At pivotal moments in his career, Claude Monet would go out with a fellow artist, plant his easel beside his friend’s, and paint the same scene. Painting with Monet closely examines pairs of such works, showing how attention to this practice raises tantalising new questions about Monet’s art and about impressionism as a movement. Is impressionist painting an objective attempt to capture reality as it really is? Or is it a subjective expression of the artist’s unique way of perceiving things? How can artists create a movement without conformity extinguishing individuality? Harmon Siegel reveals how Monet explored problems like these in concrete, practical ways while painting alongside his teachers, Eugne Boudin and Johan Barthold Jongkind; his friends, Frdric Bazille and Pierre-Auguste Renoir; and his hero, douard Manet. At a time of major cultural upheavals, these artists asked how we can know reality beyond our personal perception. Siegel provides new insights into the aesthetic, philosophical, and ethical stakes for these painters as they responded to a rapidly changing society.
