ABSTRACT
The artist emerged as the representative modern man to the degree that he mediated creative intelligence through a process of disciplined labor, to the degree that he transcended the romantic Faustian image of technical skill transformed into burning genius. The artist presents only a "portion" of the object of his knowledge: "the relationships and mutual dependence of parts." Recognition of these relationships and the structures or les gammes upon which they rest provided a commonly shared practical experience that unified a nation. Claude Monet was indeed the beast at his millstone, mutely performing the labor that made him a superior man, that is to say, a representative citizen of the modern, republican world. Monet's movement from self-taught outcast to ideal modern man was no sudden development. Monet's refusal of theoretical speculation sets him apart from and above other painters.
