Bring sunshine into your home with Claude Monet's clear, airy paintings of natural subjects. 

 Nature, and the clear beauty that changes in sunlight bring to everyday scenes, are main elements in Monet’s unique style. “I am following Nature without being able to grasp her…I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers,” he once wrote. His fascination with capturing sunlight’s nuances led him to found the Impressionist art movement, which takes its name from his painting, Impression, Sunrise. 

 On a visit to the Louvre as a young painter, Monet saw other art students faithfully copying the Old Masters. Instead of joining their ranks, he set his art supplies up by a window and tried to capture what he saw outside.

“For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment; but the surrounding atmosphere brings it to life--the light and the air which vary continually. For me, it is only the surrounding atmosphere which gives subjects their true value.” 

Monet's deep understanding of natural light channels a feeling of sunshine through his images, transforming even a windowless room. In his painting, Madame Monet and Her Son, the warmth of the sunshine beaming down on the lady’s parasol, and the love he felt for his wife and child, transcend the canvas. 

Many of his paintings pull the viewer into a natural landscape, using paths and other metaphors to create this illusion. In Garden at Giverny, leaves’ shadows dapple a path through a sunny garden, and entice the viewer into a mid-morning stroll through flowers, trees, and his or her own imagination. The painting Beach at Trouville uses a boardwalk to invite the viewer in, this time for a seaside promenade and a lingering feeling of being on holiday. 

As in the previous painting, the play of light on water fascinated Monet, and his many works featuring ponds, lakes, rivers and the sea illustrate this career-long interest. Antibes, showing a lone, wind-bent tree on the shore, is at once charming and melancholy.  Water Lily Pond, on the other hand, is as full of cheer as it is of color. Cliff Walk at Pourville, on the other hand, is a postcard from another time, a snapshot of a sunny day along the coast. 

To view more of Claude Monet's masterful works of art featuring light and shade, reflection and emotion, visit www.fulcrumgallery.com. 

Whether you most enjoy the simplicity of an unfolding Triumph Tulip, the graceful lines of a Callasilver, or the intricate structures of a Japanese Lantern, you'll be truly amazed by the delicate inner beauty that is revealed in the floral art found in our X-ray Botanicals series by Steven N. Meyers.

"The earliest floral radiographs were created over 70 years ago, and even today there are only a few radiographic artists in the world. It is my intention to keep the art form alive with new and exciting images and I am committed to seeking out interesting subjects in nature."

-- Steven N. Meyers

The combination of scientific technique and true artistry of these exquisite museum-quality prints will astound art-lovers and casual observers alike.

"Steven N. Meyers is not a botanist, but his photographs might suggest otherwise. Trained as a medical X-ray technologist, Meyers has applied radiography techniques to botanic specimens, capturing the details, and structural relationships of a plant that are otherwise unseen."

-- From Anna Laurent of GardenDesign

And from Merrill C. Raikes, MD:

"The composition, form, drama of lighting, and overall balance make an image powerful and pleasing. A mood is created, evoking a feeling of beauty. With the x-ray print, the viewer becomes excited about the exacting detail and depiction of delicacy and complexity of structure. The complicated framework upon which the whole is spread becomes lush and evocative." 

-- From "Floral Radiography: Using X rays to Create Fine Art," RadioGraphics, Merrill C. Raikes, MD 

With over 160 fine-art prints in our X-ray Botanicals series, there is sure to be something for everyone -- and this fascinating collection isn't limited to floral art alone, it also features breathtaking images of the beach and intriguing sea creatures.

Of course, to complement this unique line of floral photography, we offer more traditional forms of trees and contemporary floral art, as well.