Bad Impression (A critic confesses: I hate Monet.)

Yes, Claude Monet is a great painter. But the very idea of Monet sometimes makes me want to kick a golden retriever. The air around him is clotted with cheerful clichés. He has become the pretty-picture man—haystacks, cathedrals, Venice—who offers a reprieve from difficult art. He is Father Time among the water lilies at Giverny. He is postcards, calendars, and countryside. Since he sells more tickets to museums than most of the nineteenth-century painters who are his equal, museums regularly find new ways to exhibit his work. (Monet is Money.) The latest is “Monet’s London: Artists’ Reflections on the Thames (1859–1914),” a show at the Brooklyn Museum of Art fashioned around Monet’s series of paintings of the Thames and the Houses of Parliament. The idea of pairing this painter with London is, of course, very seductive. “Monet’s London” sounds like one of those summer vacations to England and France that one can claim is also educational. Sometimes, I’d rather rough it.

Organized by the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Florida—and coordinated in Brooklyn by Elizabeth A. Easton—the exhibition offers viewers a social and visual sketch of the Thames during England’s rapid industrialization in the nineteenth century. The river, a churning highway steeped in fog and smoke, attracted many artists of the period who wanted to capture the new realities of modern life; the show presents a selection of their views, among them a fine array of prints and photographs of life along the riverbank and two wonderful paintings by Derain. The Thames could provoke in artists both an intense, descriptive realism and—owing to the foggy environment—an air of romantic reverie. In Whistler, you can see each at work: a dreamy evocation of the river (particularly in his nocturnes) and a sharp-eyed view of life on the docks. The American photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn also created lushly poetic images that nevertheless reflect our fascination with fact.

Monet (1840–1926) visited London three times around the turn of the century. He stayed at the Savoy Hotel, from which he painted the nearby bridges. He also found a vantage point across the river from which to paint the Houses of Parliament. He would sketch out the smoky, intoxicating effects of light and then usually finish the canvasses at home in Giverny. (He liked to say that it took him long hours of labor to capture a fleeting moment.) He took little interest in the social bustle of the river. The Houses of Parliament seemed to represent nothing more to him than an interesting vertical. In that respect, Monet was a remarkably solipsistic artist, one who asked even Parliament, a symbol of the larger nation, to yield to the individual eye.

Which also makes me irritable. I wonder if Monet chose to paint Parliament partly because (like the face of a cathedral) it represented something large-minded—and he wanted instead to assert the private and idiosyncratic. In Monet’s later work, light dissolves every declarative form. Much as a meditating Buddhist will empty a moment of distractions, he created an enveloping atmosphere of visual rapture, one in which nothing was allowed to intrude upon the mind or interrupt the eye. The sensations created by such a sensibility are very pure—but also circumscribed. Monet was a radical artist who excised much. That’s partly why he is popular today: He created a paradise without metaphysical complications.

Well, the argument goes, shouldn’t paradise, of all places, be easy? Perhaps the best of all possible worlds will indeed finally arrive when Parliament melts magnificently in the eye. But I like an edgier Eden, one that does not entirely forget the difficulties of existence or the awkwardness of other people. I prefer the exquisite Dionysian ferocity of Matisse’s Dance I, which emphasizes communal release, to Monet’s passive bliss. Cézanne best described Monet: “He is only an eye—but, my God, what an eye.”

The review seems almost anachronistic----as if the writer was in a time-warp---as if he were reviewing the still-wet paintings of an unknown dabbler, rather than the world-class work of a renowned artist as Monet is known today----the painter with an ephemeral ability to dapple his canvases with the stardust of our dreams.

That's an interesting thought about a time warp. I'm inclined to agree, since Monet's credentials are pretty well established by now!

The guy starts off his review with this line, "But the very idea of Monet sometimes makes me want to kick a golden retriever." I can see where something like that might be used as humor, but here it just seems like a demonstration of outright sourness and meanness on the part of the reviewer.

One of the most fun I had with my kids was showing them a very large Monet Water Lilly canvas at the Carnegie in Pittsburgh.

That Carnegie Waterlilies is one of my favorites. The use of purple and dark green is amazing. I couldn't find a repro on the internet either. I guess everyone just has to go to Pittsburgh...not a bad city at all.

The writer doesn't make his point. It would have helped if he'd mentioned what it is that he really liked. I guess I am not taking him seriesly after having read this (silly) sentence:

"I prefer the exquisite Dionysian ferocity of Matisse’s Dance I, which emphasizes communal release"

I guess we just need a picture of The Dance to make his point. He just likes more abstract and works with firmer shapes.

RE the Turner in your previous post. I love it too. It reminds me of a story of heard of him: that when in a train, if it was raining, he would stick his head out of the window to feel the wind and rain on his face. In a storm at sea, he had himself tied to the mast so that he could feel the storm. I'd get really sick if someone did that to me! And in a train, I prefer to read and sleep. Alas, I guess I'm not Turner.

I do like Inness's work. It is more individual that some "realists" and I think he pushes the extremes a bit. There is a mystical, magical quality to his light and to his twilight scenes.

I liked that first image you posted very much. I also just like landscapes better than figurative works in general.

the painter with an ephemeral ability to dapple his canvases with the stardust of our dreams

Liz, nicely phrased!

I think the reviewer is just sick of Monet. We see prints and exhibitions of his work everywhere, and people do value his work. I understand where the writer's coming from, but I don't agree and I don't think he writes very well. But if he can get us talking about art on FR, then I like it!

.....if he can get us talking about art on FR, then I like it!....

Surely must be the raison d'etre for art----endless discussion.

I've continued to maintain that Picasso segued to Cubism as a way to silence his critics---considering them to be dolts---calculating they could never make heads or tails of his canvases.

I guess everyone likes the Dance by Matisse, me included. Because of the strength of the design, and the bright colors, it reminds me a little of poster or sign art, to be honest. Which I count as a compliment these days.

On a side note, I was at a life drawing session (nude model) last night, drawing the model. I go a couple evenings a week, since my reasoning is that being able to do accurate figurative work is a prerequisite to good draftsmanship. During a break, I heard an interesting story from a female artist, concerning another life class which she attends.

Some ladies had signed up for that life session, but raised objections with the school over the model's nudity. Why they signed up, I couldn't say. I have a sinking feeling, though, that those ladies might be freepers.

I've continued to maintain that Picasso segued to Cubism as a way to silence his critics---

There's a great catalogue put out by William Rubin, former director of the Museum of Modern Art, about Cezanne and Cezannism. If you ever see this on sale (probably at used book stores) grab one. He delineates the development of Cubism very well, maintaining that Braque actually did the first cubist paintings. I'll show this in a couple of weeks. It was a great essay.

I've always maintained that "cubism" should be called "planism" because it is more about planes, and the interaction between them, than cubes. But Braque's first works in L'Estaque, developed from Cezanne, did have cubes.

Braque Houses at L'Estaque 1908.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.