Comparisons to Monet Bothered This Artist. Now They’re Side by Side.
“I have no intention of trying to imitate nature,” Monet said last year in a long, rambling and very funny interview with The New York Times.
“I mean, let’s face it: I paint with my eyes closed. So when I paint as if I see the Monet brush stroke, and I feel like that’s it, I’m finished.”
That’s certainly true about my art from this vantage point (so far), which is why it’s been very frustrating for me to have all these comparisons to Monet. I used to be the guy that wanted to be the only one in the room trying to copy what I was seeing, and I have to confess to feeling a little guilty about that. I really felt like I was going about it all wrong.
But I was really starting from that place, so I never really felt like I was doing anything wrong. In fact, I thought Monet was just doing what I thought he was doing — and I was trying to figure out what he was doing by looking at my work, no different than a kid in a candy shop looking at an exploding candy bar.
And for the most part, it was an enjoyable experience. You get to make art that is very different from what’s in the market and what’s being shown in the galleries, in order to try to see if I could do that.
I don’t think I ever saw Monet’s work up close and personal, but maybe that’s just because I don’t want to be there in the way that he wanted me to be there. But I like this comparison because it’s funny to me, and I like seeing other artists’ art in comparison to Monet’s. And I think that there are two ways to look at the Monet comparison, depending on whether you like him or not.
If you do, I think the comparison is fun. And if you don’t like him, I think the comparison