The troubled eye of Monet

So I have an appointment with the eye doctor tomorrow, which I am awaiting with 90% relief and 10% trepidation. Relief predominates because, dudes, I desperately need new glasses. The squinting has gotten out of control.

The trepidation is mostly related to what I know is going to happen: the doctor is going to tell me that I need a new kind of glasses, the kind that begin with “bi” and end with “focals.” Now, it is simply not possible that I am old enough to need bifocals. Yes, technically, I’m over 40, but only in the sense that my birth was more than 40 years ago. I’m not actually in my 40s. That’s simply not possible.

There’s another tiny bit of trepidation to which I have to admit–a wee bit, a frisson if you will, of angst that my eyes might be troubled more than simply by myopia, astigmatism and that whole over-40 business. I come from a family with eye problems, both macular degeneration, which can be treated, and a weird genetic condition that can’t. We don’t know if I have the weird eye thing, it could never trouble me my entire life, but it’s scary enough that I go to an MD for my eye exams, not the optometrist at the mall.

Because, my friends, seeing is cool. I am pro-sight. I like looking at things. I kinda do it for a living, even. It’s hard to imagine writing about art if you couldn’t look at it.

Which leads me to Monet. Because if you think it’s hard being an arts writer with eye problems, imagine being an artist.

Let’s dispel some myths first. No, Monet did not paint the way he did his entire life because he had bad eyesight. When he was a young man, his eyes were perfectly fine. Check out this early painting of Monet’s future wife, which is clear and sharp and not blurry at all.

Claude Monet, Detail from "Camille (The Woman in the Green Dress)," 1866

The “fuzziness” of Monet’s style was deliberate and conscious. Monet was interested in atmosphere, light, space, air. He studied the way light revealed different colors under different atmospheric conditions, and the “blurriness” of his works was his way of representing that light and color.

Claude Monet, "Impression, Sunrise," 1872 (Click for larger image.)

This painting from 1872 (which, incidentally, gave the Impressionist movement its name) isn’t intended to be a detailed, sharp-edge depiction of boating in a harbor. It’s an impression of the effect of a sunrise on a foggy, cloudy setting.

Monet’s eyesight only became a problem late in his life, when, in his 70s, he began to develop cataracts. Today this wouldn’t be an issue. Cataract surgery is a quick out-patient procedure that you recover from in a day. Not so in the early 20th century. While surgery was available, it was painful, required a long recovery, and posed substantial risk.

Monet was first diagnosed with cataracts in both eyes in 1912, at the age of 72, but the condition had begun affecting his vision for at nearly a decade. Art historians and eye experts have traced a steady change in his color palette starting around 1905. He moved away from blues and greens. His canvases became dominated by reds and yellows, often pure pigments. This is consistent with the visual effects of cataracts, which desaturate colors and give all objects a yellow cast.

At his prime, Monet was a brilliant colorist—sensitive, subtle, delicate. Look at the incredibly blending and tone of this work:

Claude Monet, "Water lilies," 1908

Compare it to this:

Claude Monet, "Water lilies," 1923

It’s . . . horrifying. Red smudges with egg yolks. And terribly, terribly sad.

Another comparison—here’s Monet’s famous painting of the Japanese bridge over the lily pond at his house in Giverny:

Claude Monet, "Water Lily Pond," 1897

And the same scene a few years later:

Claude Monet, "Water Lily Pond," 1923

Monet realized what was happening. He considered giving up painting altogether and destroyed some of his canvases. Friends urged surgery, but he feared the results. Mary Cassatt, a long-time friend and colleague, had had cataract surgery on both eyes and been left essentially blind. Finally in 1923 he agreed to surgery on his right eye.

The results were mixed. Monet no longer saw the world as yellow but as blue—everything had a bluish cast. He realized this himself when he found he was going through blue paint faster than any other color. Here’s another version of the bridge from this last period:

Claude Monet, "The Japanese Bridge," 1924

Monet never consented to surgery on his left eye–it was simply too risky.

Monet wasn’t the only artist with vision troubles. Cassatt I’ve already mentioned. Degas’ vision began to decline even earlier than Monet’s, and from his 40s on he struggled with his sight. He died in near blindness.

I’m really not worried about my sight—I’m visiting the MD out of an excess of caution. It’s the kind of thing I might fret about at three o’clock in the morning, but generally I’m confident I have years of fantastic art-viewing ahead of me. Albeit in—oh, I can hardly bear to say it—bifocals.

As for Monet, I have to admire his persistence. He didn’t give up. He was an artist, and even in his literally darkest days, he made art. It would have been easy to throw away his brushes, go to bed and pull the covers over his head. I admire his commitment to the act of creation. Cezanne said of Monet that he was “only an eye—but what an eye!” How tragic that those eyes failed him in the end.