Painting the Modern Garden: Sweet, soothing, but not enough

Confession time: I'm lukewarm on the Impressionists.

I understand their transformative influence on modern art. I appreciate the brushwork, the connection to nature, the capturing of a moment, the fascination with light. And yet I stand in a room of Monets and think: "All very pleasant. Would be fabulous as wallpaper, fabric or a mural in a garden room. But is it Great Art?"

I know, of course, that I am in a tiny minority. And I knew, the moment I saw it publicised, that the Royal Academy was on to a winner with Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse. Everyone's favourite artistic movement, combined with one of the Brits' greatest passions? A sell-out proposition. Indeed, getting tickets to this exhibit required serious advanced planning, despite the RA extending its hours. We slipped in just five days before the exhibition's close.

Yes, I enjoyed it. How could I not? I love gardens, and here were 10 galleries packed with gorgeous examples. While few canvases provoked rapt fascination, every painting was a thing of beauty and ... as spring brings my own garden to life ... a celebration of the new season.

Monet was the obvious star, dominating several galleries from start to finish. Already familiar with him as an artist, I was most intrigued by the chance to see how he developed as a gardener, from his "starter garden" at Argenteuil to the Giverny we all know. My favourites from his works were large, blue-tinted canvases painted at the end of his career when his eyesight was going. The undeniable climax for most viewers, however, would have been the display of three massive, watery canvases known as the Agapanthus Tryptich. Much was made of the RA bringing these together for the first time ever in Britain, though they've pulled it off several times in my home town of St. Louis. That's where the middle canvas lives ... the others coming from Kansas City and Cleveland.

All very soul-soothing and gorgeous. But I found other artists more captivating. My revelation was three Spaniards I'd never heard of: Santiago Rusinol, Joaquin Sorolla and Joaquin Mir y Trinxet.

All three moved far beyond pretty floral visions, drawing us in to magical gardens with mysterious lighting. I wanted to leap through the frames to explore. The best picture in the exhibition for me was Rusinol's Jardines de Monforte. You're standing in a classical garden room enclosed by walls of clipped evergreens. It's obviously approaching dusk on a summer's day; beyond the hedges the sun is still blazing, but here you can feel the cool relief of the growing shadows. You can practically hear the evening crickets begin to chirp. Nearby, Sorolla's depiction of his gardens in Madrid sent me searching for more when I got home. (Yes, still there. Open to public. Now on bucket list.) And Mir y Trinxet's Catalan gardens, flaming red in the setting sun, were beguiling visions of a fantasy world rather than our own.

Given the topic, the curators took a noble stab at making this show as much about gardening as about art. They explained that revolution was sweeping horticulture and painting, and that major movements like Arts and Crafts influenced both disciplines. Some of the paintings are displayed side-by-side with seed catalogues and gardening implements, and there's an entertaining room 2/3rds of the way through where you could sit down on teak garden furniture to watch films of Monet wandering around at Giverny and look at photos of the featured artists planting, pruning and watering.

But as someone really interested in gardening, they didn't go far enough. Broadway was mentioned briefly, as a favourite venue for John Singer Sargent. (His bold poppies, at left, were another favourite of mine. I could have done with more of him and less Monet.) Yet despite the Cotswolds reference, no paintings featured nearby Hidcote ... one of the most influential gardens of the 20th century. Nor Sissinghurst, or any of the other world-shaping gardens in this country. Almost everything depicted in the show was continental, with the majority in France.  Understandable if you're focusing on the most famous garden painters, but if you're linking art to horticulture ... for a show in London ... the absence of the great English gardens of the early 20th century is inexcusable. I also wanted to know how the artists might have influenced plant choice or colour schemes. We got a bit of a sense that the artists helped make dahlias and irises all the rage, but I wanted more. (There might have been more detail in the audio guide or the catalogue, but I explored without their help.)

Overall, it was an enjoyable show and I'm delighted I went. But for me, they tried to accomplish too much. I would have enjoyed a smaller exhibition, with less emphasis on Monet, that dug much deeper into connections with garden design. But that wouldn't have brought in the same crowds. On the basis of ticket sales alone, I suspect this is one of the most successful exhibitions the Royal Academy has put on in years.