Review: The Unknown Monet Exhibition Catalog
Thursday May 17, 2007
Every major painting exhibition sees the publication of an accompanying exhibition catalog. These not only reproduce and discuss the paintings on display, but contain a lot more background information on whatever the theme of the exhibition is, putting the artwork in its historical context through the essays by the exhibition curators. If you've been to an exhibition, a catalog will further enhance what you saw; if you can't get to an exhibition, a catalog will provide reproductions of paintings you might not encounter otherwise and provide a fresh angle on an aspect of painting or an artist. Whenever I'm in a second-hand bookstore, I always browse through exhibition catalogs; sometimes I find a bargain, sometimes they're astoundingly expensive!
If you're a painter who admires Monet and would like to learn more about his working methods, how he learned to paint, and how he developed as an artist, you should seriously consider buying the exhibition catalog from the Unknown Monet Exhibition (which is on its way from London to the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Massachusetts, USA, opening in June). The catalog was written using recently discovered and previously unpublished documentation on Monet's life and work, so genuinely presents new information on this famous Impressionist painter. Read my review of The Unknown Monet exhibition catalog...
See Also:
• Photos from The Unknown Monet Exhibition
• How to Paint Like Monet
• What is a Catalogue? (From About.com's Art History Guide)
Photo: ©2007 Marion Boddy-Evans. Licensed to About.com, Inc
Comments
I visited this exhibition with great expectations and came away very dissapointed. Though it showed Monet’s drawing skills, his use of pastels seemed very basic. A lot of the space was taken up by etchings of Monet’s work. The most interesting part was being able to view some of his notebooks on screen. His notebooks were kept in a very haphazard manner.
In all I came away thinking I had paid a lot for a very small exhibition. The Renoir landscapes at the National gallery was much better, though I prefer Monet to Renoir.
Exhibitions of small works on paper often have less of an impact than exhibitions of paintings because you have to get up close to each to see each one, whereas paintings you start looking at across the room already. It gets even worse when it’s really crowded and you struggle to spend “quality time” with an artwork.
This reminds me of another use for an exhibition catalog — if you’re not sure whether it’s worth the entry money, browse through the catalog to see exactly what’s on show (often there’s a list at the end of the catalog).
There’s a chapter in the catalog “Monet in print” about the etchings. The part I found really fascinating (no doubt because we live in an era of such easy digital photography and printing, and having worked with book publishers) was how he lived long enough to see the introduction of technology that allowed full-color printing from photos (and how he demanded final approval of the photos that would be printed!).
It was not because of small works on paper, that I found this such a disappointment. It was mainly because the few paintings were generally not amongst Monet’s best. The pastels were very poor as if he was not really happy with the medium. Perhaps it is not fair to compare with Degas, but they were just not at the same level. I’d say like a good amateur. Do not think I do not like Monet. I think he was probably the most influential of all the impressionists. Some of the drawings in his notebooks were amazing. Just a few lines and he captured the subject which he later translated to a full blown work. For instance the studies for the railway paintings just blew my mind away, particularly as these are amongst my favourites.
Monet never presented himself as a pastel painter (though he did exhibit several along with his more famous Impression: Sunrise). The importance of his drawings, pastels, sketches is to show his working methods — he always downplayed this, creating the illusion that he couldn’t and didn’t draw, that he painted directly all the time. It wasn’t set up as an exhibition of his paintings, but the lesser-known side of his work.
Bernard, I meant to ask — Did you get to see the exhibition at the Royal Academy of Monet’s series paintings, some years back now? I don’t think I’ve ever been into such a crowded exhibition, but fortunately I’m tall enough to see over many heads. It was fabulous seeing the paintings together; that’s what a blockbuster painting exhibition should be like!
Yes I did see this exhibition and as you say it was excellent.
I do think that the RA charges too much for these smaller exhibitions and they do get terribly crowded. I’d rather see fewer paintings well hung. It’s a good space for a really specialised show like the one on William Nicholson, and the one on American Impressionists was excellent, giving us the chance to see works by painters who we are not at all familiar with.
We do seem to be getting a chance to see works by American painters who we are not familiar with. We have ‘Coming of Age, American Art 1850-1950’s’ coming to Dulwich in 2008 being works from the Addison gallery of American Art, Massachusetts, which I am really looking forward to.