Essay Database

Grainstack (Sunset) Impressionist paintings are put into a category based on certain characteristics. Such features include light that draws attention to objects, rough textures, and visual pleasure that the viewer receives upon looking at paintings. Grainstack (Sunset) by Claude Monet is a great example of this. During the time this painting was done, there were several disturbances going on in Europe, such as high rates of suicide and the creation of anarchist groups. It was …

…a whole, gives the viewer a look at what Claude Monet was actually seeing with his eyes. “He did not paint a grainstack yellow simply because he knew hay to be yellow. He painted it in the colors that natural light rendered it to his eyes” (Sayre 138). With this being said, Monet’s effect of light, atmosphere, and mixing colors in the painting is what makes the work and Monet unique in their own way.