[Leica] Eyes___

[red735i at verizon.net (Frank Filippone)]

Claude Monet

We know from medical records and correspondence that he had cataracts that
worsened steadily over the decade from 1912 to 1922.   Slowly progressive
age-related cataracts (nuclear sclerosis) manifest as yellowing and
darkening of the lens that are directly visible to an examining
ophthalmologist and have a major effect on color perception as well as
visual acuity. The visual simulations of this study are based on estimation
of the lens discoloration that is typically associated with differing levels
of visual acuity loss from chronic nuclear sclerotic cataracts.

Monet was aware of his failing vision in 1912 and consulted several
different ophthalmologists, who diagnosed cataracts.  Surgery was
recommended for the worse eye, but Monet was very resistant even though the
operation was well established and relatively safe at this time.
Interestingly, he was worried that his color perception would be altered by
the surgery (although one might argue that it would become more normal).
Since Monet only described slightly reduced vision and was having no major
difficulties with his art or his personal life, his visual acuity in 1912
was probably no worse than 20/50.

By 1914 to 1915, Monet's visual difficulties were becoming more serious. He
wrote that ?colors no longer had the same intensity for me . . . reds had
begun to look muddy . . . my painting was getting more and more darkened.?9
He felt that he could no longer distinguish or choose colors well and was
?on the one hand trusting solely to the labels on the tubes of paint and, on
the other, to force of habit.?9 He could still read and write with effort,
so I would estimate that his visual acuity in 1918 was near 20/100. However,
the yellowing of his lens caused greater difficulty with his art than the
blur. Figure 3A and B compare a photograph of Monet's garden and a painting
of the scene from 1899 (when his vision was unimpaired). Figure 3C shows the
garden as it would have appeared to Monet around 1915. Most colors are still
distinguishable, but there is an overriding yellowish cast and a loss of
subtle color discriminations. Figure 4A and B show a water lily painting
from 1915 to 1917 as it appears to us and as it would have looked to Monet
at that time.

I must digress at this point to note that artists can respond in several
different ways to a yellow filter (cataract) in front of their world, and
one cannot predict necessarily how it will influence their art. Because
cataracts are chronic, a patient may not be aware that the world looks
yellowish (as there are no normal colors with which to compare). However,
whether an artist recognizes the yellow bias or not, there will be a choice
between painting a yellowish world or adding extra blue as compensation (eg,
to make the sky appear ?properly? blue). Furthermore, the artist may mix
these techniques with Monet's approach of painting by experience and choose
colors from habit rather than observation. The idea that the artist will
self-correct, ie, choose colors by matching the canvas to the scene, does
not hold because certain colors that are different on the palette will look
the same through the cataract (eg, yellow and white).

Between 1919 and 1922, Monet was fearful that he might have to stop
painting. He would only paint during certain hours when the lighting was
optimal, and he was well aware that colors were lost in the yellow blur of
his vision that made his garden appear severely monotone (Figure 3D). His
visual acuity was recorded in 1922 to be 20/200 in the better eye.

W find striking changes in the style of Monet's paintings during the period
of progressive visual failure. Compare paintings of the lily pond done in
1899 (Figure 3B), in 1915 to 1917, and around 1922. These late paintings are
almost abstract in the applications of paint and show a predominant
red-orange or green-blue tone that is quite different from the subtle color
shading that characterizes Monet's earlier Impressionistic work. As with
Degas, there is nothing in Monet's correspondence to suggest that he had any
intention of mimicking the abstractions and distortions explored by other
painters in the early 20th century.

Monet's mature style was not dependent on the outlining of figures or the
subtle shading of figures and clothing, and his applications of paint were
larger than those of Degas. When we look through Monet's eyes at the late
paintings, we see that although he would have recognized the relative
coarseness of his brushstrokes, he could not recognize the true colors of
his paintings. In 1914 to 1917, his color perceptions were dulled (Figure 4A
and B), but toward 1922, images that are strikingly orange or strikingly
blue were to him almost indistinguishable as a murky yellow-green. Even if
he painted these works according to habit, he could not judge the effect
that he was having on the viewer, nor could he refine the works without
risking errors in judgment.

It is very difficult for us a century later to know whether these works
appear to us as Monet wanted them to appear. Monet finally acquiesced to
cataract surgery, which was performed in 1923. Afterward, he destroyed many
of his late canvases. Many of those that remain do so only because they were
salvaged by family and friends. Virtually all of his paintings in this late
style are undated, but there is a Japanese Bridge dated 1919 and a House and
Garden dated 1922, which leads me to believe that these late-style works
were done during his period of severely impaired vision. Of course, we do
not know the degree to which Monet accepted or liked these salvaged works,
and we also do not know whether some of these canvases might have been
reworked after his cataract surgery.

Monet did very well with cataract surgery and regained acceptable reading
vision. He was acutely aware of changes in color perception in the eye that
underwent surgery, and he complained vigorously for more than a year that
the world appeared either too yellow or too blue.  He finally regained
confidence in his view of the world in 1924 and worked vigorously to refine
the great Water Lily canvases now hanging in the Mus?e de l?Orangerie,
Paris, France. It must be noted that the style of these ?grand decorations?
clearly harkens back to that of his earlier paintings.  Thus, it seems
unlikely that he had adopted or espoused his broader style from 1919 to 1922
entirely by free choice or that he was entirely pleased with it.

Frank Filippone

Red735i at verizon.net