Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse

Yesterday I visited the Royal Academy of Arts, to view the latest of its landmark exhibitions – Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse.

The exhibition as I expected was packed to the rafters with not only visitors, but the largest display of masterpieces I have seen in one place at the same time. Perhaps one of the most important painters of gardens in the history of art, the exhibition starts with works by Monet; and then shows the evolution of the role of the garden, from the early 1860’s through to the 1920’s.

The garden was an infinite source of inspiration for many artists during this period, meanwhile providing the growing middle classes with opportunities to garden for aesthetic pleasure. Other artists to explore their fascination with the horticulturalist movement of the Nineteenth Century were: Renoir, Cezanne, Pissaro, Manet, Sargent, Kandinsky, Van Gogh, Matisse, Klimt and Klee.

From entering the gallery space, you are imbued with a sense that the art of gardening itself has perhaps outgrown the art. For the Impressonists, the garden offered a vital means of reconnecting with nature in an age of rapid industrialisation; and it was plain to see in their interpretations which were permeated with light and atmosphere. In old age Monet reportedly said, he took more pride in his garden than his art.

For me personally, the main draw of the exhibition was Monet’s Water Lilies, which were presented like a “grand finale” at the end in spectacular form and re-united for the first time, in a three-part panorama. On your initial encounter with the work, you are overwhelmed by its magnificence: the expanse of blue water, flowers, foliage, the  reflections and light upon the water. – It just seems to go on and on.

As for other artists, I felt the likes of Matisse and Van Gogh were under-represented given their importance in modern art history. Van Gogh’s painting of Daubigny’s garden in Auvers was painted before his death, and in the typical style of the Dutch painter radiated life despite its hecticism. I also enjoyed seeing the works of the less familiar Spanish painter Santiago Rusinol, whom painted the gardens of Monforte at dusk. They gave the inpression that you were looking at a film-set, as opposed to a garden basking in the twilight.

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Works to Know by Heart – Tate Liverpool

On 16th January 2016, I visited the Tate Liverpool. Among the displays was the ticketed exhibition Works to Know by Heart: An Imagined Museum, and Matisse: In Focus.

An Imagined Museum

This exhibition shows visitors the Tate Liverpool of the future, and bodes the question for observers: All of the works of art on display are about to disappear, forever. Which works of art do you want to know by heart, committing them to memory so that your favourite piece lives on? It featured over 60 major works from the Centre Pompidou, Tate and MMK collections, from artists such as: Marcel Duchamp; Claes Oldenburg, Bridget Reilly, Dorothea Tanning, Andy Warhol, and Rachel Whiterhead among others.

The concept for the exhibition came from the sci-fi novel Fahrenheit 451 by the author Ray Bradbury, which was very progressive for the period it was written in – the early 1950’s. It is set in a future, where works of literature are banned and the only way to save them is knowing them by heart.

I found the exhibition to be extremely insightful, in terms of the way I viewed the displayed works and art in general. It made me think of the accessibility of art and perhaps sub-consciously,  how we take art for granted. Two questions that came to mind, and which I will address in a separate posts were: 1) Is our memory of the artwork sufficient for its preservation?;  and 2) Are we the ones responsible for its conservation, or is it down to the owner?

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Matisse: In Focus

This exhibition was programmed to run parallel to An Imagined Museum. The main focus of this exhibition was Henri Matisse’s seminal masterpiece, The Snail (1953), pictured below. This piece had been cited as one of his most iconic, and due to its delicate nature had never been exhibited outside of London (ironically) until its appearance at the Tate Liverpool.

It is one of Matisse’s largest and most significant of paper cut-out works, measuring almost three metres squared. This method had originally been adopted by Matisse in the 1930’s, but remained a long staple of the artist’s career because his ill-health prevented him from painting.

Other works that were exhibited alongside this, came from the Tate’s large collection and spanned from 1899-onwards, the genres of: portraiture, landscape and still-life, sculpture, painting and works on paper.

I found this exhibition interesting but left disappointed. While any opportunity to view the artist’s work is worthwhile; in terms of the work that was displayed I felt the genres were under-represented considering it was spanning FIFTY YEARS of Matisse’s career! With regards to the preservation of an image; my most memorable is the Draped Nude (1936), pictured above. For me it represents, the classical tradition that Matisse upheld over career as a painter and his mastery of expressive colour and drawing.

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