ISOLATION DIARIES PART 48: MONET'S GARDEN

It seems the cracks are starting to show. A lot of people seem thoroughly frustrated, and while we sit at home stewing about it, we're painting pictures in our own heads, using the colours from the assumption palette.

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You'd be forgiven for thinking that Claude Monet only painted in the evenings towards the end of his life - a lot of his pictures from around 1912 onward look like it - yellowy browns, faded lily pads, shadowy Japanese bridge. Was he captivated by sunset? No, not really; in truth, his eyesight was failing due to cataracts, and he could no longer see all the colours in front of him. All that was left in his eyes were those browns, yellow ochres, and burnt umbers of old age.

I guess he assumed that the world was a certain hue, and then chose those tones from his own assumption palette. It's easily done when you're looking through faulty lenses.

It feels strangely familiar at this end of lockdown with very little face-to-face contact. We're used to protracted zooms and teams chats, and emails and flipflopbook.

Well I am; I'm sitting here making assumptions about people from the assumption palette, just like Monet did.

Perhaps what we need is to recognise the difference between an impressionist painting and a photograph. Impressionism gives you a simile: a photo shows you the real thing. Monet used brush strokes to create the feeling of a thing without specifically defining it in the paint - but it isn't real; it's just the perception of what was actually there. While the camera, as they say, never lies.

Social media, emails, whatsapps... even this blog... only ever give you brushstrokes of a person, leaving your imagination to fill in the gaps about whether you're reading the work of a nerd, a showoff, a precocious, kind, thoughtful, whatever... you get to decide that. Knock yourself out.

Whereas meeting me face-to-face, getting to know me a bit better - that would help you fill in those blanks, just like seeing a real photograph would help show you the real colours in Monet's garden.

So that's my thought today, amidst the murky waters of trying to analyse everyone. It's always good to remember that we don't have the most complete picture of where we're at, and we won't for a while. So it's sensible to be patient and kind and nice, and not to leap to the assumption palette too quickly.