Reflection

This assignment was challenging for me because I struggled to distinguish between my true, authentic experience and what I thought Monet was trying to get his viewers to experience. I do not think I entirely captured my experience with The Sea at Le Havre with my creation. For one, mine does not induce the same nostalgia I felt because it is too abstract to remind me of a real life experience in my past. I do think I was able to capture the transiency I was reminded of because how dainty, wispy, and temporary the white lines turned out. They make me think of soapy residue left in water that quickly dissolves and disappears. This reinforces the idea that everything changes and nothing in life is permanent, which was a big part of the message I got from Monet’s work. I also like the way the intersection of the two colors turned out. It’s defined, but not rigid and severe. This demonstrates the way two different things can echo one another while interacting in a peaceful and balanced way. The biggest thing I don’t like about my work, though, is that it really fails to capture the idea of vastness (and thus fails to make the viewer small and irrelevant) that was so striking in The Sea at Le Havre. If I could redo the project, I would try to skew the image or add some sort of perspective to make it look like the different colors were stretching into the distance.