Select Date/Time

It is often said that Impressionism addresses the eye and only the eye. The painter Paul Cézanne once said of Claude Monet:  He is only an eye, but what an eye!  Cézanne's exclamation meant that Monet's eye went further than any other. He thus raises the question of where an eye like Monet's can take us; what can a painter make us  see  beyond the painted surface? My answer is that Monet takes us beyond the instant of vision to feelings that occur within the body. Through the eye, his art appeals directly to bodily senses, causing his viewer to experience far more than merely seeing. This effort culminates in the Water Lilies, where Impressionist painting literally sets the body in motion.

Presented by James H. Rubin, Ph.D., professor of art history at Stony Brook, State University of New York.