Shifts in Perspective, Shades of Winter

Sometimes work inspiration strikes you when you least expect it… Over the holidays, my family took the opportunity to see the comprehensive Monet exhibit at the Denver Art Museum.  The theme of the exhibit is “The Truth of Nature” and the exhibit is organized such that each room has a sub-theme and groups together his paintings of a particular landscape or area.  One room was focused on winter landscapes and these paintings are primarily in shades of white & blue.  I wasn’t aware of the number of paintings and the effort he put into capturing the winter landscape, and I’ve found that this was the room that stuck with me most.  Can you imagine how many shades of winter there are?

Part of what I love about Impressionism is the different perspective that you gain by looking at the landscape (or people) through a less detailed lens.  Everything is still recognizable, you can still envision yourself standing where the painter was and seeing that scene live.  But the impressionist approach gives you an opportunity to fill in some of the details in your own mind’s eye.  With the winter paintings, it was really interesting to see how much Monet could do with what feels like a fairly monochromatic landscape.  It made me think about always striving to change my perspective and to look at the world through different lenses.

As we start a new year and enter a new decade, I’m challenging myself to bring this idea of seeing the world through an impressionist lens to my innovation work for our clients.  For me, that means I will endeavor to look at the task in front of me in the changing light throughout the day and remember that there are more shades of white and texture in ice & snow that I could have imagined. In other words, keep turning the idea or problem over in my mind to look at it differently and come up with more creative ideas or solutions. In fact, I just used this approach today and came up with several new territories to explore for one of my Front-End Innovation clients.

If you’re in the Denver area before the Monet exhibit closes on Feb 2, I highly encourage you to go check it out and see if it also inspires you and shifts your perspective. And if you want some help shifting your perspective, give us a call.