I had the privilege of attending an after hours tour of the Monet and the Impressionists exhibition at Te Papa in Wellington. It was an opportunity offered to the Friend of the Auckland Art Gallery and I was very pleased I took it as upon returning to Te Papa the next day, the queue to merely get into the exhibition was very long.
How do you capture that fleeting moment, that instant, that passing second? Regarded highly as some of the 'greats' in art, the impressionists "broke from artistic tradition, capturing the fleeting effects of light and atmosphere to create works of incredible immediacy and beauty." Especialyl highly renown were the works of Claude Monet and the exhibition included some of his key and iconic paintings as well as some earlier works which were talked about in the tour in relation to development to his artistic style, relation to what other artists were doing at the time, and the context of the period and how people responded to his works. Having only briefly studied the works of the Impressionists last year, I found three ways to approach the works.
The first was to sit on the benches and meditate in front of them for about 10 minutes. This may have in part to do with the fact that I spend most part of the day travelling down to and around Wellington (with too much heavy luggage) so was pretty tired by the time I got to Te Papa , but by viewing and absorbing the artworks in this way, I managed to absorb the serenity of the landscapes and that moment Monet was striving to 
capture. As framed works on the wall, they could have just as well been windows to something just outside the gallery wall with the shimmering colours in a play of light and space.
The three works I situated myself in front of for this were three of his particularly iconic works. He was well known for his series of paintings of Rowen Cathedral and of haystacks, painting the same subject under different lighting and weather conditions so that where each work was the same composition, each was also strikingly unique in it's colour and the emphasis on light in its changing qualities, accentuating the effects of the passage of time - time over the day and the year.
It is almost unfortunate that these series' have long ago been divided up, lessening
their impact but even seeing just one of each of - Grainstack (Sunset) and Rouen Cathedral Façade and Tour d'Albane (Morning Effect) - still had significant impact. Another one I'd never seen before - Morning on Seine, near Giverny - I found particularly striking in the clever interplay of colour making it almost indistinguishable where reflection began. One could feel the serenity as if they were sitting right on the riverbank on a crisp morning.
Then - once I gathered enough strength - I would slowly walk towards the painting and watch as the landscape dissolved into a mess brush strokes and colours. Seemingly irrelevant colours and lines make it impossible to define where the edge between the mountain and the sky had been, somehow melding in the brushstrokes without the colours actually ever blending. Any section of any painting chosen at random would be abstracted out of context, bearing on reference to the original subject. Truly this shows that Monet had mastered techniques of colour and optical blending, where in the mind simply pieced the colours and shapes together from a distance, playing on contrasting colour for emphasis and to make certain aspects stand out. One section of the guidleline notes alongside the works stated that these techniques were outrageous at the time and it was suggested that viewers only be allowed to view the works from such a distance that the landscape is recognisable. It seems almost ironic in that the impressionists were painting as is, as they saw, what they saw, and yet this abstraction is created on another level of the work.
Yet when examining these brushstrokes in their colour and texture, truly he does manage to convey the landscape in a way beyond what we immediately see in front of us. The effects of light, movement and time are instead reflected.
The third way was to then slowly unfocus my eyes to try to fuse the colours and brushstrokes together again and where this didn't result in the perfect landscape again, it gave another view. It showed how the works were divided into blocks of colour. It gave a mixed sense of space, once giving a sense of space, once completely flat. Similar to the optical fusion technique, what was completely outrageous at the time is now a lot easier for us to experience and understand from being more used to deceptive tricks of light and space and optical illusions.
I firmly believe that art works are best encountered in person and my faith in this is reaffirmed after this exhibition. The ways in which I approached the works would only be possible in the same physical to truly embrace the sheer scale and the clever interplay of colour and brushstrokes to experience the full impact. I believe in saying this, the Monet and the impressionists successfully achieved their aims in conveying elements of a subject beyond the immediate physical nature which in respect to his, conveyed more about the physical nature of the space. I could actually feel the impression of the sunshine, the breeze, the storm, the air that the artists were trying to convey. It is no accident they are regarded as some of the greats in art.
Issues they explore are similar to that which I can understand in regards to my photography - how do you capture a sense of time and atmostphere, movement and life in mere fractions of a second?
