He had the new model walk around the studio, posing in various standing poses from time to time.
"Okay, that's it. Don't move. ”
He stood in front of the easel, holding his chin and thinking, the growing beard made the young painter at this time more like a philosopher.
He looked at the girl and added, "Please raise your right hand a little higher." Pinch the strap of the hat with your index finger and thumb. ”
"Good location and nice staff" He expressed satisfaction.
Then he turned and bowed deeply to the crowd of onlookers on the other side of the studio, "I'm going to start!" ”
The crowd consisted of the salon's judges, his painter friends, and neighbors who came to join in the fun.
How nice it would be if his own father was among them—he thought to himself.
When he put his first stroke on the canvas, the world was left with only the painter and the muse in front of him.
The girl was wearing a long black and green mop dress that he had borrowed from his super wealthy friend Frederick.
A tasteful Frederick told him that it was a beautiful symbol of the Second Reich era, that no woman would not fall in love with the texture of the fabric, that no woman could refuse the pleated shape; that no man would not be stirred by such pleasing images. More importantly, the black and green cloth reflects the uncertain luster of light and shade, giving the talented artist the opportunity to capture the color change.
Frederick's suggestion that the female model wear another short leather jacket, he listened—such an expensive coat, of course, was lent to him by his wealthy friend.
When recording light and shadow truthfully, the young newcomer painter occasionally remembered the enlightenment teacher's advice to him, but he could not understand the difference between the scene inside the painting room and the scenery outside the painting room.
At this moment, he was only thinking about how to restore everything about this new goddess on the canvas.
She had long brown hair, her delicate skin looked a little pale, and because of the makeup, the shaded eyelids made people think that she would always refuse people, but her long eyelashes seemed to beckon people not to be timid. Her eyes looked behind her, and her slightly pursed lips hinted that she wanted to stop talking.
Under the painter's brushstrokes, the girl's head, upper body and long skirt form a strong contrast of "light, dark and light". Whether it is the luster of the clothes, the touch of the fur, the texture of the lips, and the arrogance, pity, tiredness, and the temperament that she wants to refuse to return, everything is beautifully restored by the painter.
He didn't know why he had never achieved such precision before, and he couldn't explain why every stroke he had scrapped in front of her was so impeccable, as if every stroke had been there.
I don't know how long it took him to finally stop.
He looked at the painting, then at the girl, and nodded.
He was so satisfied with the painting that he named it in the lower right corner of the painting, The Woman in Green.
He put down his paintbrush and paint plate, turned around, and bowed again.
This means that the work has been completed.
Suddenly, the crowd in front of him erupted in cheers and applause, as if they were about to overturn the roof of the studio.
His painter friend patted him the shoulder and congratulated him. An excited salon representative hung a silver medal on his body.
What a glorious and meaningful moment!
For a young artist who is new to the world of painting, receiving a silver medal from the salon means that he has gained mainstream and authoritative recognition.
Ecstatic, he turned and strode over to the girl.
"Thank you, my muse, for this is my honor and your honor!"
He carefully held her hand, and the little hand was so white and soft that it seemed to be able to rub it into his body with a single squeeze. Because he was too close to the girl's face, his face was extremely unnaturally flushed.
The two looked at each other, with a pulse of affection, he finally tentatively used his lips to expect the girl's response, the girl smiled, closed her eyes, her long eyelashes pulled a moving curve, encouraging him to be brave and take the initiative.
He hugged her, and although the two of them seemed a little clumsy, the tenderness he radiated to her seemed to be to express, "I want to give her the only love and all the heart in my life."
He repeated the girl's name and looked at his beloved girl and muttered, "Happiness is a little unreal, is this a dream?" ”
All this, of course, is just a beautiful dream.
He opened his eyes, and the face that he had loved for 6 years was around.
She was asleep, her cheeks were slightly red, and her nose and lips fluttered slightly with her breathing.
He dressed as lightly as he could and got out of bed, but the wooden shoes still made a big "creak" sound when they stepped on a somewhat old oak floor.
The wooden shoes were also gifts she had bought for the two of them before returning to France from the Netherlands.
"Claude, are you going to paint?" A voice that nearly murmured asked.
"Yeah, honey." He walked as slowly as he could to the window and answered softly.
"Oh, it seems like you told me last night that you wanted to go to the harbor early in the morning and get some inspiration."
"Yeah, honey."
"What do you want to eat for breakfast?" I'll do it for you right away. His wife hadn't opened her misty eyes yet, and she was already trying to get up.
