Paintingt the Modern Garden : From Monet to Matisse

Stunning . Here's my Sydney Arts Guide review http://www.sydneyartsguide.com.au/exhibition-on-screen-painting-the-modern-garden-from-monet-to-matisse/ This magnificent screening will have you taking in the luxurious scent of Monet’s garden at Giverny. This film is an analysis of the marvelous exhibition that finished in April at the Royal Academy in London. The garden has occupied the creative minds of some of the world’s greatest artists and in Monet’s case for example became an artwork itself as well as his ‘muse’. This exhibition concentrates on Monet’s garden but also looks at other artists’s gardens, including Pissarro’s garden. I did note, sadly, that there were only two female artists included in the exhibition. From long panning shots of large crowds enthusiastically enjoying the exhibition the lens shifts to the wonder and beauty of artists’ gardens like those at Giverny (Monet) and Seebüll (Nolde). This doco examines how Monet and some of his contemporaries built and cultivated modern gardens to explore the use of abstract colour, decorative design, expressive motifs and utopian ideas. Monet was an avid horticulturalist and we learn how he greatly influenced the design of his garden, with introducing different colours and new species of plants that were not widely known at the time . At one point in his life Monet declared , ‘Apart from painting and gardening, I’m no good at anything’! We also see some of the Hampton Court flower show and some of the botanical and scientific books Monet collected in this crossover between art and science. A fascinating collection of Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, and avant-garde artists of the early twentieth century ( for example Kandinsky , Nolde , Munch Renoir, Pissarro, Bonnard , Edouard Vuillard , van Gogh and Cézanne ) are used to discuss the rise of the modern garden in popular culture, and the public’s enduring fascination with gardens. Every kind of garden is represented, – rose, herb, cottage, vegetable, knot and all the continental varieties. The rise of the modern garden is charted with the very influential William Robinson books mentioned and the rise of what Robinson called a ‘wild’ garden – allowing nature to expand in its own way – as distinct from clipped, manicured, very formal gardens. There is much exquisite macro photography of various flowers and some wonderful lyrical, wider landscape shots, especially of the water lilies pond and the view of the famous footbridge as featured in many of his paintings. The garden became, in effect, an outdoor studio and Monet reveled in the light and reflection that the outdoor environment gave his work. There are interviews with the head gardener at Giverney and several of the curators of the exhibition, as well as curators of other musicians. The Garden is also placed in a nineteen century social context. We see how the exhibition opened with three paintings : Monet’s The Artist’s Garden in Argenteuil (1873), is juxtaposed with Renoir’s Monet Painting in his Garden at Argenteuil (1873). Renoir’s work provides a valuable insight into the working practice of Monet, who is shown painting en plein air, palette in one arm, with a canvas on his easel, possibly painting the very dahlias in his painting hung next to it. Monet’s work is rather dreamlike, Renoir’s feels more businesslike yet still exquisite The third painting is Camille Pissarro ‘s 1874 Kitchen Gardens at L’Hermitage, Pontoise. It would appear that Pissarro had a distinct preference for vegetable gardens. Henri Matisse’s bright , explosive Palm Leaf, Tangier (1912) which Matisse himself described as a “burst of spontaneous creation like a flame” is one of the most abstract works in the exhibition. Nasturtiums are featured in the work of Gustave Caillebotte . Frédéric Bazille also has works featured and there are works by John Singer Sargent. We also see work by the Spanish Santiago Rusiñol, depicting the gardens of Monforte at dusk . Monet’s late paintings are almost obsessive recordings of the play of light, cloud,water and reflection that can almost overpower the observer. Most exciting is the reuniting of three major panels that Monet produced that had been separated since the 1950’s and now presented in one long curved room They were completed in 1926, the year of Monet’s death and form a triptych measuring 41 feet across and 6.5 feet high. Upon entering the room we are told that Monet started working on these large canvases at the age of 74, in 1914 at the beginning of World War 1. As the German troops advanced toward Paris, most of the population fled. Monet stayed and painted scenes of his beloved gardens. ( “I can’t fight but I can paint ‘) in an attempt to restore the world to harmony and balance and to oppose and balance horror, depravity and death with life and beauty. Matisse tried to volunteer to fight, but was refused due to age and health issues. Monet said in December of 1914: “I resumed work… it’s the best way to avoid thinking of these sad times. All the same I feel ashamed to think about my little researches into form and colour, while so many people are suffering and dying for us.” In 1918 Matisse said: “I paint to forget about everything else.” Monet lost his son in 1914 just before the war. He also began to develop cataracts and had eye operations in 1923. A quote from Monet at the time is plastered on the wall- “As for me, I’m staying here all the same, and if those savages must kill me, it will be in the middle of my canvases, in front of my life’s work.” Running time allow roughly 1 hour 45 minutes no interval. EXHIBITION ON SCREEN : PAINTING THE MODERN GARDEN FROM MONET TO MATISSE is screening at selected arthouse cinemas from May 28. http://www.sharmillfilms.com.au/?p=5375