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Claude Monet
Wheat Field, 1881
oil on fabric
Gift of Mrs. Henry White Cannon
© The Cleveland Museum of Art |
There are delights aplenty
awaiting art lovers in Vancouver, British Columbia, this summer as the
Vancouver Art Gallery presents its Monet to Dalí exhibition, the only
venue in Canada for this tour of one of America’s finest collections of
19th and 20th century European art. The eighty major works are, in fact,
on loan, as the exhibition’s subtitle - Modern Masters from the
Cleveland Museum of Art – makes clear. But the Cleveland Museum of Art
is undergoing a major architectural expansion, meaning that their fine
collection had to be removed from view. Cleveland’s loss has become
Vancouver’s gain for the summer of 2007, however, as the works embark on
a series of traveling exhibitions which, after Vancouver, will take them
around the world.
The greatest European artists of the modernist movement are represented
in this magnificent exhibition, including key works by Georges Braque,
Paul Cézanne, Gustave Courbet, Salvador Dalí, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin,
Edouard Manet, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Claude Monet, Henry
Moore, Berthe Morisot, Pablo Picasso, Camille Pissarro, Pierre Renoir,
Georges Seurat, and many others. It is the first time in the Cleveland
Museum of Art’s 90-year history that these iconic works have been on
view outside Cleveland.
Curated by William H. Robinson in association with Heather Lemonedes,
the exhibition illuminates one of art history’s most compelling stories.
The catalogue’s introduction sums it up: “[This exhibition reveals] how
masters from Monet and Degas to Mondrian and Picasso opened the visual
arts to wider and more varied spheres of experience, first in the
militant realism of Courbet, then through direct response to nature in
Impressionism, the embrace of subjective experience in Symbolist art,
the magisterial formal inventions of Picasso and Braque, the exploration
of the subconscious in Surrealism, and the expressionism of the artists
of Northern Europe and the British Isles. The heroic figuration of Rodin
is here, as well as the passion of van Gogh.”
Arranged in a series of elegant rooms in the Vancouver Art Gallery, the
paintings and sculptures reveal how the artists built on one another’s
ideas and discoveries. “We are roped together like mountain climbers,”
Braque once said of Picasso and himself and the artists who had gone
before them. The works were created during a century or more of calamity
and chaos. Our present age has become no less troubling, but for this
visitor to Vancouver last week, the exhibition provided an oasis of calm
and beauty.
The work that first greets visitors in Vancouver is a vast canvas by
Gustave Courbet. At first glance I was disconcerted. The mountain range,
water and bucolic land painted on this canvas appeared to me as though
the artist had stripped Vancouver of its forest of high-rise buildings
and vast marinas bursting with modern yachts to present this location
before it was touched by mankind. But of course Courbet never visited
Canada. The painting is entitled Panoramic View of the Alps, La Dent du
Midi, a work completed in Switzerland in 1877 when Courbet was in exile
after incurring the enmity of the French Third Republic for his
socialist views and complicity in the 1871 revolution. This was to be
Courbet’s last work as, sick and almost destitute, he looks to the
French Alps of his homeland from his Swiss refuge.
After Courbet’s dark canvas, a gallery of light-filled paintings follow.
Here are the luminous Wheat Field (1881) and Low Tide at Pourville, Near
Dieppe (1882) by Monet. Pale, cloud-flecked skies, grasses that seem to
be rustling in the summer breeze and reflections of white cliffs on a
rippling ocean all bear testament to Monet’s mastery of the delicate
movement and tranquility to be found in nature. Renoir also celebrated
the beauty to be found in nature, but he placed figures in his
landscapes, often to celebrate the beauty of women and the innocence of
children. One such painting is in this exhibition – The Apple Seller
(1890) – depicting his new wife Aline Charigot, two children and a
little dog being approached by a woman offering a basket of apples.
 Almost side by side in the next room are two paintings of seated women
dressed in white on a summer’s day. One is Berthe Morisot’s Reading
(1873) and the other James Tissot’s July: Specimen of a Portrait (1878).
Although both subjects are wearing elaborate gowns of the period, the
paintings differ greatly, revealing different interests and attitudes of
women of the time. Morisot’s model – her sister Edma – sits in a rural
setting intent upon her book. Her fan and sunshade, designed for her
comfort, have been discarded as she follows her cultural interests.
Tissot’s model – his muse and mistress Kathleen Newton – is shown seated
indoors on a hot day. Through the window behind her can be seen a beach
and two tiny female figures walking with sunshades. But Madame Newton,
in her flounced and beribboned gown, appears motionless, exuding ennui
as she stares languidly out of the canvas at the artist and observer.
There are many other portraits, but many of the works in this exhibition
are of places; places that are named and that, although no doubt vastly
changed, can be visited today. Depicted are the beach at Deauville, the
Seine at Bas-Mendon, the road to Nantes and views of Antibes, Pointoise,
Asnières, Aix-en-Provence, Mount Sainte-Victoire and Saint-Rémy. A visit
to this exhibition is akin to a tour of 20th century France!
And my favorite among so many ‘favorites’? The sun-filled landscapes are
glorious, of course, but we cannot forget that winter is harsh in Canada
(though less so on the west coast) and nothing stirs our senses like a
snowy scene. Monet’s The Red Kerchief: Portrait of Madame Monet
(1868-78) captures the season we all know beautifully. Of course many
Impressionists rose to the challenge of depicting snow, observing the
‘colors’ to be found in the white, and the impact of white on other
colors. This Monet shows Madame as glimpsed through a window; the artist
is comfortable indoors but Camille Monet, clutching a red cape around
her neck, is exposed to the weather. It seems she is departing rather
than arriving home as she is glancing back through the window with
obvious longing. Items that the observer believes to be white – the
paint of the window frame and the delicate curtains – are rendered in
shades of grey, thus making the snow appear more brilliant and giving
the brief, intimate scene a pervading sense of cold. Apparently Madame
Monet died soon after this painting was completed and Monet kept it all
his life.
So much more could be written about this fine exhibition, its fine
sculptures as well as its paintings, and its works that reach into the
middle of the last century, but I hope those readers whose travels take
them to Vancouver this summer will discover it all for themselves. The
exhibition runs until 16 September 2007.
Of course the Vancouver Art Gallery is also home to a fine permanent
collection, nearly 9,000 pieces in all. It is the principal repository
of works produced in British Columbia, as well as related works by other
Canadian and international artists. Visit, perhaps, on a rainy day and
enjoy discovering works ranging from 19th century mountain and coastal
landscapes that celebrate this region’s majestic scenery to recent
photograph exhibits. Most prized collection here is the work of
modernist landscape painter Emily Carr, who recorded not only the
natural wonders of her native land but also the fast-disappearing or
changing locales and customs of First Nations people amongst whom she
traveled and lived. Vancouver and environs are beautiful, but when a few
quiet hours immersed in art, be it from Europe or from British Columbia
itself, beckon, the Vancouver Art Gallery, in the center of town, is the
place to be.
Toronto based freelance writer
Ann Wallace, is editor of the
Travel Society Magazine.
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