Forger's Masterclass - Ep.04 - Claude Monet

my name is John Myatt in my time I've been a teacher a painter and an art forger in 1999 I was jailed for forging over 200 paintings a crime that rocked the art world and I paid the price for it these days by painting the style of the great masters and seldom legally as honest fakes and I've started teaching the tricks of my trade to aspiring artists because all painters can learn by copying others today we'll be painting in the style of an artist who changed landscape painting forever Claude Monet there's always that moment in every single painting while using damn damn knows of the fruit part I don't quite know what to do with it for today's class we've come to the heart of the English countryside to study this beautiful landscape in all its glory I've known this place all my life and what I love about living in this part of stablish er is that the something timeless about the landscape here over the centuries hundreds of artists have used the landscape in many different ways but in the late 19th century one French artist in particular changed the way he looked at the landscape and painted it with an immediacy that had never been seen before this was Claude Monet born in Paris in 1840 money rejected the safe option of the family a grocery business for the uncertain world of art and went on to become one of the greatest ever impressionist painters these young artists used dabs of unblended color to create an impression of their subject with many small brushstrokes they captured the effects of light and shade in a way that no one had ever done before today I'll be showing three budding artists how to use some of these effects and we'll be hoping that money can make yet another great impression this time on these students they'll have just one day to create a French impressionist masterpiece my name is Margaret Pritchard and I'm from Hagley Worcestershire I am retired but I consider myself as a professional artist I'm Kevin Cunningham I'm a portrait painter and I'm originally from Ayrshire in Scotland and I know live in Notting Hill in London my name is Emma Ferguson I'm from Sallee Hall and I'm an art student I would describe my paintings as being semi abstract because they're what I'm they come out of my imagination they're what I feel and how I see things I'm hoping that there may be some opportunity to to emulate the Impressionists I I've always been inspired by them I think it'd be really interesting and a really a different way of learning about an artist rather than reading a book or looking him up on the internet just to really try and get into that artists shoes and have a go you'd be amazing painting in the style of money is a very difficult thing for any artist I hope these three are up to it Emma Margaret Kevin welcome to this beautiful view of the English landscape your challenge today is to see this landscape through the eyes of one of the greatest landscape painters who ever lived Claude Monet path through the poppy field Beth we 1880 I'm surprised yes because I was thinking it might be van Gogh we hoping it was going to hoping it was I mean there's some quite van Gogh few moments here you know ya got your red dog you've grown up you've got red dot Oh going to enjoy something they nervous but we sell a gallon I guess it was gonna be an impressionist I'm just glad it's not Renoir if my students are to produce an authentic painting it's vital that they get the composition right Monet defined the landscape through different spaces here you have the foreground there's them as it were this along here at the middle ground and then it's kind of not much detail here you look at the detail we can see here I think we almost have lost it just the indication of the Church of Earth we're in a few of the little houses down here and that's it so I'm going to ask you to sort of try and see it that way that if you can if you can see it as foreground middle-ground and background and of course sky which crucial here we'll have done the job and by all means Margaret by all means look a few pop is in poppies are okay we get them here from time to time so yeah absolutely you know no problem with poppies the challenge really is is that you have to really complete something approximating to it to a money and go through that experience that he would have gone through to in in a more less than a day yeah yeah so fingers crossed for good weather remember that you're looking for atmospheric effects where you can find them okay so good luck thank you bon voyage the sky could be a problem it keeps changing but that's one of the perils of painting outside in front of you got your paints you've got your brushes you've got water but also you've got these little frames here might be a good idea just to hold this up in front of you just to establish the composition in your mind's eye where you're going to have the foreground and how much foreground and how much middle ground how much sky etc having done that can we just bypass the the drawing stage we're not going to try any sketches let's get straight in and start painting because I'm not stuck in in a certain style of painting I have the ability to adapt very easily I've always been very good at chucking paint around and though it might not be what I intended at the start I'm it always comes out okay at the end so you know I'm excited to see what I do I was quite pleasantly surprised of all the impressions probably that's the one that may be my style although I'm a portrait painter would be more suited to slightly loose and more more vibrant I know roughly what his technique is I think so Kevin you're gonna go for um you're going to get for a portrait format in err on the landscape I'm a bit actually