For the purpose of this paper, I choose to analyze an educational trip of a mother and son to the New Yorks Museum of Modern Art and her intense admiration and perception of beauty for Claude Monets giant Water Lilies landscapes (Gompertz, W., 203, pg ). The short story is interesting as it not only pictures mothers passionate appreciation for the work of art but also relates to Kants necessity of the universal agreement (Kant, E,. 95). Her admiration for Monets painting creates the need to share and inspire others so that more people could and ought to feel the same appreciation as she does.
Claude Monets Water Lilies is an artwork, which I recollect from childhood. Whether it appeared on the notebooks in stores or on the Chinese porcelain, it tent to be a familiar image. The picture is old and generally known but never analyzed by me, like a neighbour who lives nearby for years, but is still undiscovered internally. The first moment of looking at Monets Water Lilies derives feelings of a pure pleasure and peace. It is not a like or dislike feeli
ng, but disinterested enjoyment that does not elicit any sense of desire for it. According to Kant, a disinterested satisfaction is distinguished from judgments of the agreeable, where people simply claim that something is beautiful or it is beautiful because it serves a purpose (Critiques of Judgment, 95). The compositions of blue, green and yellow paint on Monets Nympheas, perfectly coalescing, create an overwhelming calmness and comfort that needs no reason to admire it. My fascination of the painting may be compared to the boys mother, who simply acknowledges its universal validity, which is not based on any concepts (Critiques of Judgment, 95,pg. 04). My belief that Water Lilies are beautiful is a judgment that stands alone and it is not based on a descriptive claim, but rather a normative one (O Brien, W., 209). Therefore, I consider it beautiful and like mother encouraging her son to look at the painting and feel the same kind of satisfaction, I feel that every human being should experience it and be touched pleasantly by its own existence.