Impressionism and Impressionist Artists in Normandy

Claude Monet. London, Parliament: sun through the fog
[Londres, le Parlement: trouée de soleil dans le brouillard]. 1904. Oil on canvas 81 cm x 92 cm. © Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

I recently visited Canberra and went to the National Gallery of Australia to see the Masterpieces from Paris: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and beyond exhibition that is on loan from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. This exhibition has attracted record-breaking attendances for an exhibition in that Gallery (it now stands in excess of 250,000 attendees). After Canberra the exhibition tours to Tokyo and San Francisco before returning to Paris. [Read more →]

“We predicted that we would get 250,000 people, but we didn’t predict that we would get 250,000 people six weeks before the finish of the exhibition and before Easter,” he said. “So we’re very thrilled about that.” Ron Radford, Director National Gallery of Australia, 2010.

The summer exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, has broken previous attendance records. The exhibition opened 4 December 2009, and on Friday 26 February Ron Radford, Director of the National Gallery, personally welcomed the 250 000th visitor. According to tourism statistics, around 70% of the visitors are from outside Canberra. The previous record was set in 1992, with Rubens and the Italian Renaissance which attracted 241 770 visitors. [Read more →]

“… Snow, and more snow, there is at least 4 inches, and it is freezing, it is starting to get us down and Monet is full of sighs because Félix Breuil [Monet's Head Gardener], say that ‘everything is lost.’ In any event, lots of frozen roses and poor tulips and hyacinths which were just coming up are all definitely damaged. Well, it’s a disaster …” Alice Monet, 4 March 1909*

101 years ago, almost to the day, the weather here in Normandy was terrible, if Alice’s letter to Germaine Salerou is anything to go by. Our winter that has just passed has been long and hard – even the seasoned locals agree. And if it was not for the green shoots I am now seeing in my garden, I would be full of sighs too. The forecast for today was welcome news indeed. So in need of a day out I thought I would spend today going along the Normandy coastline visiting some of the main Monet and impressionist related sites – a perfect day out for the guests who are lovers of impressionism while staying at Basse Copette. And of course there are lots of other wonderful things to see and do along the way as well. [Read more →]

The entrance to the Musée des Impressionnismes, Giverny.

The main attraction in Giverny is obviously Monet’s house and gardens. But any visitor to Giverny really should not miss the new impressionist museum. The Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny opened its doors 1 May 2009, taking over from the Terra Foundation’s Museum of American Art in Giverny. [Read more →]

Claude Monet, Plage de Pourville, 1882. Oil on canvas (60 X 73 cm). © National Museum in Poznań, Poland. Stolen from the Museum in 2000, and recovered by Polish Police 12 January 2010.

Monet’s Plage de Pourville, painted in 1882 and stolen in 2000 from National Museum in Poznań, Poland, was recently recovered by the Polish police and presented to an eager press-pack in Poznań. And yesterday, 1 March, the man who stole Poland’s only painting by Monet was placed under psychiatric observation. [Read more →]

“My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece.” Claude Monet.

For almost 43 years, from 1883 to 1926, Claude Monet lived in Giverny, Normandy. There he combined his passion for colour, flowers and gardening and created one of the now most famous and well known historical gardens in World. A garden that most people know having seen reproductions of his wonderful paintings. [Read more →]

“This partnership speaks to the role that visual arts can play beyond aesthetic enjoyment. Every time we work with a different audience we learn so much more about how our works of art are meaningful to other people.” Dale Hilton, Cleveland Museum of Art, February 2010

Yesterday, 24 February 2010, the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Cleveland Clinic jointly hosted a symposium exploring the possibility of making art accessible to dementia patients. [Read more →]

Claude Monet, Wisteria, 1917-1920. Oil on canvas (100 x 300 cm). © Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris. On display at the Fundación Caja Madrid, as part of Monet and Abstraction.

The Spanish Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, in collaboration with the Fundación Caja Madrid, is currently hosting an exhibition of a selection of Claude Monet’s paintings that presents an innovative perspective. ‘Monet and Abstraction‘ demonstrates Claude Monet’s influence on the development of abstraction in in Western art during the second half of the 20th century. [Read more →]

“My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece.” Claude Monet.

Tucked away in a small little square, Place St Amande, is the city of Rouen’s homage to Claude Monet. Admittedly, it is not an unattractive little square, with some very typical medieval timber framed town houses. But not only is the square a bit out of the way, it really does not have anything that one would associate with Claude Monet. It is not as if the timber framed houses were subjects he ever painted, and the Cathedral he has made World-famous can only just be seen on the skyline.

Monet painted the Cathedral over 30 times in the winter of 1892/3. While in Rouen he set up a temporary studio across from the Cathedral where he would work. And even while working in this wonderful medieval city, he was thinking of his garden. From his letters to Alice, we know he met a few gardeners in Rouen from whom he obtained flowers which he then posted back to his house in Giverny.

During his time in Rouen Monet also met Émile Varenne, director of the Botanical Garden. Varenne not only introduced Monet to the gardeners who gave Monet various plants, but he also gave Monet a great deal of advice and friendship. Monet would work on his Cathedral series in the morning and then go to the Botanical Gardens in the afternoon, where he would spend hours in the greenhouses. In a letter to Alice, dated 16 February 1893, he records his amazement for their orchid collection.

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People discuss my art and pretend to understand as if it were necessary to understand, when it’s simply necessary to love.” Claude Monet, 1902.

As Claude Monet painted the Rouen Cathedral 30 times at different times of the day and in different weather conditions over a period of a few months, it is not that surprising then that the Cathedral will play an important part in this year’s summer festival to celebrate the impressionists in Normandy. [Read more →]