(기타) Monet- Reinventions of Impressionism

Anonymous, “Monet in His Garden at Giverny,” 1921, autochrome, 7 x 9 1/2 in. (17.8 x 24.1 cm) Collection of the Troob Family Foundation Images courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

모네에 대한 흥미있는 기사가 있어  옮긴다.

제목하여 Monet- Reinvention of Impressionism 이라고 모네의 말년 즉 1913년부터 사망한 1926까지 13년동안

급격한 시력 상실등의 이유로 그의 그림 스타일이 대범해지고(bold) 또 추상적( abstract )이 되었던 그림 50여점을

2월16일부터 3월27일까지 San Francisco에 있는 De Young Museum 에서 전시하고 있어 이에 대한 기사이다.

기사 내용은 별 특별한 것은 없고 단지 시력상실로 인해 디테일을 그릴 수 없게 되니 더 큰 붓놀림으로 대범하게

그렸으며 그러다보니 갈수록 추상적인 느낌이 되었다는 이야기..그리고 벽화(mural)에 관심을 보여 그의 대작인

수련 연작들이 태어났다는 이야기 등등..

그의 말기 작품들을 여기저기 해외 미술관에서 본 적은 있지만 이렇게 한번에 50여점을 모아 전시한다는 것 자체가

상당히 의미가 있지만 가볼 수 없는 아쉬움....

Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926), “Water Lilies,” ca. 1914–1917, oil on canvas, 65 3/8 x 56 in. (166.1 x 142.2 cm). Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Museum purchase, Mildred Anne Williams Collection, 1973.3

Claude Monet, “Wisteria,” 1916–1919, oil on canvas, 39 3/8 x 118 1/8 in. (100 x 300 cm). Musée Marmottan Monet, Michel Monet Bequest, 1966, inv. 5124

“Monet: The Late Years” focuses on the period when the artist, his life marked by personal       loss, deteriorating eyesight, and the threat of surrounding war, remained close to home to     paint  the varied elements of his garden at Giverny. His worsening vision and a new ambition   to paint on a large scale stimulated fundamental changes in the tonality and intensity of his   palette, toward vivid color combinations and broader, more apparent, application of paint.

The complex surfaces of his canvases reveal layers of activity spread out over the course of    days, months, and years. The result was a remarkable new body of work with increasingly       feverish, dramatic brushwork. Far removed from his earlier, more representational production, the artist’s late paintings close in on a stylistic threshold into abstraction.

Thematically arranged, the exhibition opens with a prologue concentrating on scenery from    Monet’s outdoor studio at Giverny. Paintings from the late 1890s and early 1900s include        depictions of the Japanese footbridge over the newly created lily pond, and the artist’s house  as seen from the rose garden — all sources of inspiration that he would revisit in his late        career.

Claude Monet, “Weeping Willow,” 1918–1919, oil on canvas, 39 1/2 x 47 1/4 in. (100 x 120 cm). AP 1996.02. Photograph: Robert LaPrelle. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth

Next, the exhibition enters the period between 1914 and 1919, when Monet returned to         painting anew after a hiatus in work prompted by the loss of his second wife, Alice, and his    eldest son, Jean. Opening with the vibrant 1914–1917 Water Lilies from the Fine Arts            Museums’ collection, the section features a number of the dynamically rendered water lily      paintings     from this period, juxtaposed with audacious large-scale floral studies from the     evolving scenery of his garden. Continuing to study natural phenomena, the artist focused on elements that had been relegated to the fringes in earlier works, such as “Day Lilies,”            “Agapanthus,” and “Yellow Iris,” in addition to “Water Lilies,” among the 20 paintings on loan    from the Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris.

Claude Monet, “Path under the Rose Arches, Giverny,” 1918–1924, oil on canvas, 35 x 39 3/8 in. (89 x 100 cm). Musée Marmottan Monet, Michel Monet Bequest, 1966, inv. 5089

Monet’s ambitions as a muralist, in contrast with his renewed activity as an easel painter, are  explored next. With the completion of a vast studio building on his property in 1916, Monet    was able to undertake significantly larger canvases, measuring between 14 and 20 feet wide,  forming a series of mural-style paintings now known as the Grandes Décorations. In such        immersive, panoramic paintings as “Agapanthus” from the Saint Louis Art Museum, more than 6 x 14 feet in size—the artist paralleled themes undertaken in an important series of paintings of his water lily pond, each about 3 x 6 feet, their number rivaling the scale and ambition of   his mural project.

Claude Monet, “Water Lilies, Willow Reflection,” 1916–1919, oil on canvas, 78 3/4 x 70 3/4 in. (200 x 180 cm). Musée Marmottan Monet, Michel Monet Bequest, 1966, inv. 5119

Groups of paintings from his late garden series — several on view in the United States for the  first time — conclude the exhibition. During his final years, while continuing to perfect his        largest panels, Monet returned to working in smaller-format paintings, on the scale of his        famous series paintings of the 1890s and early 1900s. Working again in his classic serial        method, he revisited familiar motifs on his property, such as the Japanese bridge and the        rose-covered trellises over the path leading from his house to the edge of his flower garden.

Claude Monet, “Japanese Bridge,” 1918–1924, oil on canvas, 39 3/8 x 78 3/4 in. (100 x 200 cm). Musée Marmottan Monet, Michel Monet Bequest, 1966, inv. 5077

The exhibition showcases these works in greater numbers than ever before attempted: in       addition to seven studies of the Japanese bridge at Giverny, six compelling portrayals of a tree with a twisting trunk and craggy outreaching branches are shown. Among these is “Weeping  Willow,” a masterwork from the Kimbell Art Museum’s collection, painted in 1918–1919 in      mournful response to the tragedies of World War I.

Claude Monet, “The Artist’s House Seen from the Rose Garden,” 1922–1924, oil on canvas, 35 x 36 in. (89 x 92 cm). Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris France, W.1944

By his final years, Monet’s cataracts had affected the tonal balance of his perception.             Nonetheless, as seen in “Path under the Rose Arches” and “The Artist’s House Seen from the Rose Garden,” both on loan from the Musée Marmottan Monet, the artist triumphed over this  adversity by producing his most radical works yet. The expressive style of these paintings,     with a complex layering of gestural strokes in red and yellow hues over blue and green,         affirms Monet’s continued vitality as a painter and redefines him, in the near abandonment of subject matter in favor of increasingly rapturous execution, as a pioneer of abstraction.

“Monet: The Late Years” is on view at the de Young Museum of Art (San Francisco, CA)           February 26 through May 27, 2019.