Claude quickly pressed his wife's small body, "I can just get some of it myself, it's only 5 o'clock now, you can sleep a little longer!" ”
"That... When you come back, let's have lunch together! The languid voice said.
"Okay."
He rearranged the quilt for his wife, he looked at her face, her low eyelashes, her eyes, her smile, her plump and beautiful flesh, her moving soul, which he had long forgotten.
He kissed her lightly on the cheek.
"I love you, Camille."
"I love you too, Claude."
He carefully closed the bedroom door and crept into the kitchen, like a alert and poor mouse.
He had wanted to burn some hot milk coffee and order cold baguettes, but the moment he opened the window to get through the fresh air, the cold breeze in the early morning of late autumn and early winter quickly dispelled this idea.
Carrying a pile of painting tools on his back and spending at least half an hour from home to the port of Le Havre, you can't help but have work in your belly.
He lit the stove and poured into the pot all the sausages, beef, potatoes, and so on that he had eaten last night.
This pot is chaotic, like the chaotic years before.
He finally married the model girl he met at the café against his father's objections, and the girl also ignored the scolding of her family and married the poor and lonely young artist.
Their wedding was simplistic, so simple that there was no Mass.
However, she didn't care.
Didn't care at all.
Claude had always felt guilty about Camille.
Camille gave birth to their first child 18 months after the relationship was confirmed, however, Claude was not with her when she gave birth, nor was her family.
As a result, the 19-year-old girl at that time had to take care of herself and her son alone for a long time.
Claude's artistic start did not go well. Even though his Camille-modeled Woman in Green was recognized by the Paris Salon two years ago, his work did not receive a further positive response from the market.
At that time, many academic masters, gallery owners, art-obsessed painting buyers and art speculators criticized Claude's paintings in various ways. The failure to sell the painting meant that Claude fell into inevitable poverty; and his father's great denial of his pursuit made it impossible for him to even seek help from his family.
One night, the landlord, who had been taking credit for too long, burst into the house, confiscated all of Claude's works and painting tools, and swept him out of the house.
The grief-stricken Claude jumped straight into the cold and bitter Seine River, trying to drown his ashamed self.
Thank God, his reckless suicide had undoubtedly failed—he had forgotten that he could actually swim.
All this pushed the young artist step by step into a desperate situation, and his mood changes began to become more and more impermanent, sometimes long silence, sometimes long anger, and his language and movements became vicious and terrible, like a roaring male lion. He destroyed his paintings one by one in the house, roaring with his dissatisfaction with the world.
And his beloved Camille was so frightened in the corner of the room that he did not dare to move, and could only whisper a reminder: Our children are still sleeping in the next room!
Finally, he stopped all kinds of swearing and began to pace back and forth, and his mood finally stabilized.
She was with him, never asking for anything, and she had been calmly receiving all of Claude's joys and sorrows. Claude admired and appreciated Camille for being able to withstand all the pressures with that seemingly weak body, whether it was tightness, loneliness, disappointment, humiliation.
How much energy is there in this gentle, shy, kind, beautiful woman? Claude didn't know. Maybe this wonderful mystery is one of the reasons why he is always fascinated by her!
She always had ways to help Claude get his messy life organized.
He was slowly reinvigorated by her optimism and tenacity, and his love for his wife and son was transformed into a strength and vision that prompted him to notice how to grasp the essence of things.
His paintings began to be paid extra attention, orders began to increase, life began to brighten, and everything began to really get better.
She had illuminated his canvas, and she would illuminate all the canvases of his life.
He ate a steaming pot of steaming stew with a glass of Burgundy red wine.
A sense of abundance enveloped his whole body, and he was full of confidence, like a general who knew that he was about to fight a victorious battle. Of course, it seemed only because he knew it was a good day—because yesterday evening he had carefully observed the clouds.
Claude put on the worn-out coat that he often wore in his sketches, picked up the wooden crate that had been with him for many years, picked up the canvas and other tools he needed, and walked out of the house contentedly.
It was a little dark outside, the whole city was still asleep, and a few sparks seemed to be guiding Claude in the direction of his dreams.
He knew that when he came back, the whole world would be bright.
He also knew that he had to leave light and shadow behind again and again, and that only by painting, by painting, by painting, by keeping drawing, and painting the greatest and greatest paintings in the world, could he give his beloved all she wanted.
He walked along the path on the Seine for the porters to walk in the direction of the port of Le Havre.
Time passed minute by minute with Claude's footsteps, and the whole city slowly woke up, and the horizon could already be faintly seen.
The horizon of childhood, that was the horizon of his childhood!
More than a decade ago, it was here that Claude and his mentor Boudin gathered inspiration in the wild.