like the Lamoni over there I feel it'd be much tighter and yeah good well done I would like you to try everybody if you can't it to to get something in the foreground here if even if it's only just this tree here on the extreme left or the right of the painting just so we can establish a foreground because if we can't establish a foreground we can't establish a middle ground either absolutely lovely good that's because I'm very afraid of a white white canvas isn't total killer and we need to just get rid of it as quickly as we dare are you gonna use any of this bramble stuff yeah all this brambles stuff I'm feeling a good thing there so this said we're not having the tree there so this I'm just happier here ramble with these lovely blackberries yeah there's your foreground and then it will come some of those yet those things okay how are you gonna they'll come into it you know they're not there well you can have some puppies here I'm a bit worried that mo hasn't touched her canvas yet I still think you should have something come you know possibly possibly using that tree here as a foreground element yeah I was going to do a bit of chop chop and paste to be honest it you're gonna jiggle it all around yeah the creative genius you are I think this is very good Wow I mean no one's going to come and bring your painting back here are they in you know three or four years time saying no she got that for you I like I haven't painted in the style of money so it's gonna be a new challenge for me if I can get anywhere close to it then that would be very impressive for me I feel very true for myself - painting style in the 1860s was actually something like this plein air painting painting quickly app the actual on the beach or in the landscape later on through the 70s and 80s and particularly into the 1890s and beyond the paintings were finished in the studio really if they were begun outside they were usually completed in the studio over a course of several years in some cases so in fact here we're we're we're asking an awful lot of people to come up with a result we've got a runner up here for the BP portraiture award but can Kevin paint a landscape camel only plans to actually use this as a white you thinking of this over as an actual white moment and write the way through yeah I was going to use that to draw a tie it's probably going to be a bit more I was drawn to that little little place anyway about I you know there's just I know he's doesn't have any anything the foreground there but the the you know something that blender could could actually be very useful to us couldn't it actually as a pure white moment yeah and there's almost blank canvas of you if you like and we'll just build the whole thing around that remember just how dark some of the moat that the the foreground is just how dark it is and how light the sky is and the difference between the two you've only got as I'm looking at it I can see either a wheat field or an oat field there and they're gonna quite a light grassy moment ahead but most of the other tone values of the trees of the grass very dark and even the even the sort of line of trees in the background is quite dark what is Emma doing with a hand it's just easier for me to have something in my hand or on my hand to match the colours now is the time really when they've got to start thinking about tone values more than anything else even more than the use of color Monet was in a very accurate use of tone values if you could imagine the painting in black and white money would have made it work in black and white in tones in the subtle tones of gray so I'm hoping that I'm perhaps even starting to see that come and a couple of instances I'm a bit worried about Margaret across there on the far side because she seems to be getting bogged down with a tree trial if your painting isn't going to plant you should just stop and stand back for a minute or two to see the bigger picture and that's what Margaret should be doing right now there was someone who actually said one brush mark in front of nature is worth a million brush marks in the studio because there is in a way a sense of validity a sense of truth in about that thing where you see it and you paint it and if you try and tidy it up later the marks aren't the aren't as valid you're not in the right place and the painting one of them doesn't work as well this is just gorgeous I mean that is lovely it's this expressive the feel is right the paint's going on right it's just it's put on with feeling but that is now painting this is our painting so I just I don't know you know I want to see the kind of tonal unity coming and once you've done that then you're motoring Kevin's having a look at the money it's interesting isn't it that's really interesting that he's gone up to look at that painting well done Kevin that's a jolly good move Kevin because we tried to get a money yeah yeah yeah that's I love the way your paintings coming on I forgot I was doing a monitor these days you can pick up a Monet for a cool 18 million or so but at the start of his career Monet earned just a few pounds for a finish to canvas the art establishment dismissed his work and he was reliant on the support and help of friends to make ends meet but despite constant setback and rejection Monet's work almost never became somber and depressing he single-mindedly pursued this goal of perfecting his technique of using light and Colour and and and shade to express the world around him which distinguished his paintings from everything else that was going on at that time while this is going on I'm going to take a bit of time out to add a few touches to my very own money very and this R is my version of Bonnie's Japanese bridge over the water lily pond here