AFA Winter 2019

C laude Monet—arguably the most influential of the French Impressionists—is the focus of the most comprehensive exhibition of his work in the United States in more than twenty years. Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature , co-organized by the Denver Art Museum and the Museum Barberini (Potsdam, Germany), runs through February 2, 2020 in Denver and opens in Potsdam (as Claude Monet: Orte ) on February 22, 2020. The exhibition explores Monet’s enduring relationship with nature and his response to its varied and distinct manifestations in the places where he worked. Monet’s constant quest for new motifs shows the artist’s appreciation for nature’s ever-changing and mutable character, not only from place to place but from moment to moment, a concept that eventually became a central focus of his art when he embarked on his famous series paintings. Monet’s rapport with nature was not one of passive reverence, of absorbing the motif as it presented itself. Monet was intentional in his choices and strategic in his travels, at times forming in his mind the ideal and desired composition and then looking for it in nature, as he explains in letters to his dealer Paul Durand-Ruel and his second wife, Alice Hoschedé. On January 23, 1884, he writes to his dealer from Bordighera, Italy, to share his plans: “I intend to do a sojourn of three weeks around here, so I can bring back some varied things. Here I will focus on palm trees and aspects that are a little bit exotic. Elsewhere I will paint water, a beautiful blue water.”  1 Even upon his arrival, Monet had a clear vision of the compositions and color palettes he intended to explore. He sought to capture the spirit of a certain place and then translate this to canvas. This pursuit led him to locales as varied as serene Argenteuil (Fig. 1) and rugged Belle-Île (Fig. 2), windy Pourville (Fig. 3) and the sunny Mediterranean (Fig. 4), to name a few. Monet was committed to change and believed it to be essential Winter 98 www.afamag.com | w ww.incollect.com Fig. 2: Claude Monet (1840–1926), Rocks at Belle-Île, Port Domois, 1886. Oil on canvas, 31⅞ x 25⅝ inches. Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio: Fanny Bryce Lehmer Endowment & The Edwin and Virginia Irwin Memorial (1985.282)/Bridgeman Images. Claude Monet The Truth of Nature by Angelica Daneo