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Cataracts clouded Claude Monet's vision in his seventies and changed the way he saw colour. He kept working on his water lilies, had surgery in 1923 and returned to painting a few months later.

Giverny, 1912–1926

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The story behind the card

A cataract is a clouding of the lens inside the eye. Monet's first signs appeared around 1912, and as his lenses yellowed, reds and browns came to dominate his canvases while blues faded. By 1922 he could barely see and spoke of giving up. His friend Georges Clemenceau, the former French prime minister, urged him to have the operation, and in 1923 surgeons removed the lens of his right eye. Afterwards he saw everything with a strong blue tint for a time and needed special tinted glasses. He went back to the great Water Lilies panels, which were still in his studio when he died in December 1926. They were installed at the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris in May 1927.

Türkçe oku
Katarakt, yetmişli yaşlarındaki Claude Monet'nin görüşünü bulandırdı ve renkleri görme biçimini değiştirdi. Monet nilüferleri üzerinde çalışmayı sürdürdü, 1923'te ameliyat oldu ve birkaç ay sonra yeniden resim yapmaya başladı.
Giverny, 1912–1926

Katarakt, göz merceğinin bulanıklaşmasıdır. Monet'de ilk belirtiler 1912 dolaylarında görüldü; mercekleri sarardıkça tuvallerinde kırmızılar ve kahverengiler ağır bastı, maviler soldu. 1922'ye gelindiğinde neredeyse göremiyor, resmi bırakmaktan söz ediyordu. Eski Fransa başbakanı olan dostu Georges Clemenceau onu ameliyat olmaya yüreklendirdi ve 1923'te sağ gözünün merceği alındı. Ameliyattan sonra bir süre her şeyi belirgin bir mavi tonla gördü, özel renkli gözlükler kullanmak zorunda kaldı. Ardından büyük Nilüferler panolarına döndü; Aralık 1926'da öldüğünde panolar hâlâ atölyesindeydi. Mayıs 1927'de Paris'teki Orangerie Müzesi'ne yerleştirildiler.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Claude Monet
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