Just a few years ago, he had fled with Camille to the far side of the horizon—because war had come, and these poor people had to flee for disaster in London.
Claude hated war and Hated Napoleon III, who declared war with Prussia.
Without those soldiers, his friend Frederick would not have stayed on the front line forever; he and Camille, as well as other artists, would not have had to go to their homeland.
Pierre's letter told him that Paris was once full of fighting, destruction, looting and fire, and that the quietly flowing Seine was like the tears of the whole of France, mourning the peace and beauty of the past.
While the reconstructed rail and bridge at the port of Le Havre show a kind of destruction and thriving after a new life, the undemolished fortifications on the roadside still remind those who come and go – it was once windy and dead.
In the distance came the sound of the train's whistle, and Claude stopped and looked in the direction of the railway, where a long steel dragon was spewing gray and white dragon's breath towards paris.
The sky seemed to be startled by this long sound, and unconsciously it was a little white.
He thought of the Saint-Lazare train station.
When he lived in Paris, he loved going to the English pub near the Saint-Lazare train station and drinking a sweet gin.
He would sometimes stand alone in the halls of the train station, reciting the names of the cities as if in a dream: Rouen, Montrarri, Le Havre, Giverny...
Oh, when I get back to Paris, I'll have to paint a few paintings of the Saint-Lazare train station—Claude thought.
Take another look at rouen Cathedral! —Claude thought again.
He took the old pipe from the pocket of his coat and tapped the heel of the wooden shoe, and the soot scattered on the grass was like an old gray memory, so easily shelved. He took a packet of tobacco from the other pocket of his coat, stuffed some into the pipe, carefully packed the rest of the tobacco into his pocket, took out another box of matches, and rubbed one with the wind on his back.
The flames jumped, which was the burning hope, and he hid the hope in the pipe, which gradually warmed his fingertips.
Claude spat out a faint puff of smoke, blending in with the thin mist that permeated the harbor.
This is where I lived as a child.
Claude thought as he walked and looked, and finally found a place where he thought the perspective was the most perfect.
To the east, he could see the huge ships and masts, the cranes on the docks, the bell towers, and people; to the west, a coast, and at this time, the vast sea and sky squeezed it into a thin line—he felt that this was the place where he had come as a child, and even where he stood now, where he had painted alone.
He put down the wooden box and the painting tools and began to make final preparations for capturing that moment.
Claude first dug a ditch in the ground, propped up an easel, and put on the canvas he had carefully selected the night before—it wasn't large, only 64×48 centimeters.
As he squeezed the paint on the palette, he couldn't help but think of Pierre.
3 years ago, when the two painted "Frog Pond" together, Pierre laughed and said that when the Americans were independent, we had sent all kinds of weapons to the Yankees, and now, it is the turn of the Yankees to send us powerful "weapons" to overthrow the authority of the Sharon!
Claude asked, what weapon?
Pierre raised the tin tube paint in his hand and said, "Isn't this what the Yankees invented?" We poor painters have to thank him! Otherwise we're going to run around with the paint in the pig urine bubbles! ”
Claude laughed, "If we really still use the paint in pig urine bubbles, how can we go out and paint?" ”
The two looked at each other and laughed at the scene of each other carrying easels and canvases and running down the street with several large bags of pig urine bubbles!
In fact, Claude originally wanted to ask Pierre to come to le Havre Port to sketch, but Pierre wrote yesterday that his love affair that had been talking for 7 years came to an abrupt end, and if Claude still let his desperate friend run to the port to blow the sea breeze at this time, I am afraid it would be too unkind.
Claude poured a little soot and added some tobacco, and he picked up his pipe, holding a palette in his left hand and a paintbrush in his right, like a confident general who was about to command an invincible army; at this moment, his eyes looked around, his eyes sharp as a hungry falcon, quietly hunting the scenery that moved him.
It was a vibrant, foggy morning.
The blue waters sparkle and the mist of the morning sun steams up. The hazy beauty will soon be broken by the rising sun in the east. Various shadows and shadows have begun to melt, and the original shapes of chimneys, cranes, and buildings in the distance are slowly revealed.
The sun finally jumped out of the sea level and began to tear the clouds apart, and the edges of the clouds began to glow with bright golden threads, and the sea surface was pulled out of an increasingly dazzling light, night and morning light, tiredness and sobriety, dreaminess and reality, as the gray horizon became clearer and clearer, it began to separate.
In the early morning of the port of Le Havre, the sea, the sky, the scenery, interlaced and infiltrated, light and shadow swayed in clarity and blur.
