Carla Rachman’s “Monet”

In May we had visited the exhibition at the St. Louis Art Museum on Impressionist France, which assembled a considerable number of art works and photographs from the 19^th century into a fascinating display of art, history, nationalism, industry, nature, and other themes. It was a wonderful exhibition; we actually went through on two occasions.

In the last room, devoted to works about industry and economics, was Claude Monet’s “Railway Bridge at Argenteuil” (shown above). Many of the Impressionists, including Monet, were fascinated with the changes being wrought by industrialization. That bridge was one, but not the only one. I spent some time studying the painting, and realized that I really didn’t know much about Monet except his penchant for painting water lilies at Giverny (and a wonderful exhibit of the three works that were collectively one, which was held in 2011 and 2012 at the Cleveland, St. Louis and Kansas City art museums).

My wondering about how little I knew about Monet the man and artist found a ready solution in the art museum’s gift ship: a book. Simply entitled Monet, it was written by Carla Rachman, a lecturer on 19^th century art at the University of London. It is published by Phaidon Press, which publishes a lot of books about art, artists, and related subjects (and if you go to any art museum, you’ll likely find books for sale by Phaidon Press).

I bought the book, and what’s more, I read it, and not long after we saw the exhibition.

I loved the book. It’s a highly readable, engaging, and fascinating account of Monet’s life and art. What Rachman presents, and it fit incredibly well with the theme of the Impressionist France exhibition at the museum, is an artist who became bound up in France’s notion of itself as a nation. Monet, for many of the French people, became synonymous with France.

Rachman walks us through the key events of his life – his family, how he came to paint, the various moves around France, his unconventional living arrangements after his first wife died, how he came to settle at Giverny, the trials and tribulations he and the other Impressionists had with the Salon (i.e., the establishment), the alternative shows, the rather daring show of the 37 paintings of haystacks, and, of course, the water lilies.

We learn of his concern that so many of his paintings were being bought by Americans and taken back to the United States (to the extent, Rachman says, that you cannot study Monet without an extended visit to America). We see that while he had periods of financial concern, he was no suffering artist, and he became a successful artist long before many of his fellow painters. We learn of his style and how it developed, and what influenced him. We even see Monet painting his first wife as she was on her deathbed.

It’s a work of insight and knowledge. Rachman knows her artist and she knows his context, and not only his artistic context. She places him in his time, in his country (and he was nothing if not a loyal Frenchman). And she explains how, in so many ways, he effectively became his country.

Monet is a wonderful biography, and more than that, a wonderful overview of the man, his art, and his time.

Related:

Navigating Monet’s Water Lilies (poem)

http://faithfictionfriends.blogspot.com/2011/12/navigating-monets-water-lilies.html

The artist ignores Monet (poem)

http://faithfictionfriends.blogspot.com/2011/12/artist-ignores-monet.html

Painting: Railway Bridge at Argenteuil, oil on canvas by Claude Monet (1873), Philadelphia Museum of Art.

A Visit to Impressionist France

Tuesday night, we went to a wine-and-cheese reception at the St. Louis Art Museum. The reception was for members only (they do member-only events on a regular basis), and this one included either audio tours or docent-led tours of the museum’s latest exhibition, Impressionist France.

The exhibition was in the museum’s new East Building, which opened last year and is mostly dedicated to contemporary art (lots of Gerhard Richter paintings there, which I generally like and my wife generally doesn’t). And what an exhibition it was – almost a century of French photography and painting, arranged by themes but all generally aspects of the building of France as a nation.

The exhibit is a joint project of the Nelson Atkins Art Museum in Kansas City and the St. Louis Art Museum. It was curated by Simon Kelly of the St. Louis museum for the paintings, and April Watson of the Nelson Atkins museum for photography. And it is a marvelous show.

We chose to do one of the docent-led tours, which started with a short discussion by Simon Kelly about the exhibit, French Impressionism, and the importance of photography to Impressionism. On the tour, our docent moved us to and from about 10 stops, focusing upon a particular painting or photograph to represent specific points. In addition to sharing what was clearly a lot of knowledge, she carried with her laminated photographs of the painters and photographers which she would pass among the tour group.

