"Monet is only an eye . . . but what an eye!"
Artist Paul Cezanne's quote is lettered on the wall commencing the Phoenix Art Museum's (PAM) Monet at Giverny exhibit, which displays twenty-two of Claude Monet's paintings from the Musee Marmottan.
Monet is only an eye . . . Indeed! After viewing, close up and in person, Monet's landscapes, this artist would even go so far as to say he was and is the First Eye. The first one to view exquisite colors, lines, dashes, dots, and dabs . . . and "globs" in live flowers and plants . . . to bring those globs to life on canvas . . . to know the very soul of the breezes stirring each petal . . . to stroke the light and shadow into living facsimile.
For one to say this museum visit was moving would be to say that the Grand Canyon is a cute little crater.
Within the PAM provided, well scripted audio tour, it was suggested that to fully view what Monet glimpsed and brought forth with brush and paint, the spectator needs to step back a few feet at a time until everything comes into full focus. Taking the turn from room one to two, Monet's Day Lilies slam the onlooker back against the conveniently placed wall. A photographer may come closest to reinventing a flower, yet a photo can't reproduce the sweet scent. A breeze? We may glimpse that as a background blur of greenery. Monet's Day Lilies can be experienced with all senses. His roses smell sweeter than the real thing.
After viewing half of the exhibit, PAM sends us up a concrete walkway to a second floor. This trek gives the impression of a short nature hike, as the right wall contains blown up photos of the gardens at Giverny by Elizabeth Murray, horticulturist, photographer, and lecturer who spent several summers there.
Upstairs, we can view one of Claude's palettes behind Plexiglas, along with a canvas on which he sketched out a first layer for another water lily painting--never finished. Also on hand, books containing prints of his works from beginning to end. But the paintings!
Picture a circular room . . . walls covered in landscapes. It was Monet's final dream to fill one such room with his murals painted at Giverny, to bring more than life to his canvas, to reinvent his gardens with brush and paint. This exhibit gives us a touch of such a place. One curved wall contains lilies, wisteria, and weeping willows, the latter seeming as tall as the trees themselves.
The Monet at Giverny exhibit is a great representation of the artist's later works, the advanced style of his "twilight years." Yet there is an almost childish glee in the brushstrokes and the use (some might say overuse) of pigment. He painted with wild abandon, in "blocks" of color, light, and shadow. As his sight failed, so did his exquisite detail. His skill has inspired many, but it is his developed style that later inspired the Abstract Expressionism movement.
There is more to Claude Monet than his lilies, but if one wishes to view that for which he is best known, the Giverny masterpieces from the Musee Marmottan exhibit are a moving anthology.Dawna - Jan 24, 2000
Dawna lives in Brooklyn NY and is an artist
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