More.

Every day I discover more and more beautiful things. It's enough to drive one mad. I have such a desire to do everything, my head is bursting with it.

Claude Monet

Hats matter.

Happy Birthday, Claude Monet

Monet, Cloud Reflection on the Water Lily Pond, 1903

I can't begin to describe a day as wonderful as this. One marvel after another, each lasting less than five minutes, it was enough to drive one mad. No country could be more extraordinary for a painter.

Claude Monet, born on this day in 1840

Seek.

Monet, The Boat Studio, 1876

I would like to paint the way a bird sings.  I'm never finished with my paintings; the further I get, the more I seek the impossible and the more powerless I feel.

Claude Monet

Transposition.

Techniques vary, art stays the same; it is a transposition of nature at once forceful and sensitive. 

Claude Monet

Breathing.

Monet, Morning Landscape, Giverny, 1888

A SPRING MORNING

The Spring comes in with all her hues and smells,

In freshness breathing over hills and dells;

O’er woods where May her gorgeous drapery flings,

And meads washed fragrant by their laughing springs.

Fresh are new opened flowers, untouched and free

From the bold rifling of the amorous bee.

The happy time of singing birds is come,

And Love’s lone pilgrimage now finds a home;

Among the mossy oaks now coos the dove,

And the hoarse crow finds softer notes for love.

The foxes play around their dens, and bark

In joy’s excess, ’mid woodland shadows dark.

The flowers join lips below; the leaves above;

And every sound that meets the ear is Love.

John Clare

Sings.

Monet, A Seascape, Shipping by Moonlight (detail), 1864

I would like to paint the way a bird sings.

Claude Monet

Dared.

Monet, Pond with Water Lilies, 1907

MORNING POEM

Every morning

the world

is created.

Under the orange

 

sticks of the sun

the heaped

ashes of the night

turn into leaves again

 

and fasten themselves to the high branches—

and the ponds appear

like black cloth

on which are painted islands

 

of summer lilies.

If it is your nature

to be happy

you will swim away along the soft trails

 

for hours, your imagination

alighting everywhere.

And if your spirit

carries within it

 

the thorn

that is heavier than lead—

if it’s all you can do

to keep on trudging—

 

there is still

somewhere deep within you

a beast shouting that the earth

is exactly what it wanted—

 

each pond with its blazing lilies

is a prayer heard and answered

lavishly,

every morning,

 

whether or not

you have ever dared to be happy,

whether or not

you have ever dared to pray.

Mary Oliver

Alters.

The light constantly changes, and that alters the atmosphere and beauty of things every minute.

Claude Monet

Beyond.

Monet, The Studio Boat, 1876

Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance.

Viktor E. Frankl, from Man's Search for Meaning

Better.

Turned.

 Monet, The Magpie, 1869

WHITE-EYES

In winter

    all the singing is in

         the tops of the trees

             where the wind-bird

with its white eyes

    shoves and pushes

         among the branches.

             Like any of us

he wants to go to sleep,

    but he's restless—

         he has an idea,

             and slowly it unfolds

from under his beating wings

    as long as he stays awake.

         But his big, round music, after all,

             is too breathy to last.

So, it's over.

    In the pine-crown

         he makes his nest,

             he's done all he can.

I don't know the name of this bird,

    I only imagine his glittering beak

         tucked in a white wing

             while the clouds—

which he has summoned

    from the north—

         which he has taught

             to be mild, and silent—

thicken, and begin to fall

    into the world below

         like stars, or the feathers

               of some unimaginable bird

that loves us,

    that is asleep now, and silent—

         that has turned itself

             into snow.

Mary Oliver

Repose.

Monet, Haystacks, End of Summer, 1891

SONG of the TRAVELLER at EVENING

Over all the hills now,

Repose.

In all the trees now

Shows

Barely a breath. Birds are through

That sang in their wood to the west.

Only wait, traveller. Rest

Soon for you too.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Good riddance, Summer.  Now, on to the grand and glorious Oyster Months.

Returned.

Monet, Olive Tree Wood in the Moreno Garden, 1884

RISING from a NAP at NOON

How can you stay awake all day?
At noon I think of taking a nap.
My bamboo bed has been warmed by the sun;
I toss and turn but cannot fall asleep,
So I get up, scratch my white head,
  And walk around the veranda a hundred times.

Just as I’m feeling most depressed
a strange thing happens to me –
a breeze blows through the northern door
and past the southern window,
  past the southern window,
      wafting to me
the fragrance of young orchids.

Cooled by the breeze, this old man feels refreshed,
as if he had returned to life.
But in the future, at times like this,
will the breeze come again?

Yang Wan-Li

Rhythm.

Monet, Morning on the Seine in the Rain, 1898

A little tap at the window, as though some missile had struck it, followed by a plentiful, falling sound, as light, though, as if a shower of sand were being sprinkled from a window overhead; then the fall spread, took on an order, a rhythm, became liquid, loud, drumming, musical, innumerable, universal. It was the rain.

Marcel Proust

Happy birthday, Monet.

Monet, Cloud Reflection on the Water Lily Pond, 1903

Claude Monet was born on this day in 1840.

I can't begin to describe a day as wonderful as this. One marvel after another, each lasting less than five minutes, it was enough to drive one mad. No country could be more extraordinary for a painter.

Claude Monet

Discover.

Every day I discover more and more beautiful things. It's enough to drive one mad. I have such a desire to do everything, my head is bursting with it.

Claude Monet

Together.

Monet, Haystacks at Sunset, 1890

Come, butterfly,

It’s late—

We’ve miles to go together.

Basho

Happy birthday, Monet.

Monet, Weeping Willow (detail), 1919

Claude Monet was born on this day in 1840.

It's on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly. I'm not performing miracles; I'm using up and wasting a lot of paint.

Claude Monet 

Sings.

I would like to paint the way a bird sings.

Claude Monet

Live.

The more I live, the more I regret how little I know.

Claude Monet