Your chance to take an extraordinary look at an influential artist.
Exactly when Impressionist painting was relegated to the bargain basement of twee art is hard to say. However, once mouse pads, coffee cups and notebooks are adorned with Monet’s Water Lilies, such adjectives as revolutionary, avant-garde or innovative no longer seem appropriate for describing this movement in painting. But the style of painting, developed by Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Pierre Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Paul Cézanne, Berthe Morisot and Armand Guillaumin in the 1860s, was truly revolutionary—so much so that it was ridiculed by the press and the public alike. Consider this review of an early exhibition in 1876: “Five or six lunatics, among them a woman, have joined together and exhibited their works. I have seen people rock with laughter in front of these pictures. These would-be artists call themselves ‘Impressionists.’ They take a piece of canvas, color and brush, daub a few patches of paint on it at random and sign the whole thing with their name.” To remind us of just how groundbreaking and pioneering Impressionism was, particularly the work of Monet, the Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung is holding an exhibition called “Monet and Modernism,” which aims to make clear to the lay visitor the profound effect of Monet’s work on 20th-century painting, particularly in the postwar period.In an exhibition of about 80 paintings, late paintings of Claude Monet (1840–1926) are displayed vis-à-vis works by such 20th-century artists as Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Joan Mitchell, Barnett Newman and Clyfford Still.
If you have ever found yourself looking at a painting such as de Kooning’s Rosy Fingered Dawn at Louse Point , trying to understand the inspiration that gave rise to these crude-looking yellow, pink and blue brushstrokes or trying to decipher the dribbles and dots of Jackson Pollock’s paintings such as the untitled one shown here—a black background covered over and over with white, red orange and green lines and spots then here, at the very least, you may find a clue. Interestingly, the Monets on display appear in a new light: The Cathedral at Rouen , in dark cool shades of gray and yellow, is suddenly more modern and less romantic. His painting The House of the Artist Seen from the Rose Garden looks more like a picture of an exploding fireball—there is certainly no image of a house to be seen.
Monet’s effect on modern art has been established only in the last 20 years and the exhibition’s curators have taken pains to include works made in other media besides paint. Here, an installation by the New York artist Byron Kim, specially created for this exhibition, pays tribute to Monet’s enduring influence on artists. Also featured are films about the painter, including a fascinating documentary by Sasha Guitry, which shows the artist painting by the water-lily pond in Giverny. And, in a specially installed audio room, recordings of the artist’s letters are played (in German).
The highlight of the exhibition must surely be Monet’s Water Lilies , which is on loan from the Beyeler Foundation in Basel. It is part of a cycle of water-lily paintings, the best-known of which are on display at the Orangerie in Paris. Here, the effect is an optical illusion, in which the viewer is never quite sure of what he or she sees. The flowers can be discerned, and so can the water, but scarcely perceptible dots and stokes of color make us want to rub our eyes and look back for more. If this is how it makes the non-painting public feel, then imagine the effect Monet’s works have on other artists.
For those who are content to love Monet for the great painter that he was, this exhibition provides, what will probably be, the last chance to see the best of his late work. The difficulty of organizing international loans and the fragile state of many of his pictures means that shows of this kind will become rare. So, don’t make do with a Monet mouse pad. Go and see the real thing.
The exhibition runs to March 10, 2002, at the Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Theatinerstr. 8. Open daily 10 am–8 pm. Admission DM 14, tours in English can be arranged by calling (089) 37 82 81 64.
