Claude-Oscar Monet (1840 - 1926)
Vétheuil in Winter, 1878-1879
oil on canvas
27 x 35 3/8 in. (68.6 x 89.9 cm)
Purchased by The Frick Collection, 1942
Accession number: 1942.1.146
Vétheuil in Winter, 1878-1879
oil on canvas
27 x 35 3/8 in. (68.6 x 89.9 cm)
Purchased by The Frick Collection, 1942
Accession number: 1942.1.146
Frick Analysis
My visit to the ‘Frick Collection’ was a pleasant one. The building itself was a work of art. Henry Frick had the house specifically made with the intentions of opening it as a museum for the public after his death. Source? The result is the best of both worlds: a non-overwhelming display of artwork in a comfortable environment enveloped in the architectural majesty of a small mansion. The over hundred year old exterior of the building juxtaposes the modernity of the city and the comfortable interior stands out from most cold museum settings. The picture that drew my intrigue was Vétheuil in Winter, by Claude Monet.
Before entering each exhibition room I equipped myself with an ‘artistic guard’ which prepared me for the paintings to come. However, Vétheuil in Winter caught me completely off guard, as it was hanging in a hallway connecting two of the main rooms. In addition to its unusual location, the brightness of the blue and white colors immediately caught my eye. I recognized Vétheuil in Winter to be an impressionist painting, which I learned how to identify in my senior year of high school, and it would be the only one I would throughout the whole collection. I was most interested, though, in the fact that it was a painting of a vast amount of space, much unlike most paintings in the collection which were portraits.
The painting is of a winter day in the town of Vétheuil. From the perspective of the painting, the viewer is closest to a body of water and can look out to the snow covered land leading to a little village. Beyond the village there are hilltops covered in snow which meet the sky at the horizon. The dominant colors in Vétheuil in Winter are white and blue and change with each shift in spatial structure, from the river to the land to the village to the hills to the sky. The contrast clearly defined the varying parts of the painting and allowed me to view them individually as well as a whole.
The colors emphasized the effect of winter on the setting, and allowed me to empathize with the low temperatures. The cold displayed in the painting was emphasized by a feeling of stillness. The great amount of distance covered in the painting, along with the winter colors, made men in the rowboats frozen. As Robert Frost would have put it, they had “miles to go”(Frost, Robert) and seemed frozen in time when put in perspective with the landscape. In fact, all of life seemed frozen. The only action present in the painting is that of the men in the rowboats, and it is a slow one made even slower by the how miniscule of a distance they seem to cover in such a long time. I felt an immense amount of peace in the stillness. Monet, however, might not have agreed as he drew Vétheuil in Winter during a very dismal time in his life. According to the Frick Collection, the painting is reflective of Monet’s “financial difficulties”3 and “the recent death of his wife, Camille, at the age of 32”(Frick Collection)
I believe the difference in meaning make Vétheuil in Winter an introspective piece of work. It contains a great deal of subtlety, withholding throwing any specific emotion other than stillness at its observers. The house-museum of Henry Frick compliments it very well and it’s interesting placement in between two rooms captures, perhaps almost as well as the painting itself, the essence of stillness.
The building, much like all the paintings it houses, holds differing meanings when observed from the perspectives of different people. For example, the house of the ‘Frick Collection’ means one thing to Henry Frick himself and an entirely different one to the general public.
Henry Clay Frick was the chairman of the ‘Carnegie Steel Company’ and financed the production of the ‘Pennsylvania Railroad’ and the ‘Reading Company’, two of the earliest and most integral companies involved in the lucrative business of railroad production. Frick became chairman of the ‘Carnegie Steel Company’ after “([Andrew]) Carnegie and Frick entered into a partnership that ensured the future of their dominance in the (steel and coke) industry” (Netstate, pp.2) and “by the age of 30, Henry Frick was a millionaire” (Netstate, pp.1). As a result, the two immensely rich men were always in competition. Frick, who loved art, decided to create ‘The Frick Collection’ in order to house a place where he could store the works of art in his collection. However, Frick is also quoted saying that the building of ‘The Frick Collection’ would “make Carnegie’s place look like a miner’s shack” (Standiford). It’s evident that creating a majestic area where an art collection could be accessed by the public was not the only reason the Frick mansion was constantly expanded. From Frick’s perspective, the mansion which covers a whole block in Manhattan, is an ode to the immense success Frick has achieved in his lifetime, even over his partners; a reflection of wealth. To the public, however, the building is a symbol of the resilience of art. It is a place made for the sole reason of complimenting the artwork contained inside with architectural grace and comfort.