I was told by others that it is a good exhibition if you cannot get to the big galleries overseas to see the larger collections. As I plan to get to these galleries one day, it is only to my benefit and joy that for now, I got to see this one.
How do you capture that fleeting moment, that instant, that passing second? Regarded highly as some of the 'greats' in art, the impressionists "broke from artistic tradition, capturing the fleeting effects of light and atmosphere to create works of incredible immediacy and beauty." Especialyl highly renown were the works of Claude Monet and the exhibition included some of his key and iconic paintings as well as some earlier works which were talked about in the tour in relation to development to his artistic style, relation to what other artists were doing at the time, and the context of the period and how people responded to his works. Having only briefly studied the works of the Impressionists last year, I found three ways to approach the works.
The first was to sit on the benches and meditate in front of them for about 10 minutes. This may have in part to do with the fact that I spend most part of the day travelling down to and around Wellington (with too much heavy luggage) so was pretty tired by the time I got to Te Papa , but by viewing and absorbing the artworks in this way, I managed to absorb the serenity of the landscapes and that moment Monet was striving to 
capture. As framed works on the wall, they could have just as well been windows to something just outside the gallery wall with the shimmering colours in a play of light and space.The three works I situated myself in front of for this were three of his particularly iconic works. He was well known for his series of paintings of Rowen Cathedral and of haystacks, painting the same subject under different lighting and weather conditions so that where each work was the same composition, each was also strikingly unique in it's colour and the emphasis on light in its changing qualities, accentuating the effects of the passage of time - time over the day and the year.
It is almost unfortunate that these series' have long ago been divided up, lessening
their impact but even seeing just one of each of - Grainstack (Sunset) and Rouen Cathedral Façade and Tour d'Albane (Morning Effect) - still had significant impact. Another one I'd never seen before - Morning on Seine, near Giverny - I found particularly striking in the clever interplay of colour making it almost indistinguishable where reflection began. One could feel the serenity as if they were sitting right on the riverbank on a crisp morning.Then - once I gathered enough strength - I would slowly walk towards the painting and watch as the landscape dissolved into a mess brush strokes and colours. Seemingly irrelevant colours and lines make it impossible to define where the edge between the mountain and the sky had been, somehow melding in the brushstrokes without the colours actually ever blending. Any section of any painting chosen at random would be abstracted out of context, bearing on reference to the original subject. Truly this shows that Monet had mastered techniques of colour and optical blending, where in the mind simply pieced the colours and shapes together from a distance, playing on contrasting colour for emphasis and to make certain aspects stand out. One section of the guidleline notes alongside the works stated that these techniques were outrageous at the time and it was suggested that viewers only be allowed to view the works from such a distance that the landscape is recognisable. It seems almost ironic in that the impressionists were painting as is, as they saw, what they saw, and yet this abstraction is created on another level of the work.
Yet when examining these brushstrokes in their colour and texture, truly he does manage to convey the landscape in a way beyond what we immediately see in front of us. The effects of light, movement and time are instead reflected.
The third way was to then slowly unfocus my eyes to try to fuse the colours and brushstrokes together again and where this didn't result in the perfect landscape again, it gave another view. It showed how the works were divided into blocks of colour. It gave a mixed sense of space, once giving a sense of space, once completely flat. Similar to the optical fusion technique, what was completely outrageous at the time is now a lot easier for us to experience and understand from being more used to deceptive tricks of light and space and optical illusions.
I firmly believe that art works are best encountered in person and my faith in this is reaffirmed after this exhibition. The ways in which I approached the works would only be possible in the same physical to truly embrace the sheer scale and the clever interplay of colour and brushstrokes to experience the full impact. I believe in saying this, the Monet and the impressionists successfully achieved their aims in conveying elements of a subject beyond the immediate physical nature which in respect to his, conveyed more about the physical nature of the space. I could actually feel the impression of the sunshine, the breeze, the storm, the air that the artists were trying to convey. It is no accident they are regarded as some of the greats in art.
Issues they explore are similar to that which I can understand in regards to my photography - how do you capture a sense of time and atmostphere, movement and life in mere fractions of a second?
I was told by others that it is a good exhibition if you cannot get to the big galleries overseas to see the larger collections. As I plan to get to these galleries one day, it is only to my benefit and joy that for now, I got to see this one.
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