AND ITS ROLE IN PICTURE PAINTING

Sixty works by Monet (1840-1926) coming from the Marmottan Monet Museum are currently exhibited at the Complesso del Vittoriano in Rome up until January 28th 2018. The curator of the exhibition Marianne Mathieu ranges from the artist’s renowned caricatures representing some of his most significant early works carried out in his late teens to the paintings dedicated to Water lilies and Wisteria in his Giverny garden where he spent most of his last decades. The exhibit comprises works performed during his frequent trips to London, Paris, Le Havre, Vétheuil, Pourville and several portraits of his children. “ A unique exhibition, since the works exhibited are not ‘only’ paintings by Claude Monet, but are those he was personally very fond of, those he kept all his life in what was his last property in Giverny – tells Marianne Mathieu – this is more of a voyage into Monet’s life, in his things, in his idea of a garden. When he first moved into the house in Giverny in 1883 there was nothing else but an orchard around it, there was no garden to speak of, no flowers. commented: “the only impression these impressionists convey is comparable to that of a cat stepping along a piano’s keyboard, or that of a monkey with a boxful of coloured crayons in its hands”.In the group supporting though, , while accepting the neologism referred to impressionists, wrote: “They are impressionists for the way in which they do not represent landscapes the same way, but in the heartfelt emotions raised and impressed by the landscapes themselves. This special term has stepped into and is part of their language. From this point of view reality has been left behind giving way to pure idealism. The difference therefore between impressionists and their predecessors is a matter of something extra and something less than the finished work. The object which is to be represented is indeed the same, but the tools deployed to translate it into image have been modified”.