Before entering each exhibition room I equipped myself with an ‘artistic guard’ which prepared me for the paintings to come. However, Vétheuil in Winter caught me completely off guard, as it was hanging in a hallway connecting two of the main rooms. In addition to its unusual location, the brightness of the blue and white colors immediately caught my eye. I recognized Vétheuil in Winter to be an impressionist painting, which I learned how to identify in my senior year of high school, and it would be the only one I would throughout the whole collection. I was most interested, though, in the fact that it was a painting of a vast amount of space, much unlike most paintings in the collection which were portraits.
The painting is of a winter day in the town of Vétheuil. From the perspective of the painting, the viewer is closest to a body of water and can look out to the snow covered land leading to a little village. Beyond the village there are hilltops covered in snow which meet the sky at the horizon. The dominant colors in Vétheuil in Winter are white and blue and change with each shift in spatial structure, from the river to the land to the village to the hills to the sky. The contrast clearly defined the varying parts of the painting and allowed me to view them individually as well as a whole.
The colors emphasized the effect of winter on the setting, and allowed me to empathize with the low temperatures. The cold displayed in the painting was emphasized by a feeling of stillness. The great amount of distance covered in the painting, along with the winter colors, made men in the rowboats frozen. As Robert Frost would have put it, they had “miles to go”(Frost, Robert) and seemed frozen in time when put in perspective with the landscape. In fact, all of life seemed frozen. The only action present in the painting is that of the men in the rowboats, and it is a slow one made even slower by the how miniscule of a distance they seem to cover in such a long time. I felt an immense amount of peace in the stillness. Monet, however, might not have agreed as he drew Vétheuil in Winter during a very dismal time in his life. According to the Frick Collection, the painting is reflective of Monet’s “financial difficulties”3 and “the recent death of his wife, Camille, at the age of 32”(Frick Collection)
I believe the difference in meaning make Vétheuil in Winter an introspective piece of work. It contains a great deal of subtlety, withholding throwing any specific emotion other than stillness at its observers. The house-museum of Henry Frick compliments it very well and it’s interesting placement in between two rooms captures, perhaps almost as well as the painting itself, the essence of stillness.
The building, much like all the paintings it houses, holds differing meanings when observed from the perspectives of different people. For example, the house of the ‘Frick Collection’ means one thing to Henry Frick himself and an entirely different one to the general public.
Henry Clay Frick was the chairman of the ‘Carnegie Steel Company’ and financed the production of the ‘Pennsylvania Railroad’ and the ‘Reading Company’, two of the earliest and most integral companies involved in the lucrative business of railroad production. Frick became chairman of the ‘Carnegie Steel Company’ after “([Andrew]) Carnegie and Frick entered into a partnership that ensured the future of their dominance in the (steel and coke) industry” (Netstate, pp.2) and “by the age of 30, Henry Frick was a millionaire” (Netstate, pp.1). As a result, the two immensely rich men were always in competition. Frick, who loved art, decided to create ‘The Frick Collection’ in order to house a place where he could store the works of art in his collection. However, Frick is also quoted saying that the building of ‘The Frick Collection’ would “make Carnegie’s place look like a miner’s shack” (Standiford). It’s evident that creating a majestic area where an art collection could be accessed by the public was not the only reason the Frick mansion was constantly expanded. From Frick’s perspective, the mansion which covers a whole block in Manhattan, is an ode to the immense success Frick has achieved in his lifetime, even over his partners; a reflection of wealth. To the public, however, the building is a symbol of the resilience of art. It is a place made for the sole reason of complimenting the artwork contained inside with architectural grace and comfort.
Works Cited
Claude-Oscar Monet, Vétheuil in Winter, 1878-1879,oil on canvas. 27 x 35 3/8 in,(68.6 x 89.9 cm), Purchased by The Frick Collection, 1942
Frost, Robert. "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." New Hampshire.1923.
The Frick Collection. N.p., n.d. Web. <http://collections.frick.org/view/objects/asitem/items$0040:226>.
Standiford, Les. Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Transformed America. New York: Crown Publishers, 2005.
"Henry Clay Frick - People of Pennsylvania." Henry Clay Frick - People of Pennsylvania. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. <http://www.netstate.com/states/peop/people/pa_hcf.htm>.