I’m feeling decidedly uninspired
today, which may have something to do with the fact that I didn’t get much
sleep last night. Yesterday was one of the first warm days in Chicago this
year, and sometime in the late afternoon I realized that the AC wasn’t working.
We opened all of the windows, but there aren’t any windows in the bedroom. (We
live in a one bedroom right now and the baby sleeps in a bassinet in the
bedroom). So… it was pretty warm and the baby was pretty unhappy about that and
didn’t sleep well. Which means Mama didn’t sleep too great, either.
So, this morning while I drank my
coffee, I was much more interested than usual in the amount of caffeine in said
coffee. I had thought I was going to expand beyond the Impressionists today,
but my groggy brain couldn’t figure out what I wanted to research. (Hey, I’m
sure even the big name priv-lit authors I mentioned in my introductory blog had
days like this!) I feel like you can’t really go wrong with Monet, so I decided
to continue my exploration of his works.
I read the Metropolitan Museum’s
page about Monet. (Find it here: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cmon/hd_cmon.htm ) Again, more than his work itself, I’m drawn to his story. I
like to read about how the Impressionists were criticized in their time, and
yet continued to paint in the Impressionistic style anyways. The article on Monet
says that the Impressionists considered the criticism as a “badge of honor.”
What if they had given up? What if Monet had followed the crowd and painted in
the fashion that the “experts” thought he should? He might not be nearly as
famous, or have had nearly the influence that he did. I think this is an
important lesson for us all. As cliché as it may sound, not giving up in the
face of criticism, and even using criticism to motivate you, really is such an important
lesson. How many times have I not done something because there was even a *possibility*
that others might think it was stupid? At first, I did not even want to write
this simple blog because I thought it might appear to be a silly idea compared
to Elizabeth Gilbert’s travels or Gretchen Rubin’s seemingly charmed New York
life. But you know what? I’ve had a few people tell me they enjoy reading it, and I’m enjoying giving my morning coffee
time a purpose. So here’s to Monet, and to viewing criticism as a badge of
honor! You can accomplish so many things when you don’t listen to other people’s
negativity!
Today’s picture is of Women in the Garden, one of Monet’s paintings
initially considered too ambitious by many artists of his day:
Xoxo,
Diana
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