As we walked, observed and listened, I began to meditate a bit on art, and why it has come to be something much more important now that I’m older than when I was young. We’ve always enjoyed art and art museums, going back to a spectacular Cezanne exhibit at the Museum of Fine Art in Houston in early 1978. But it seems more important now, more engaging, and we try to include it whenever we travel.

I don’t think it’s just us. This seems to happen with age. As one gets older, one gets more interested in art. Perhaps it’s because older people have more leisure time (or disposable income). Looking at the crowd at the reception last night, I would say more were over the age of 50.

I think it might be someone else, too. As I’ve aged, I’ve come to see art as some akin to divine creation. Whether it is literature, art, music, photography, or other artistic endeavors, creating something “out of nothing” is something of a human echo of the original creation. Part of what it means to be made in God’s image is to be made in his creative image; it’s almost as if we can’t help ourselves – we are made to create.

If you have the opportunity, you should see this exhibit. We’re going back, and likely more than once. The creators of the works on display read like a history of French photography and art: Le Gray, Corot, Rousseau, Monet, Pissarro, Degas, Cezanne, Manet, and Morisot.

And I’ll try to figure out where they put the Gerhard Richters in the meantime.

Painting: The Promenade with the Railroad Bridge, Arguentil, oil on canvas by Claude Monet (1874), St. Louis Art Museum. 

Photograph: Adalbert Cuvelier, French, 1812–1871, printed by: Alphonse-Louis Poitevin, French, 1819–1882; Effect of Fog, 1852, printed 1855.

Prairie Fire

I think of Van Gogh cutting

off his ear after gnarling

the olive trees in paint, continuing

his disagreement with Monet, arguing

by other means less painful, less

dramatic, less temporal, more

eternal. I have no knife, no brush,

no argument with Monet; only

a match, lit, with which to turn

the prairie’s painted landscape,

its yellowed paper brittleness,

into flame.

This poem is submitted to the Poetics prompt at dVerse Poets. Hosted today by Brian Miller, the prompt is to select any one of a number of posted photographs by Sue Ann. To see the other photographs (cool stuff) and the poems submitted, please visit dVerse Poets.

Photograph by Sue Ann. Used with permission.

Pleasantly Disturbed Friday

It’s been a while since a “Pleasantly Disturbed Friday” made an appearance. And even though they’ve been somewhat filed in the archives by their originator (one Duane Scott at Scribing the Journey), I thought it might be time for a reappearance. (There’s no official definition, but a Pleasantly Disturbed Friday is a blog post of random thoughts, events and observations, usually because you don’t have a specific theme or idea for that day’s blog post.) (This contribution fits that definition perfectly.)

Last week, we visited the St. Louis Art Museum to see the Monet Water Lilies Exhibit. Because it was the final shopping week before Christmas, the crowds at the museum were non-existent. There was no waiting in line, no fighting to see a painting or poster illustration, no massive throngs to maneuver through. Yesterday, we returned to the art museum, to see an exhibit of American paintings 1900-1945 and a few other small exhibits.

The museum sits within Forest Park, as does the Missouri History Museum, the St. Louis Zoo and the St. Louis Science Center. The weather was partly cloudy and high 50s. The park was packed. So was the museum. So was the Monet exhibit. I congratulated my wife on selecting last week as the time to see the Monet paintings.

One of the paintings we saw was the one at the top of this post – “View of St. Louis” by Joe Jones. The museum had an entire exhibit of his paintings a year ago.

As we were leaving, we walked through the temporary 16^th-17^th century paintings area (just about everything at the museum is in temporary quarters these days because of a major expansion program going on). And I saw this painting, one of my favorites in the museum – El Greco’s “St. Paul.” It was painted between 1598 and 1600, and it simply does not look like it’s 400 years old. It looks almost like a contemporary painting to me. Perhaps it’s because the colors, or the expression on Paul’s face, but I always find it amazing.

