"The Air That Touched Things"

Claude Monet
"La Pie (The Magpie)"
1868-69
Oil on canvas
35 x 51 inches

"Monet once revealed that he wanted to paint not things in themselves but the air that touched things - the enveloping air. The enveloping air offers continuity and infinite expansion. If Monet can paint the air, he can follow it like following a thought. Except that the air operates wordlessly and, when painted, is visibly present only in colors, touches, layers, palimpsests, shades, caresses, scratches."

- John Berger, "The Enveloping Air," Harper's Magazine, January 2011

I'm not sure which I like more, Monet's wonderfully quixotic desire to paint "the air that touched things" or Berger's evocative prose. In any case, Monet nailed the light in his magpie painting.

Image credit: ripped from SeineValley.com