Monet in Montreal

[Donna Hand-Lee and Jeff Lee]

The Monet Exhibit held at the Portland Museum of Art, was displayed very, very
well. Perhaps, the photographs of the gardens introducing the exhibition and the
video of his paintings were more beautiful visually then the weak colors in the
work itself. We left feeling disappointed. Also, there was so much hype about the
exhibit that we were excepting to see the Eighth Wonder of the World. The museum
gift shop displayed every kind of Monet trinket ever produced with price ranges
starting at one dollar for a magnet. Conversely, the gift shop was also selling
stunning Dale Chihuly Baskets for $3,000 across from the trinkets. Go figure.

Donna

[sbcom...@hotmail.com]

The Monet at Giverny exhibit is starting this Thursday at the Montreal Museum
of Fine Art. I had a premiere openining invitation last Friday to see it. As
most art connaisseur know, Monet marries his colors well and I did not know
he drew caricatures in his teens. They were displayed. In October 98, I went
to Boston to find out that it was sold out. However knowing the space in
their museum, I had Bostonian friends who mentioned that they were
dissppointed with the way it was displayed. Montreal's museum is an intimate
and holds a smaller venue and is more conducive to hold most exhibitions.
Monet was well organized interms of space it occupied, which I found suited
the scale of this exhibit. If anyone else has seen it in another city, how
did you find this exhibit had its presence in the museum you saw it at?
~Sonja~

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[Donna Hand-Lee and Jeff Lee]

Jan 28, 1999

Zita,

Thanks for your  thoughtful insight in regard to the paintings of Monet. I will look forward to seeing the work in another venue--perhaps in a more conductive atmophere. As a side note , I looked through  The Art Institute of Chicago Catalogue and I do remember viewing and enjoying his pieces The Beach at Saint'Adresse and The River at the museum. I also enjoyed the Woman with a Parasol at the National Gallery of Art.

Best Regards,

Donna Hand-Lee
 

zi...@interport.net wrote:

I am not a partisan of Monet. He is not one of the great artists that
have meant the most to me. Maybe ten or fifteen years ago I would not
even have used theword great infront of his name.But two things
happened. I saw something else other than all of the radical
impressionist paintings in which he cared only for the light at a
particular moment and had no interst in composing or making what I
have come to believe in, some kind of pictorial sense in the picture,
not in his head[the theory of impressionsim]. Starting withthe Rouen
cathedral paintings he does build up a coherent structure and it is
not a kind of structure that was based on pre impressionist painting.
I do findthose paintings consistent and beautiful. But the most
remarkable experience of Monet's work is only present in front of the
two round rooms hung with the two finished nympheas in Paris.

There  is something there for you to look forward to. Also, they share
with many other great monuments of the past one wonderful quality. The
experience is not reproducable. We can get a lot out of reprductions
of easel paintings, especially if the original is not too big. But
such things as Signorelli's chapel in orvieto, or the villa of the
mysteries or the Sistine chapel can only be experienc ed right there.
So wait for a while and suspend yourjudgment on Monet.  He did paint
great paintings, if not as many as most people think right now.

The show of the late work of Delacroix in Philadelphia was no where
near as well attended as either the big Cezanne show or the Brancusi
show. It was good for me, but it showed where the heads of most museum
goers are right now.  I have no complaints about them going to either
of those shows and they had the advantage of much more work visible
than did the Delacroix show, but  I think the public is not so
interested in the better known pre-impressionists.

The Corot show in New York was not  terribly crowded, and the De Hooch
show is being held in a tiny museum about 100 miles away from either
ofthe larger metropolitan areas in the Northeast.

It is the only DeHooch show that there has been in my lifetime, too. I
will get there, but it won;t be easy.
Gabriel

[zi...@interport.net]

[John Haber]

That was thoughtful. It sure shows where the Met's head is at that a
sow of de Hooch, who I call major, is in a remote spot, whereas in NYC
we get to see very odd shows, like one of the museum's own northern
holdings from the Renaissance with nothing new and endless wall labels
of questionable attributions. Like illustrated theses for the curator
of Europena paintings. Still, if you get a chance to see the Dosso
Dossi show show, he's an interesting figure in the development of the
colorfu, brushy, obscure narrative style that was to be more haunting
in the hands of others all over Italy, from de Sarto to Parmigianino.

The chapel in Orvieto is a key experience in my life. I hear it's
incredibly crowded now, and I had it almost alone. I missed the
Delacroix late works, and I'm not happy about that.

Monet has slowly turned my head. The importance, skill, and
insistence on his own new style of this guy helps me question the
notion of history as a sardonic twist on the past (with Manet the key
player).

John (www.haberarts.com)