Monet in his garden at Giverny with his Lily-Pond and Japanese Bridge.
DAM – DENVER ART MUSEUM: The blockbuster sold-out exhibition, “Claude Monet, The Truth of Nature,” at the Denver Art Museum had huge crowds every day. ARTS&FOOD® had the honor of going to view this project, and it was an immense undertaking for the curators. Regarding the subject of Monet’s paintings of nature, I am uncertain if there has ever been a more complete retrospective in all the years of museums showing his work. It took us five hours to see the entire exhibition – listening to every audio guide notation and thoroughly examining each artwork.
“The Truth of Nature”, a mammoth show, must have taken years and big bucks to pull these paintings together from around the USA and the World. Christoph Heinrich, the German-born director of DAM, talked with his colleague at a museum in Berlin about this idea… of mounting a giant exhibition presenting the true depth of Monet’s entire body of work. Both museums have Monet’s paintings in their collection, this is how the exhibition’s idea began and eventually morphed into the giant blockbuster it turned out to be, and why it the show is only going from Denver to Berlin and nowhere else!
During the early years of the 1800s, these humble houses served as outposts for customs officials who monitored passing ships and collected duties. Monet liked to paint these plain structures and their sense of isolation against the vast sea.
Monet explored the effects of light at different times of the day and during different seasons. He was interested in how every painting captures a specific time and weather that will never happen again. The world is an ever-changing space. He painted many scenes over and over again, almost like time-lapse photography to see how the color and mood of the landscape change as the light and weather changes.
The garden at Giverny provided Monet with inspiration for some three hundred paintings in the last quarter-century of his life. But the garden itself was a work of art. He once wrote: “I’m extremely busy with my garden; it’s such a joy to me, and on fine days… I am in raptures at the wonders of nature; so there’s no time to get bored.”
Monet diverted part of the River Seine to create his Water-lily Pond. And with Japanese culture being very influential to all artists of the era (Monet had many Japanese Woodblock Prints in his collection. He also built a Japanese arched bridge over the pond.
(Source: ARTSandFOOD Staff visit, photos (taken with permission) and editorial text. Major portions of the editorial text came from the wall plaques next to the paintings.)
