Monochrome madness – art study – Ritva Sillanmäki Photography

We visited this museum during our vacation, and I for some reason got inspired to do three monochrome / BW versions of a this photo of a man learning about this piece of art.

I will start with also a color version of the photo compared to the monochrome one if a portrait composition.

This small but immeasurably valuable oil painting is a study of the properties of light and shadow. Monet painted a whole series of haystack motifs in the changing weather conditions of the Normandy countryside.

Claude Monet’s ‘Heinäsuova ilta-auringossa’ (Meadow Meadow in the Evening Sun) displayed at the Serlachius Museum.

A significant art discovery has been made at the Serlachius Museum in Mänttä. The painting “Heinäsuova ilta-auringossa” (Meadow Meadow in the Evening Sun), which is part of the museum’s collection, has been revealed to be the work of Claude Monet (1840-1926), a key painter of the Impressionist art movement.

The painting lacks a visible signature, but the University of Jyväskylä’s hyperspectral camera detected Monet’s name and the year 1891 beneath the paint. Analyses of the pigment and fabric confirm it is by Claude Monet. The Serlachius Museum has had it since the 1950s, assuming it could be by Monet. Its authenticity was confirmed in 2015, thanks to advancements in technology. The work was purchased in London through an art dealer from Mänttä and is believed to have been shown at the Impressionist exhibition at the Grafton Gallery in London in 1905.

I put together these different versions for Leanne’s Monochrome Madness project as a fun way to dive into artistic expression. The whole idea was to check out how the mood and meaning of the photo shift with different edits. I found myself thinking about what the image is really about—is it the painting itself, the man who’s learning about it, or maybe even the overall space where both the art and the observer exist? My idea was to show just how complex art can be and how it hits people in different ways based on their own experiences and perspectives.