Discovering Monet’s lifelong fascination with architecture
One of the great things about being a retired museum and art gallery CEO is that you know most of the basic tricks of the trade. For instance, you can get a very quick gauge of an exhibition’s successes and high points by talking with the gallery security staff.
So as soon as we had paid £18 each for our tickets, I went straight to the tall young guard at the exhibition’s entrance. “What’s so special about this Monet show, from your perspective?” I asked about the exhibit at the National Gallery in London, which continues until July 29.
“Well, people are really noticing the number of pictures from private collections that have never been shown in public before. And they are getting a different sense of the artist. He painted a lot of buildings multiple times; he didn’t just paint nature.”
I smiled my appreciation as my wife and I headed into the first of seven connected galleries full of Monets. In 86 years of life, Monet (1840 to 1926) painted hundreds of countryside scenes in his native France, and became known for his fascination first with the effect of fog and pollution on landscapes, and then the play of light on his subject matter over the range of the day.