It seems as if there is an iPhone app for just about everything these days. Not to be outdone, the National Galleries of Scotland have produced an Impressionism art iPhone app for their Impressionist Gardens exhibition currently on show in Edinburgh until 17 October 2010.

The app, which applies to both the exhibition in Edinburgh and the associated activities at the Royal Botanical Gardens, contains basic information, including a calendar of events. There is a map of the Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh that will lead you to specific locations in the gardens that provide quite spectacular views.

For the exhibition itself, there is specifically produced audio and video pieces that enable exhibition visitors learn more about specific works of art on show. While these are great, they are limited given there are over 90 paintings on display.

Providing exhibition visitors with this sort of information for their iPhones is obviously one way in which art galleries start to make use of new technology, and should be applauded. Sadly, this particular app is quite basic, it is not that imaginative. It is little more than a iPhone equivalent of the once standard brochure. But, this is the Gallery’s first go at producing an iPhone app, and it is free. If you have an iPhone (or an iPad or an iPod Touch) and are able to get to the exhibition, it is better than nothing. Click here to go to the iTunes website and download the app free of charge.

If you have downloaded the Impressionist Gardens iPhone app and visit the exhibition in Edinburgh, do come back to this blog and tell us what you think.

While the de Young museum in San Francisco has been hosting a globally advertised Impressionism exhibition from the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, its sister museum, the Legion of Honor, has been keeping quite a secret. It, too, is exhibiting a show on the Impressionists, and some have argued it is even more exquisite than one at the de Young.

Impressionist Paris: City of Lights, which will be showing at the Legion of Honor through September 26th, was originally planned to compliment the Impressionist paintings currently being exhibited at the de Young by detailing the history of the city of Paris itself. But the end result is an exhibition that deserves far more praise. Filled primarily with works on paper from the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, which is housed in the Legion of Honor, many of these pieces are rarely shown to the public. This exhibition has given the Achenbach a chance to display some of their abundant collection, and for their new curator, James Ganz, to prove his worth by curating an show that rivals one of established Impressionist masterpieces. Not to be outdone, Impressionist Paris is filled with works by Cezanne, Degas, Mucha, Toulouse-Lautrec and Vuillard, among others.

As I walked through the exhibition, I became even more excited as I entered each new gallery. While the first two rooms introduce the history of Paris with early photographs and newspaper images, Impressionist Paris really takes off in the third gallery. You’re greeted by Jean-Francois Raffaelli’s “Fashionable Young Woman on Boulevard des Italiens, Paris” – one of the few paintings in this exhibition, which draws you into the room. Each gallery after is full spectacular prints. I found myself drawn to many of the pieces that were part of L’estampe Moderne, a publications in the late 1890s whose covers were designed by Alphonse Mucha. To top off an excellent show, my favorite piece of art in all of San Francisco, ‘Eiffel Tower’ by Georges Seurat, can be found in the second to last gallery.

My only real complaint about this exhibition is the name. With two Impressionist exhibitions at two sister museums, both in San Francisco, more could have been done to distinguish the exhibit at the de Young, which is from Paris, from the exhibition at the Legion, which is about Paris. While they are both excellent art shows and definitely worth seeing, it can be rather frustrating to arrive at one museum, expecting to see the exhibition that is at the other.

Ashley Harrop is an Art Historian based in San Francisco and writes the No Onions Extra Pickles travel blog.

Georges Seurat, La Tour Eiffel 1889. Oil on canvas. 24 cm × 15.2 cm. © The Legion of Honor.

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The Birth of Impressionism exhibition currently showing at the de Young Museum in San Francisco is a big deal. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise. Make sure you visit the show this summer, or you may miss out on the most important show this museum has hosted since reopening its doors in 2005.

Nearly 100 Impressionist works of art been sent to the de Young from the Musee d’Orsay, which is benefitting from a renovation. And these are paintings that will not disappoint. With artwork by Degas, Manet, Monet and Renoir, just to name a few, how can one be unfulfilled after a visit? The most difficult question this exhibition raises is deciding when to return for a second or third viewing.

As you enter the galleries, you can feel the importance of the artwork surrounding you. The paintings are displayed in a manner similar to how they will be once the renovation at the d’Orsay is complete. Wooden floors and carefully chosen wall colors allow the paintings to really pop and express themselves. Think of this when you come to The Floor Scrapers by Gustave Caillebotte. The browns and whites on the canvas appear so rich they practically glisten.

What did surprise me about this show was the piece I left still thinking about. While it was very exciting to see Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist’s Mother (a.k.a Whistler’s Mother) by James McNeill Whistler, and Rue Montorgueil, Paris. Festival of June 30, 1878 by Claude Monet, in person, they weren’t new discoveries, as I had seen reproductions many times before. The painting I am still thinking about, and will return to see is the Family Reunion by Frédéric Bazille. Dying a tragic early death during the Franco-Prussian War, Bazille is known for painting en plein air, and this is the first opportunity I had to see one of his paintings in person. I was struck by the direct awkwardness of this painting. In it, you can see an artist who is still struggling to find his style, and unfortunately never had the chance to. I wanted to stare at this piece all day.

