The Magpie, Claude Monet
Beautifully direct and painterly, The Magpie is the best known of Monet’s numerous snow scenes.
On Google Art Project, also in high-res on Wikimedia Commons (4.7mb). Original is in the Musée d’Orsay.
Link: The Magpie, Google Art Project
Eye candy, indeed! Yum! :)
I have always had a love/hate relationship with this painting.
First, The color is wonderful and full of crisp light.
Second, it’s a Monet, who could NOT love a Monet?
Third, It’s a bad composition. Look how much emphasis the bird gives to the left side of the painting. And there is really nothing on the right.
If it was his intention to include the shadows in the snow as a counter or even the essence of the day, it still doesn’t make the grade.
I cannot escape the bird on the fence long enough to enjoy the day, like light into a black hole.
Interesting. I’ve sometimes thought, because of the way most of us in the Western hemisphere read images as well as text left to right, that the composition might be stronger if the painting was reversed, left to right: http://www.linesandcolors.com/images/2014-01/magpie_flopped.jpg
Your right it is.
I think the original composition is mostly ok but maybe without the gate it would have been better. The Magpie could have been moved slightly to the right and onto the gate post, or even add a new post further to the right sticking out of the hedge.
Luckily I know nothing about art appreciation or ‘composition’, so I could just stand in front of this painting and be rocked by its beauty. When you stand before it, you can smell the cold, and Monet has painted the snow so that you know exactly the crunch it will make if you step into that snowy scene. The sun sparkles, the place beckons. Just beautiful.