Monet painting Camille on her Deathbed, Oil on Canvas, (c) Mike Todd 2008.
This painting is a fictional recreation of Claude Monet painting his dead wife Camille as recorded in his painting , 'Camille Monet sur son lit de mort', 1879 (see below). Monet said he was inspired to paint by the effect of light on the burial shawl, however there are clearly deeper feelings involved in the painting of this image. Camille died aged only 32 leaving Monet with two young sons. By this time Monet may have already started an affair with Alice Hoschede, who was also married. Camille's death, his lack of commercial success, and his separation from Alice led to a period of depression for Monet.
Claude Monet , "Camille on her Deathbed", Oil on canvas, 1879.
In 2003, Richard Cork in the
New Statesman described his reaction to Monet's painting:
"It is, in every sense, a stricken image. Camille is scarcely visible through the blizzard of brush strokes inflicted on the canvas. Restricting himself to white, grey and violet, enlivened here and there with a gash of red, Monet does not sanitise the appalling spectacle in front of him. Looking at his wife propped up on the pillows, her mouth askew, jaw bound tight and skin blanched to the point of looking glacial, he seems barely capable of making coherent sense of her corpse.
He slashes at the canvas, as if desperate to bring her back to life. But the ferocity of his strokes serves only to blur her form more fuzzily. She is fading from view even as Monet struggles to preserve her in pigment, and he is honest enough to admit that the battle has almost been lost. The woman swathed in bedlinen is hardly more substantial now than the pale autumn sunlight splashed on the sheets around her."
In my painting I have also used a restricted palette and have emphasized the lighting effect and the focus on Camille's face by the fall of light through an unseen window/opening. The interior is inspired by my visit to the Hammershoi exhibition at the Royal Academy in London. On the wall are two paintings by Monet of Camille and their first son Jean.