If you need any reason to visit San Francisco this summer, the Birth of Impressionism is it. As an encore, there will be a second exhibition from the d’Orsay in the fall, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and Beyond. The de Young had the distinction of being the only museum in North America to host this upcoming show, and the only museum in the world to host both of these traveling exhibitions from the d’Orsay.

Ashley Harrop is an Art Historian living in San Francisco and produces the No Onions Extra Pickles travel blog.

Gustave Caillebotte Les raboteurs de parquet (The Floor Scrappers). 1875. Oil on canvas. 102 cm x 146.5 cm. ©RMN, Musée d’Orsay.

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On Sunday evening, 5 pm local time, the doors finally closed at Canberra’s National Gallery of Australia on the ‘Masterpieces from Paris‘ exhibition. By all accounts, the exhibition closed on an incredible high for the Gallery.

Such was the demand to see the exhibition, that on 11 March the NGA announced that the closing date would be extended to 18 March. Not only were gallery opening hours extended, but the Gallery also used time ticketing to cut down on waiting times.

“It is very rare indeed to be able to extend an exhibition. To be allowed to keep these works of art in Canberra for an extra two weeks is marvellous and a unique opportunity.” Ron Radford, Director of the National Gallery of Australia, 11 March 2010.

Also, for the last weekend the exhibition was open for 32 hours leading up to the final closing time of 5 pm. Entertainment was laid on to ensure the exhibition went out with a bang.

‘Masterpieces from Paris: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and Beyond’ featured 112 of some of the best-known works of modern art from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, including Monet, Van Gogh, Cézanne and Gauguin.

It is said that this extraordinary exhibition is one of the most spectacular to come to Australia. ABC News reported on Saturday that over 430 000 people had already been to see the exhibition. The Exhibition now moves on to Japan and then San Francisco.

I have already posted a guest review of the exhibition by Michael Hill, but if any other MGN readers saw the exhibition, do please add your comments below.

Click on the links for the National Gallery of Australia’s Facebook Page and their Flickr Photostream.

Yesterday, Stephanie Cowell’s new novel, Claude & Camille: A Novel of Monet, was published by the prestigious New York publishers Crown. And today, a review copy arrived in Normandy, chez moi! I can not wait to get on with it. As soon as I have completed the novel I shall post a review here, and Stephanie Cowell has kindly agreed to a ‘Question and Answer’ post – so if any of you MGN readers have a question for Stephanie, please post it here and I shall be sure to include it.

The novel is based on history, but Stephanie has used a bit of artistic license herself altering certain events and fictionalizing others for dramatic effect and continuity. It tells of the relationship between Claude Monet and his muse, his best friend, and mother of his children, Camille Doncieux. But, enough of that until I have read the book myself!

In the meantime, for anyone living in, or visiting, New York, Stephanie Cowell will be performing a reading and book signing at the Kris Waldherr Art and Words gallery in Brooklyn, NY on April 16th. For those who will not be in New York then, this event will be livestreamed, click here for more information about this event.

To order your copy of Claude & Camille: A Novel of Monet by Stephanie Cowell, click on the link to Amazon below.

Review of ‘Monet’s Water Lilies’ at MoMA, New York

It took me a long time to get down to the much-loved exhibit of six of Monet’s late garden paintings, created in his 70s and 80s at Giverny. Fortunately, though the one large exhibit room was crowded, one could still spend some time with the paintings which I did.

Two are very large (rectangular, one being a triptych). These are both of the water lilies. The single canvas is largely pale colors, ethereal and delicate and worked on over several years. The triptych is amazing; we drown in the blue and swim to the light reflection of clouds in the center. We fall into it.

The four smaller paintings (though by no means small) use richer, darker colors and almost violent, slashing and swirling strokes. Here is the old man in his studio and his garden; age has not quieted him. This is not mouse pad Monet. A late painting of the famous Japanese bridge is startling. The bridge is almost lost in the intense oranges and rusts and maroons. Gone is any sense of the tranquility which has made him the most loved artist of our time, the sense that all is well and orderly. One thinks of what he had endured then! He had lost his wife Alice, his beloved older son, his beautiful step daughter, and suffered the death and destruction of the First World War. He had lost many colleagues of his youth. He was also in danger of blindness.

In another painting, a wispy African lily plant which he planted at the pond’s edge seems to stretch up and lean sideways with some tremendous inner fierceness.

By his final brush strokes at the age of eighty-six, Claude Monet had been painting nearly seventy years. He had been born into a world where the railroad was new; he lived to see early planes, the telephone, and of course the car which he owned but never drove himself. He went from the poverty of his early years as an artist when he sometimes had no paint or food and was thrown naked from his rooms in the middle of the night because he could not pay. But some people felt he was old school in his last years; the days when impressionism was new were long past.

