Monet's painting techniques

We have earlier referred to John House: ‘Nature into art’. Read more about Monet’s methods of painting in the chapter ‘Pentimenti’ p.183.

Considering the change of scenery that we found in our River Scene, the following part from this chapter, gives us a good idea of Monet’s procedure:..”during the execution of a painting: The study of Monet’s pentimenti is hampered by the fact that very few of his paintings have been X-rayed, perhaps on the assumption that his methods were straightforward. For the moment, the conclusions must be based on examination of his paint surfaces, but in this Monet’s techniques of painting are a great help. At least between around 1874 and 1895 he consistently worked in full impasto, and, when corrections had to be made, he generally left his previous working intact below the new layers. (Sometimes he did scrape out failed beginnings, and a few canvases show partly scraped zones left unreworked, presumably when the removal of some paint by itself achieved the desired effect.) But for the most part he left the original layers undisturbed, to keep his reworking to a minimum, allowing as much as possible of the previous working to play a part in the revised appearance of the painting.” etc.,etc.- many very interesting conclusions – hand in glove with the pentimenti found in our paintings!

Referring to ‘partly scraped zones left unreworked’, one of the best examples of this must be: ‘Glicinas’, 1919-1920, Musée Marmottan, Paris. This kind of scraping off paint with the pallet knife is the same as in our Meadow scene! On both sides of the figure we see distinct scrape marks where layers of paint have been scraped off! It was left unreworked in this way since it "by itself achieved the desired effect".