this is just green trade emulsion is always if you can get your hands on it is better than the stuff you get from just normally motion only because trader motion is there's more pigment because it's used by professionals they get a slightly better deal but if you just open up an account at your paint shop you can you can get trade in motion easily you don't have to be a registered painter and decorator to get a hold of it I've always found it very strange that the so-called art experts never actually picked up on the fact that I was using household emulsion paint to create these so-called um 20th century masterpieces that I did and I was just so used to using these kind of materials that I never thought to chain changed my methods but when these paintings were actually authenticated by you know people who whose job it was to authenticate paintings it did come as a real shock I've had quite a few private commissions of course in the past for for paintings by Claude Monet and as often as not you're actually you don't sign confidentiality agreements but you you don't mention any names but I mean if I sort of mentioned the footballing profession that probably wouldn't be going to too extreme that kind of area now it's time to see if our students have managed to get to grips with money yet and when I just love your clouds I just I just think that you don't even touch them anymore leave them maybe heighten a bit with white somewhere I was gonna go you're gonna do again no no no I was gonna put more I'd like to run your hands over it well to get a plan yeah I say work maybe just work your fingers in fish but the sense of structure we've got here already if we shame to lose that I wanted to get sort of oh it's not very mono but I like the dark clouds over there just money did dark clouds I'm still thinking about sonís money would have several paintings of the same landscape on the go at the same time each canvas betraying different light conditions so he could always continue working on one of them unless you put a lot of interest in the clouds and you know go for that bright blue and these kind of big cumulus jobs which are going over here now I think just to have it as a as a bland shape and so I'm getting a bit worried about the the kind of in the yellow weenus of this green yeah I don't see it out there yeah I see a much darker green rocks are still there you know I need to do a lot more work putting a lot more of the kurma that exists at the front of the painting by the late 1870s Monet at last began to receive critical recognition and people started buying his work but in 1879 his wife Camille died leaving him with two young sons to take care of devastated money began painting the same subjects in different light over and over again these series paintings were immediately successful they met with critical and public acclaim the poplar series the haystack series the cathedral series all great successes but success meant little when there was no one to share it with monet soon married Alice Hacha day a wealthy widow and longtime family friend they moved to giovani together and eventually they were able to purchase the property here he was able to indulge his other passion gardening eventually he was able to divert the local River through his grounds and to create the lily pond and to build the Japanese bridge over it and to create in the last 25 years of his career those signature paintings for which he is now world famous Monet never lost his passion for light and shade time to see how the students are doing I don't quite know what to do with it to change it but otherwise I'll run it into yeah yeah yeah one of the things you could do is lighten yeah can I just borrow your brush for man it's what I was hoping to to actually see was that all the green areas broken up with just many different kinds of green yes that's why I did it sir breaks it doesn't it yes it doesn't matter since it was too much you're sort of these edges are always what's kind of broken it's got a lot braver and bolder my route than the last in the last half-hour I think what it's all about now is is is it's about this shape against all these others and if it's about that it works yeah you know it's it's quite the sky and this that shape is needs to be left can I suggest me I'm not going to pay for you but I suggest that in this foreground area we actually use a series of marks like this which actually just indicate what what this what's here notice kind of contours and Hills as well to sort of have you know kind of the brush marks working in that direction that's all I do anyway so I don't have a tantrum and record Tantrums are all part of the fun thing there's always that moment in every single painting what do you think damn yeah and double double double damn and a few other profanities we can't actually I took this part do you know he destroyed so much of his paintings he destroyed 26 I don't he got to go yeah at least lily pond series just had a complete I don't know that hmm his mornings on the Seine I think he painted 26 and he destroyed about five shame ready so don't worry about tantrum tantrums on us I've got to remember them doing their money but half of its kind of thing how he may have thought the technique is absolutely incredible it's really hard to do I wonder if this these brushes are doing the job for you can I just I don't know they seem to be they're not they're not to can elicit I would work with but I'm not gonna be a bad tradesman and blemish to the same I think maybe if you charge them at just a bit more yeah yeah it's just and then it would leave the brush I think you know in a rather more money type way if it is just you know that's more precise actually yeah a bit more precise it's almost