Claude looked mesmerized, as if he had witnessed it countless times in his childhood, and now new landscapes and ever-changing colors shot into his eyes, pouring into his body, shaking and resonating.
Boudin's phrase ,"Anything drawn directly on the spot, often has a power and vividness with a pen that you can no longer find in the studio"—suddenly lingered in Claude's ear.
At this moment, he understood this sentence completely and thoroughly.
That sudden sense of ecstasy seemed to burst out of his chest!
He knew his long-awaited moment had finally arrived!
Presented on the canvas is only a brief moment, but this moment is destined to become eternal.
He immediately picked up the paintbrush and smeared the moment on the canvas, splashing all kinds of colors on the canvas. He must be quick and precise—the form must be simple, but the lines must be extraordinarily precise—in order to retain the moments he sees in the world.
He recorded the moments frantically, completely ignoring the passing time.
Six years ago, when he painted "The Woman in Green", he was in a similar state.
Claude first rendered the sky in orange-yellow or gray blocks, and the paintbrush danced joyfully on the cloth; then he transformed into an architect, letting the factory chimneys in the distance and the cranes on the harbor stand on the picture in dark blue thick and thin strips; then Claude became a conductor, and the color notes jumped briskly on the canvas, and the reflection of the rising sun on the sea, the three small boats and figures that were somewhat blurred in the fog, were all composed one by one by one in short lines, a school of water and light. The vague impression of the smoke wave seems to be so rhythmic.
The sun rises and the fog is misty, is this the real world, or the imaginary world?
On that day, when the sun jumped out of the sea level and made the thick clouds instantly become light and soft, the gray sky, the gray sea, and the gray days had disappeared.
It's finally done!
The general finally won a war in which the enemy was invisible.
He looked at the painting and nodded triumphantly.
He tried to take a puff of his cigarette, but found that the pipe was extinguished.
He took his pipe and knocked the heel of his shoe, and the wooden pipe joined hands with the hard wooden sole to give a shout of praise. He knocked out the soot, blew it again, filled the remaining pipe with fresh tobacco, and lit it again—a series of movements so skillful, dashing, and precise that it was no different from the way he recorded moments of light and shadow on the canvas.
Oh, there seems to be something missing.
He thought for a moment and signed his name and year in the lower left corner of the canvas—Claude Monet, 1872.
It's time to go back.
Claude said to himself.
In the distance, he saw the ribbon of his hat fluttering.
Camille stood outside the house, her thick brown hair braided around her head, and she wore a large leather hat with ears and a slightly longer black ribbon. The girl was slowly and seemingly carelessly putting on a pair of small black goatskin gloves, while looking at something.
It seemed that the tacit understanding between the lovers had made her know that he would return at this time.
She noticed him at a glance and waved excitedly.
"What are you doing?"
"Wait for you to come back!"
"Why don't you wait in the house, it's cold outside!" And then where are you going? ”
"Bazaar!" The slightly cold air made Camille's cheeks blush and glow, "I want to cook a rich lunch, but I have to buy a lot of fresh ingredients!" ”
"When I put my stuff in the house, let's go together!" Claude said.
"What did you draw today?"
He showed his new work to his wife, "I painted the morning sunrise in the port of Le Havre!" ”
"It was so nice!" Camille exclaimed, "Why... Does this picture look a little blurry? ”
"There was a big fog in the morning! Oh dear, the scene was amazing! ”
"It's a shame I knew I'd go to see it too!" Camille said.
"It's okay, there are sunrises as beautiful as you every day!" Claude caressed Camille's face.
"There is a different sunrise every day in the world, and I only have one Claude." She said with a slight sneer, looking up at him slightly.
That moment reminded him of 6 years ago.
In that humble café, it was this cute smile that slightly raised his head and raised his eyebrows, which hit his heart.
It was the sun in his life, and her appearance was like the first sunrise of creation, and the lines of inspiration and color naturally burst from the tip of the pen, illuminating her own world and all the roads that followed.
Ten thousand years at a glance.
remark:
[1] According to relevant research, Sunrise Impression was created at about 7:00 a.m. on November 13, 1872.
[2] Camille was Monet's wife, who died of uterine cancer in 1879 at the age of 31 shortly after giving birth to monet's second child. Monet used her portrait to create "Camille Before Death" with grief, and left the only one ❤ in her life in the signature.
[3] In 1872, Monet's main residence was actually in Argenteuil, on the outskirts of Paris, about 150 kilometers from the straight-line distance of Le Havre.
[4] This story is slightly adapted based on historical facts. Readers interested in Monet recommend checking out more.