The
Museum Marmottan take allok at the work of Money through the
eye
of Pollock, Rothko, Sam Francis and Gerhard Richter. The purpose is
fascinating, the tone is just, subtle, works of very high quality. The
exhibition at the Museum Marmottan could anyway deserve a better place
for its measurement. Hooking Monet, principally that of last period,
the Water Lilies and absolute freedom, with the abstract painters of
the post-war and some great contemporary cultivating their continued
love and a gesture of pure color is equal in fact, evoke a good deal of
the epic of modernity in the twentieth century. More
pictures,
more reconciliations, confrontations, would-on. Even if those who were
selected are wonderful. The partnership Marmottan institution which has
the largest collection of works by Monet with the Thyssen-Bornemisza
Museum in Madrid, who has an outstanding collection, including on
American Abstract Expressionists and European informalist could not be
that successful. Such a glory, last winter in the Spanish capital
during the first exhibition ... three times bigger. There, the Thyssen
Museum, the rooms bright green, deep blue or sunshine yellow each time
allowed splendid and surprising glimpses. They had nothing to do with
the other works in the basement of a white more than doubtful of the
venerable hotel's sixteenth district. Kandinsky lived like an epiphany
discovered in Moscow in 1895, a painting of the series of wheels. She
was the one kept in Zurich, foggier and flatter than that presented
here next three spots with Picture (1914). Followed by
Rothko,
which seems to hold Impression, Sunrise that red orange sun Havre, and
Adolph Gottlieb including Roman Three is a green disc on yellow halo.
Not far, Clyfford Still left in reserve white on his canvas, 1965. Just
as in the evanescent Bras Seine painted in 1897. After these
variations on the concept of atmosphere, a second section has as its
theme the gesture. Pollock sanctifies its spontaneity "drippings", made
famous stripes now on a canvas setted horizontally. Before him,
isolated and forgotten in his lab, the patriarch of Giverny had already
ended the button. His cataract helping, he threw over the web as commas
or its fast streamers, red, green or purple, which gives this
unspeakable wealth "impression" of foliage, air, water and its
reflections. The most stunning work is probably the luminous Japanese
Bridge in 1918. Even then, Monet does not focus entirely on the texture
and consistency. He did not jump that separates the ford of
abstraction. However, the border is thin. The wonder is that he does
not even consider it when it is so close. His painting extends
beyond its borders, in a sort of "all-over" before the letter. And the
drops of rain are just dripping. With intelligence, Marmottan takes
care not to celebrate the prophet with Monet, we are still in
prehistory. This will be Andre Masson, and Jean Bazaine, the Maria
Elena Vieira da Silva or Zao Wou-ki, which, in hindsight, see the
London fog, smoke trains from Charing Cross Bridge, and more in the
water lilies in weightlessness, the beginnings of their art without
form. Joan Mitchell, Jean-Paul Riopelle and Sam Francis will perform
the pilgrimage to Giverny. In the garden-sanctuary of an old
white-bearded man who could hardly see but which contemplated all.
Monet and abstraction. What a story. This theme is infinitely rich that
used for the new museum exhibit Marmottan, co-organized with the
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid and Caja Madrid. Often
cited
are the monet's series. On the subject of the Gare de l'Est, the
Cathedral of Rouen on the haystacks. Finally, we must think of its many
water lilies, beautifully enhanced by the staging of the Orangerie
Museum. Also mentioned, and too often, perhaps, the complete analogy of
Monet's work in the Impressionist movement, which takes its name from
his work Impression, Sunrise, presented at the Salon des Refuses in
1874. But who looks at Monet, is also interested in the large
innovation in which he lavished his time to art. A painting at the end
of his life, almost contemplative, breaking the traditional
conventions. A revolution. For who else has been able, through the
brush, composing symphonies these colors? Renoir, certainly. Who knew
his way to make these splashes of light? Turner, certainly. Who knew
playing shape, texture, like Monet did it? Monticelli, undoubtedly.
However if eminent painters of the nineteenth century have brilliantly
contributed to develop modern theories, few of them have anticipated
the upheavals of the twentieth century. Offering 44 paintings from
impressionists and abstract expressionists for most museum collections
Marmottan Monet and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation, the exhibition
"Monet and Abstraction" is a journey into pure painting, immersion in
the subject, confrontation of masterpieces that are entangled melts and
forms, color and light, gesture and material. Commissioners
Jacques Taddei and Paloma Alarco chose to alternate the Impressionist
works by Monet's paintings with American or European Expressionist
artists - as diverse as Kandinsky, Still, Rioppelle, Pollock Richter
... - by presenting them according to own theme. Thus, it appears that
the art of Monet, somewhat shelved by the avant-garde of the early
century, revived the curiosity of artists from the mid-twentieth
century, anxious to identify new pictorial concepts relating to the
reduction chromatic - Mark Rothko - the optical architecture - Clyfford
Still - the terrain or structures - Nicolas de Stael. Continuously
oscillating between abstraction and figuration, the visitor's eye
reads, rediscovering and relearning to look at the paintings of Claude
Monet. A multifaceted Monet, who seems to use his brush like a magic
wand. Seen in this video, which shows the master keys to cast his
colors in a back and forth incessantly, for his painting on it, which
is merely part of nature's garden at Giverny even where his water
lilies are born. Good idea also, the presentation of two pallets of
Monet and daubed all still seem to rely on their own, the genius of
abstract painter.
"Monet and Abstraction", Museum Marmottan until September 26, 2, rue
Louis-Boilly 75016 Paris.
Tel.: 01 44 96 50 33. www.marmottan.com
