The Dinner Claude Oscar Monet (1840-1926)

Description of Claude Monet’s painting Lunch

Claude Monet is a French impressionist painter of the 19th century, his paintings have enjoyed well-deserved love for several generations of people who know the price of true art. The Dinner was painted in 1869, in the artist’s manner of sketching details, paying attention to absolutely every detail, from the pitcher to the plates decorating the shelf above the fireplace.

The canvas which came out from under the artist’s brush turned out quite peaceful and ordinary, but it is no less beautiful and even original. The foreground of the painting is occupied by a family dining at a large round table - a mother, a father, an adult son and a small child, it is not clear whether it is a boy or a girl.

The faces of the main characters are lit by a large beautiful lamp, whose light, however, is not enough to illuminate the corners of the large room, so the face of the maid approaching with a plate of food remains invisible to the viewer. The family dines with dignity, no one speaks, and everyone is terribly engrossed in the process of consuming their food.

The fire in the fireplace burns hot, the glare of which casts a shadow on the people sitting at the table. The simplicity of this painting is striking, ordinary people, sitting at a very ordinary meal, after a long day.

The maid in the painting suggests that the family has a certain social status, with only the child comfortably seated in the child’s high chair behaving freely, while the others adhere to the accepted rules of decorum, which cannot be overlooked in the detailed study of the way the woman brings the spoon to her mouth and the way the man turned his back to the viewer sits upright.

There is absolutely nothing remarkable in the picture at first glance, but that is the whole point - to portray what everyone is used to taking for commonplace in colors and to put it on display, what could be more remarkable.