The MoMA exhibition holds both his tranquility and his rage. His times and losses shaped him and changed him. It was a long road from the boy of twenty who came to Paris in 1860 to become a painter.

Stephanie Cowell is a New York City novelist whose novel about the struggling years of the young Claude Monet, Claude & Camille, will be published April 6th, 2010 by Crown.

Claude Monet. Agapanthus. 1914–26. Oil on canvas. 198.2 cm x 178.4 cm. © The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Sylvia Slifka in memory of Joseph Slifka.

My first impression was of its popularity. An attempt to enter at opening time in the morning had to be abandoned due to the waiting queues. So I returned around midday thinking there would be a drop off in attendance during the lunch time hours but this was not the case. A third attempt to gain admission without undue queuing on the same day was successful, however, when I returned to the gallery in mid-afternoon around 3pm. No queuing, no waiting just prompt access.

The exhibition features 112 of some of the best-known works of Post-Impressionism by artists such as Van Gogh, Gaugin, Cézanne, Seurat, Bonnard, Vuillard, Denis and of course Monet whom I shall refer to as Oscar (his original first name) for the remainder of this review. Popular works in the show included Van Gogh’s bedroom at Arles 
[Le chambre de van Gogh à Arles] and his Starry night 
[La nuit étoilée], Gaugin’s Tahitian women 
[Femmes de Tahiti], various still life studies and some of Oscar’s paintings such as Villas at Bordighera 
[Les villas à Bordighera] 1884 
oil on canvas, a blaring summer scene of an Italian holiday resort; In the Norwegian 
[En norvégienne] c. 1887 
oil on canvas that shows Oscar’s stepdaughters in a wooden rowing-boat, the three figures and their reflections floating on background of leaf and water; and Study of a figure outdoors: woman with a sunshade turned to the right 
[Essai de figure en plein-air: femme à l'ombrelle tournée vers la droite] 1886 
oil on canvas and gift of Michel Monet, the artist’s son, study of a female figure in a white dress located in a sun-drenched landscape with straw hat and parasol.

My personal favourites of Oscar’s paintings were London, Parliament: sun through the fog 
[Londres, le Parlement: trouée de soleil dans le brouillard] 1904 
oil on canvas, a powerful portrait of the English Houses of Parliament, as blur of red and gold tinged haze across the polluted sky and river; and
 Waterlily pond, green harmony 
[Le bassin aux nymphéas, harmonie verte] 1899 
oil on canvas. Standing before this painting I was … well … stunned. It is absolutely beautiful, a celebration of the hue of green. There is a bit of blue and pink as well but it is the green that dazzles. It is a view of the Japanese bridge in his garden at Giverny straddling a scene crammed with trees, reeds, bushes and water lilies. Wonderful to see!

Images of the work exhibited can be viewed on the gallery’s website along with accompanying contextual information and a short video, click here.

Michael Hill, PhD (aka Doctor Comics) is a Sydney based comics scholar and visual artist.

Claude Monet. 1899. Waterlily pond, green harmony [Le bassin aux nymphéas, harmonie verte]. Oil on canvas 89 cm x 93.5 cm. © Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

“Clemenceau came to pay us a visit after lunch and stayed until 5 o’clock. … He was so amazed by the garden, and the water lilies, that he said to his daughter as he left: ‘You know, on the way home we are going to sell Bernouville, there is nothing more to be done after seeing Monet’s garden!’” Alice Monet, June 1909*

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, has in its collection a number of Claude Monet’s paintings of the pond he created, the water lilies and the Japanese bridge. These include the large triptych, Water Lilies (1914–26), a painting of the water lilies in the pond, Water Lilies (1914–26), The Japanese Footbridge (c. 1920–22) and Agapanthus (1914–26).

These paintings have a special status within MoMA’s collection, this museum was the first public collection in the United States of America to acquire one of Monet’s large-scaled paintings. For a limited time, these paintings, and two loans of similar paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, will be on show for the first time in MoMA’s new Manhattan building.

“Monet’s Water Lilies” will be on show until 12 April 2010. A book, titled Claude Monet: Water Lilies by Ann Temkin and Nora Lawrence, that recounts the history of Monet’s water lilies paintings in the Museum’s collection has been published to coincide with the exhibition.

Claude Monet. Water Lilies, Reflections of Weeping Willows. 1914–1926. Oil on canvas. 51 1/4″ x 78 3/4″ (130.2 x 200 cm). Private collection. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Look in the photograph at the top of this article to see the reflections of the weeping willows on Monet’s pond.

Click here, for more information about the exhibition on MoMA’s website. If you have seen the exhibition, leave a comment below.

*Quote from page 57, Monet’s Garden in Giverny inventing the landscape. 2009. Musées des Impressionnismes, Giverny.