. In Pollock’s paintings the very floor overturns and goes onto the wall, showing its real intentions: to attract us, like vertigo, to engulf us. We are like the water lilies upon which we now fall. Monet’s forms and colors are a bath of sensations within the subject. The overturning must be carried to its extreme conclusions to better understand immersion.