I feel and learning his technique on the job you know he must have searched to find that stroke you know so that's why I've started off like a caveman almost hacking into the canvas and though no they assure me its opposite and more refined gentle stroke yeah it's yeah the first part of the job is to block it out and that is basically a brutal business and then we get more and more subtle as we go on until we end up with these delicate little feathery movements here which are actually which is I think where you need to be going out yeah okay so thank you thank you I'm getting very worried about Margaret I'm just fed up of looking at this this here I'm thinking there are so many different kinds of green we could get in there I can only see one green and I want to see 20 or 30 different kinds of greens you know he would have done so you've got to eventually even money lost his edge old age truck the greatest tool a painter has his eyes and Monet had a series of cataract operations and took to wearing tinted glasses which some people say affected the color of much of his later work a lifelong smoker Monet died from lung cancer aged 86 he requested a simple funeral with few mourners and he will be remembered as a man whose courage and innovation brought art into the modern era we're getting to the end of our day now just time for a few final touches I feel if I go any further no I'll overwork it and I'm quite the one I'm quite happy but the Kachin spirit of mourning other way what technically I'm miles away it doesn't certainly doesn't look like one by putting these different sort of greens and breaking down the shapes that's what I'm doing I hope putting them on a not even back into it putting the money into it it's been really hard for me to step back from how I'm used to painting a picture and actually painting the style of someone else oh just gonna try and finish it at least well thank you very much everybody you've all worked very hard but now is the time to put our brushes down and to have a look at the finished result so Kevin let's have a look at your painting in the frame in all its glory here we go what do you think I'm reasonably pleased with it you know looks impressive doesn't look like a Imani but but there although he's in there somewhere compositionally I think you've got it exactly right you know you've established that wait there you've got this this the way this tone speaks here and brings the eye in is exactly what he would have done you've got the foreground you've got the middle ground and you've got the background I don't think it's a it's it's a it's much of a money but I think it's a lovely painting you know just goes to show how hard it is doesn't it to do this I'm very pleased with a produced today pleasantly surprised and the experience itself is was less traumatic than I thought that might be and very enjoyable and actually I feel quite invigorated which is quite a surprise okay Ammar it's time to look at your painting your completed painting in its frame here we go doesn't it look lovely wishing it was a bit more finished this side i feels completed in life but I wanted it to have a bit more texture throughout kind of thing in them you mentioned texture you keep on about texture now we'll just adjust for my own person what do you mean by texture sorry and oh I don't know I like the idea that you'd be able to like run your hands over the painting enough and feel like I know yet or do your patient okay this has a flavor of pure Bana and also a flavor of some of the better Renoir landscapes it's loose yet it yet it actually the I can always construct something from it you've got a sort of career there let's do it if you worked in what I felt I know I can relate to money a bit more and trying to what he's trying to achieve with it you know the brush strokes and stuff he's got a very sort of loose kind of approach to his painting and whether I'll ever be able to put myself 100% into his mindset is another question but I feel I've you know got a step closer to the way he was thinking right Margaret we're gonna have a look at your painting in its frame and what do you think well I'm speechless for a little bit I would only say this is the one that worried me most for the longest I thought for quite a long time while we had these livid yellowy greens up here it had that kind of it had that look of an amateur painting which in which you sort of you know you hit India I felt it was a challenge and it's the first time I've completed a painting outside this idea is that is it of a shape like this coming across you know it's almost abstract way in the painting is a money compositional idea you've got it you've done that and that is a result when I get home I think I might have a go to Picasso but I don't think I can ever be good enough to Ford you a money it's been a great day but not for copying money Kevin couldn't stop being Kevin after all I'm a prude she could have a great artistic career ahead of her Margaret almost drove herself and me to abstraction they're all good artists in their own right so why didn't anybody conquer the impressionist challenge an impressionist painting is a transaction between the artist's eye and what he perceives and the brush on the canvas and we didn't have that there however we've got the students on the start of that journey haven't we we've got them and perhaps you as well to understand it's not easy to do this it's a hard thing it's a process and it's a process of understanding the genius of Claude Monet you

Channel: TheArtyBartfast

Views: 351,248

Keywords: art, forger, forgery, forgers, master, class, artist, john, myatt, monet, painting, paint

Id: C9wI-qoI6b8

Length: 27min 32sec (1652 seconds)

Published: Thu May 31 2012