I’ve been reading a lot in the last two weeks (I’ve been on vacation time). I read A.E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad and wrote a post about it for The Master’s Artist. I read Alan Shapiro’s Night of the Republic: Poems and my review will be posted in January at TweetSpeak Poetry. I also read Dave Malone’s Under the Sycamore: Poems and Tania Runyan’s A Thousand Vessels: Poems and will be posting reviews of both, also at TweetSpeak.

Other reading has included Work Matters by Tom Nelson and Amongst My Enemies by William Brown.

I also finished a novel that I didn’t think I would finish. It had been recommended by a friend, who knows the author. It’s a kind of Generation Y novel, or at least the characters are Gen Y. I struggled with reading it and almost stopped at several points. One character kept me engaged – which, I suppose, demonstrates the power of characterization. But the novel needed an editor; it needed better plot development, for one thing. I suspect the original ending was cut off for length purposes – you never find out what happens to the villain.

We saw the George Clooney movie, “The Descendants,” on Wednesday and “The Muppet Movie” last night. I really like “The Descendants,” but all of the characters, including the children, were required to drop the f-bomb at least five times each (scriptwriters should be able to do better than that). “The Muppet Movie” was nostalgic fun. We were young marrieds when “The Muppet Show” started its television run, and we loved both Muppet movies in the 1980s. This one had basically the same script as the others, and even a reprise of the song “The Rainbow Connection,” but it was still fun.

We still hope to see "The War Horse" and the new Sherlock Holmes movie. Have you seen any good movies during the holidays?

The artist ignores Monet

I am here to see the de-deconstruction

of Monet’s water lilies, what

the curator calls Agapanthus,

the African lily grown 45 miles west

of Paris, but instead I watch

a bearded young artist, seated

in front of the magnificent if ignored

collected canvas, as his attention

is focused left to the exit door

and the young museum attendant

who is self-consciously and

embarrassedly aware that he is

being drawn in charcoal, shades

of black and white on gray paper.

I want to see the Monet but instead

I watch the intent artist drawing

the self-conscious attendant and

I glance deliberately to see

the likeness is rather remarkable,

right there in front of Monet’s

inspiring if ignored water lilies.

I would take a photograph

but cameras are not allowed.

On Tuesday, I posted “Navigating Monet’s Water Lilies,” about the three paintings that comprise The Agapanthus triptych currently on display at the St. Louis Art Museum. As I entered the large room containing the triptych, there was actually an artist seated in front of the Monet but focused on the drawing described here. Fortunately, I spent some time looking at Monet’s water lilies before I circled back to see what the artist was drawing.

Painting: Self-Portrait of the Artist with Beret by Claude Monet.

Navigating Monet's Water Lilies

Sundered for commercial reasons

(three sell better than one)

Rejoined for artistic reasons

(three attract more than one)

To see the originals together

as one, intended, and to see

the originals at an angle,

standing left and looking right,

close to the canvas but not close

enough to alarm the attendants,

is to navigate the unexplored

and uncharted, a terrain

of watery greens and faded blues,

filtered whites and smudged reds,

continents of agapanthus separated

by oceans, seas of color floating

reflecting up

reflecting down

reflecting up and down

reflecting left to right

reflecting right to left

Colors swirl and move toward

a pinpoint on the horizon,

allowing the voyage never to end.

The three paintings popularly known as Monet’s “Water Lilies” are currently on an exhibition tour at the three museums who own them.  Last fall, the exhibit was at the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City. Currently, it’s at the St. Louis Art Museum, and it will arrive at the Cleveland Museum of Art in February. The official title of the work is “The Agapanthus Triptych” for the African water lilies it depicts.

This poem is submitted for Open Link Night at dVersePoets. To see more poems, please visit dVerse Poets. The links will be link at 2 pm Central time today.

Painting: Monet’s Water Lilies, Cleveland Museum of Art.