Maybe familiarity does breed contempt. The Art Institute of Chicago, to which we made an annual pilgrimage when I was growing up, has one of the largest collections of Monet's work outside of France. There were so many of them that everything in the museum seemed more exotic than those damned haystacks. Back home in St. Louis, the art museum where my mother worked boasted one of his huge water lily paintings. Mom liked it so much she wallpapered our bathroom in something very much like it. Just one of scores of modern lifts from the Impressionist's work, of course, from advertising to fridge magnets, fabric to wrapping paper, Monet's pretty, inoffensive, perfect-above-any-sofa dabs of colour are everywhere.
Surprise No. 1: I walked straight in. Surprise No. 2: I loved it.
The architecture hook isn’t just a gimmick. It’s a fabulous way to take a fresh look at someone you think you know well. Architecture gives Monet’s scenes a focal point and a structural complexity his landscapes often lack. His frequent choice of a lonely building in a wider, unpopulated landscape sparks a thoughtful contemplation far more profound than the insipid (IMHO) cheerfulness of his portraits. He’s still playing around with the changing effects of the day’s light across a repeated subject, but to my eye the results are so much more dramatic … and worthy of prolonged study … when you’re looking at Rouen Cathedral or Thames river scenes. There also seems to be a wider range of styles here, from his “classic” loose, pastel-coloured brushwork to much more traditional street scenes with sharp detail and dark corners.
Most astonishing is the final room. Monet was born to paint Venice. There’s no other city so perfectly suited to his mastery over water, light and the interplay between the two. The nine canvasses hanging together here are almost worth the price of admission alone. (More on that hefty pricing later.) Standing in this room is like submerging yourself in a dreamy alternative reality. These are the latest paintings here; Venice was Monet’s last trip before age, failing eyesight and overstretched finances kept him at home. So we’re also seeing the culmination of 40+ years and hundreds of paintings' worth of experience. The version of his Palazzo Contarini hanging here … on loan from a private collection so little known … is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. Not just paintings. Things. In the whole wide world. All turquoise and purple twilight, water dancing with mesmerising movement, the shadows imbued with the melancholy of an exquisite beauty sinking past her glory days with a gentle grace.
From the earliest paintings here (the first on display came off Monet’s brush 44 years before Contarini), it’s the combinations of architecture, light and water that takes us into masterpiece territory. Early village scenes are surprisingly dark and heavy-handed. They’re of a certain genre type still for sale on railings in Monmarte, worth attention if only because they’re so counter to what you think of as Monet. In the canvases from his home village of Vetheuil you can observe him starting to play with light, particularly in one scene where you can see his use of a subtle white outline behind the church tower to give a halo-like effect that makes it pop from the canvas.
But it’s a View of Amsterdam that’s the first in the show to proclaim brilliance. A building of green and subtle salmon pink, bright sunshine dappling the leaves of the trees, a canal reflecting it all back in a merry glitter. That contrast between that painting and the rest of its fellows in the first gallery remained for me throughout the show: whether lonely houses on windswept headlands, suburban villas or the Houses of Parliament, the most miraculous stuff here combines architecture with water.
This may also be a factor of Monet’s own development. Every time I checked the date of something I really liked, it tended to be from later in his career. The show is organised by subject rather than date … the village and the picturesque; the city and the modern, the monument and the mysterious … so you get a wonderful sense of the variety of styles Monet worked in, but it’s much harder work to piece together a chronological progression of his style.
That variety, however, is one of the strengths of this exhibit. I came away with much more respect for Monet’s diversity and willingness to experiment. And for his influence over other artists. Gustave Caillebotte must have seen Monet’s The Pont Neuf (1871) before painting his own much more famous Paris Street: Rainy Day (1877). The treatment of the rain, the colours and mood are an exact copy. American impressionist Childe Hassan’s The Avenue in the Rain (1917), in the White House’s collection and often chosen by presidents to hang in the oval office, is a striking riff on Monet’s The Rue Montorgueil, Paris, on The National Holiday of 30 June, 1878.
My biggest complaint about this exhibition is its price. Since the government abolished admissions fees, museums rely on blockbuster shows for critical operating budget. That's reality. But a £20 admission is enough to screen out all but the very enthusiastic, and makes sure shows like this are primarily the preserve of the well-funded middle classes. This is not a pricing strategy to encourage anyone to try new things. Even with the ability to comfortably spend that on my own enlightenment, I was offended that the audio guide was another £5. (I skipped it.) If you’re going to push exhibition admission into special event pricing, National Gallery, then learn something from the Queen's Gallery and throw in the guide with admission.
It all reflects the National Gallery's resolutely traditional view of the world. Paintings hang in a straight line on walls. No music. No lighting. No interesting display techniques. And, god forbid, no photography. Little wonder I was amongst the youngest of the crowd wandering the galleries. I suspect that Monet, dabbling with innovation until the end, could have connected easily with digital natives. As interpreted and priced by the National Gallery, however, I fear he has little chance.
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