Lisa Schiffman: J. Paul Getty Museum, Monet's Wheatstacks

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			Audio Scripts: J. Paul Getty Museum Copywriting

			Wheatstacks, Claude Monet Let’s look at Wheatstacks, one of a series of wheatstack paintings by Claude Monet. Here, this extraordinary artist uses texture and color as though they were tools to transform nature. Under his paintbrush, even the most ordinary objects become beautiful. Deborah Gribbon, associate director and chief curator, explains: I think what’s interesting is the play between trying to capture things that have no texture, really—reflections, light—through the most textured means possible. This painting is all about texture and the feel of pigment You can see, particularly if you look closely in the shadows, at the base of the large hay stack, how thick the paint is. In a way, he uses paint to create an exact visual equivalent for what he would have seen. So that you will see light come off the pigment of this canvas in the same way that it would have been reflected by the twigs of the wheat or the irregular surface of the snow.