Times change, and we are taking a fresh approach and looking at the world through art. In 1875, Claude Monet painted his early masterpiece, Woman with a Parasol – Madame Monet and Her Son. It’s the earliest days of impression and a soft approach to color and object discovers the most beautiful essentials of the world. But how might this change over the next century and a half?
By David Stone
The Changing World Through Art
Impressionism forced its way into an increasingly uncomfortable world where industrialization and modernization were quickly changing everything. Monet and his friends hoped to capture some of the natural world’s grace and beauty before it was gone forever.
But nearly a century and a half have passed since then, and the world has changed in ways Monet could never have guessed. Two brutal World Wars and countless smaller struggles have scarred the France he loved.
Industrialization and urbanization have overpower huge swaths of nature.
Science has forced us to see life and nature differently. Magic and beauty have been reduced and altered.
Here in the troubled world of 2023, this represents our idea of what Monet would reflect on canvas today:
Arguably, the center of the art world today is in America, principally New York City.
And no struggling artist could afford a healthy well-kept child in America, especially New York City, today.
What the Promenade Remembers
The light on the East River in the early morning is different from the light anywhere else on the Island. It comes in low and sideways, catching the water in long, uneven flashes. On certain days it makes the promenade feel less like a walkway and more like a corridor someone once meant to finish but never quite did. When I was younger I found the suggestion to stop and look at it faintly ridiculous.
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