Art Attack

Went to see the Monet exhibition in Te Papa. http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/exhibitions/monet/TheExhibition.aspx

You can see all the works on this website – what a long way the Internet has come dear reader.
And it is really great that NZ is able to see these works without trekking to Boston.
Much appreciated by the locals methinks.

However we were both slightly underwhelmed though and wondered why.
Was it the dim lighting maybe? Monet painted outdoors of course and the works would have been hung in 19th century rooms with dim but natural light. The wonderful quality of the painting and presumably the paint itself, means that many of the paintings positively glowed in the dim and very artificial light of the gallery. Almost psychedelic some of them – e.g. the haystack at sunset. But with all that wonderful harbour-reflected sunshine outside, shown off to good effect by the windows of the main museum, the gallery had more the atmosphere of a mausoleum with pilgrims trudging past the holy relics. (yes I know, I know, any photons at all are probably bad for the paintings… but hey, in the Courtauld collection in London for instance they have a very similar Antibes Monet I seem to recall, in a naturally lit, high ceilinged room.)
Or was it the fact that there was too much of a good thing? Would we have preferred just to see the Monets without the influences and so on?. Not that the influences are not very fine. Lovely little Corot for instance. But there was a slightly didactic air maybe. Or even pedagogic. Felt like an Art Attack – thou shalt understand the context or else Class 5!
I once saw a single DaVinci Madonna, in Arezzo I think, in Tuscany. A one-painting exhibition, and we had her all to ourselves. Perhaps a better way to enjoy paintings than seeing them en masse.
What I enjoyed most were the coastal scenes and the two snowy villages – both of which made me shiver. And we both loved the late work Morning on the Seine – still, misty, and willow banked. Reminded us both of the River Nore, just north of Bennettsbridge, Kilkenny (a view now sadly lost to us as it has recently been spanned by the new motorway – the final extravagant roar of the Celtic Tiger).
So my perfect Monet exhibition would be that single painting, in a room lit indirectly by Irish spring sunshine filtering through leaves, with the sounds of water birds in the background. Voila.