The Studio Boat

Growing up in Sainte-Adresse on the outskirts of Le Havre, Oscar-Claude Monet was quite accustomed to drawing boats and related nautical crafts throughout his youth. This fascination for the sea extended to his adulthood and is reflected in many of his paintings. By his thirties, Oscar-Claude Monet had been quite successful that he had enough money to procure art supplies from the best stores; he had travelled extensively and painted various landscapes and outdoor themes. The artist was confident of his ability as an artist and he was determined to improve his art and invested in various practical devices to help him achieve his goal. One such purchase was his studio boat; he already had a studio in Paris where he met dealers and brokers. The studio boat was to be used to impact a portion of his paintings such as Regatta at Argenteuil. Oscar-Claude Monet often used his boat to render different viewpoints of the same image for his paintings. This persistence to view different viewpoints was integral to the unique style of the artist, and in particular that of impressionists. He would often take into account, time, the effect of nature and the colors that would mesh into a visual harmony. This painting The Studio Boat (1874) seems a little darker than his earlier paintings, the play of light as per the artist's viewpoint. The boat seems embossed in the painting as it appears to jump out of the painting. The distance and varying heights of the trees provides the depth that makes the painting move as you stare at it longer. Finally the water serves a dual purpose; in helping create depth the ripples seem to move the boat along while the duality in light. Darker near the shore and lighter near the boat tends to combine the hues into a unified painting.