Vist to the Art Museum of Philadelphia

On this past Saturday, I spent several hours at the Philadelphia Art Museum in Philadelphia, PA. I was going to invite someone to go with me but I decided to go on my own. The reason I decided to this project solo, is I wanted to spend as much time in the museum as necessary observing the different paintings and make a selection of who I will be writing about. Once I arrived at the museum and started walking around looking at the exhibits, I was so excited viewing the painting, especially the paintings and artist were covered in the last ten weeks of our course.

After observing several paintings I came across the painting Port of Le Havre (1874) by Claude Monet. I was thrilled because we studied Claude Monet in our textbook. Monet often referred to himself as the grand old man of Impressionism. He loved the outdoors and painted the majority of his works outside utilizing the lush vegetation as subject matter. Using a boat as a studio, Monet often painted multiple canvases at a time in order to take advantage of the ever-changing daylight, weather and the fleeting colors of the sky.

Port of Le Havre is the town where Monet lived as a teenager with his family. The picture I saw was an exotic French seaport with the appearance of movement everywhere. Constant movement implies there is always change and nothing stays the same on the waterfront. There are men, women and children walking on the paths by the water. Port of Le Havre gives the impression of a perfect family outing, watching the boats as they travel the water and perhaps a picnic by the water. Boats of all sizes and types are visible, some appear to be commercial crafts still others are sailboats used for pleasure. You can see buildings in the background; houses cannot be distinguished from one another. The sky is varying shades of pale blue with no clouds visible and the darker blue water sparkles with a diamond-like presence. In the lower left corner of the canvas there is a fenced...