A new monthly art appreciation series invites viewers to spend uninterrupted time examining masterpieces, beginning with Claude Monet's captivating 1908 painting of Venice's Doge's Palace. The initiative, published on the first Monday of each month, encourages participants to look deeply at a single artwork for ten minutes, contemplating its atmosphere, color usage, and emotional impact.

The featured painting transports viewers to Venice in 1908, where Impressionist master Claude Monet found himself both enchanted and frustrated by the city's beauty. Despite the romantic setting, Monet experienced significant challenges during his painting sessions. His wife Alice reported that he returned to their hotel "absolutely furious and regretful" after gondoliers failed three times to locate his preferred painting spot in the lagoon facing the Doge's Palace.

Monet's relationship with Venice was complex from the beginning. The artist, famous for his revolutionary impressionistic scenes of haystacks and water lilies, initially resisted visiting the city. In his late 60s, he preferred to remain in his beloved garden at Giverny in northern France, working on his water lily series. He famously declared that Venice was "too beautiful to be painted," viewing it as an overexposed subject that had been captured by countless artists before him.

Alice Monet's persistence eventually convinced her husband to make the journey, which became his one and only trip to Venice. Despite his initial reluctance, she later wrote with satisfaction: "I am happy here to see Monet so full of ardor, and doing such beautiful things and, between us, other than the endless water lilies, and I believe that it will be a great triumph for him." The couple stayed for two months, during which Monet had canvases and supplies sent to him and created 37 paintings, including multiple versions of the Doge's Palace.

The upcoming exhibition "Monet and Venice" at the Brooklyn Museum, opening October 11, will showcase these remarkable works. Lisa Small, the museum's senior curator of European Art, explains that Venice presented unique challenges for Monet. Unlike his secluded garden at Giverny, Venice offered no unexplored perspectives. "Venice is like the prototypical city motif – you're not going to find anything. There is no off the beaten track in Venice. All tracks are beaten," Small noted.

Monet joined a distinguished lineage of artists who had painted Venice before him. John Singer Sargent had captured the city just years earlier, James McNeill Whistler created etchings in the late 1800s, and in 1750, Venetian painter Canaletto documented his hometown in exhaustive detail. Yet Monet brought his unique impressionistic vision to these well-trodden scenes, transforming familiar views through his revolutionary approach to color and light.

The artist's temperament during the Venice trip revealed a lesser-known aspect of his personality. "I'm sure there are nicer words I could use, but oh my God, he was a whiner, a complainer," Small observed. "It's something that I didn't really realize myself even about him until I really delved into this." Monet seemed to oscillate between elation and despair, fighting both challenging weather conditions and deep self-doubt throughout his stay.

The Doge's Palace painting exemplifies Monet's artistic philosophy and technique. The doge served as head of state in the Venetian Republic, and the palace functioned as the government center for centuries. While the actual scene would have bustled with crowds and watercraft, Monet deliberately edited out these distractions. He wrote that the palace served as "just an excuse for painting the atmosphere," offering him the same artistic opportunities as a haystack might on another day.

Monet's mastery lies in his sophisticated use of color to create atmospheric effects. The painting's hazy quality emerges from countless strokes and swishes of color that work together harmoniously. Upon close examination, the water reveals itself to be not simply blue, but a complex mixture of yellow, green, and other hues. The line of gondolas at the palace's base appears as swoopy blue curves, while the shadows incorporate purple, blue, beige, yellow, and green rather than traditional black.

Understanding Monet's color choices requires knowledge of color theory, particularly the concept of complementary colors. Alan Roberts, a longtime painting teacher and director of the Leo Marchutz School of Painting & Drawing in Aix-en-Provence, France, explains that primary colors (red, blue, yellow) combine to create secondary colors (purple, green, orange). Each color has a complement directly opposite on the color wheel: blue's complement is orange, red's complement is green, and yellow's complement is purple.

Impressionist painters, including Monet, rarely used pure black in their work. Instead, they rendered shadows with rich colors, often employing complements of lighter tones. In the Venice painting, warm yellow areas transition to cool purple shadows, creating vibrant contrasts throughout the composition. This technique differs markedly from earlier artists like Canaletto, who painted with hyper-detailed precision in an era before photography.

The strategic placement of complementary colors creates visual tension that makes the entire painting feel more vibrant and alive. Roberts explains that "you've got green and red, yellow and purple, and blue and orange, over every square inch of the painting, working all the time." This constant interplay of opposites simulates natural effects like light dancing on moving water, making Monet's water appear wet, his sky airy, and his stone solid.

Despite their seemingly effortless appearance, these brushstrokes required considerable labor. Monet began the paintings outdoors in Venice, then continued working on them as a series back in his Giverny studio. This process reflected his ongoing artistic paradox: while he aimed to capture instantaneous moments of specific lighting conditions, achieving these effects demanded extended periods of careful work.

The Venice experience profoundly influenced Monet's subsequent artistic development. Upon returning to Giverny, he approached his famous water lily pond with renewed vision. "He went to Venice and he had this experience, surrounded by water, where he was both enchanted and frustrated every hour of every day," Small explains. "And he came back and he said my trip to Venice has made me see my paintings with a fresh eye, with a new eye, and I am ready to move ahead with my water lilies show."

The resulting 1909 water lilies exhibition proved groundbreaking, featuring paintings that focused exclusively on the pond's surface – boundless expanses of water without traditional compositional boundaries. The New York Times praised these works as "the latest statement of a genius that has won the right to be called monumental." The Venice trip had helped Monet push the boundaries of impressionism even further, paving the way for abstract artistic developments that would follow.

The ten-minute focus challenge encourages viewers to develop similar fresh perspectives on familiar subjects. By spending concentrated time with Monet's work, participants can learn to notice complementary color relationships in everyday shadows and appreciate the complex interplay of light and color that surrounds us constantly. This mindful approach to art viewing can enhance our visual awareness and deepen our appreciation for both artistic technique and natural beauty.

The "Monet and Venice" exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum opens October 11, offering visitors the opportunity to experience these remarkable works firsthand. The 10-Minute Challenge series continues monthly, with previous installments featuring Hieronymus Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights," ancient Indian archery scenes, Gertrude Abercrombie's surrealist works, and van Gogh's "Starry Night." Participants are encouraged to share their experiences and insights from these focused art viewing sessions.