Dear Family, Friends, and Diary,
The Fresno Art Museum occasionally arranges for day-trips to exceptional art venues in bigger cities and, on April 20th, we joined five-dozen art fans for a ride to San Francisco. The drive over, with a senior-required stop at Casa da Fruta, took four hours, plenty of time to review what we were about to see. Marianne read, while I listened to a YouTube. Kind of what we normally do.
The de Young Museum had just opened a major exhibition titled: Monet in Venice. We had actually seen an earlier de Young Monet exhibition of works from his final years, mostly his famous wall-sized water lilies, but "in Venice" sounded intriguing. We could relate, based on our part-day in the Italian city, but the expressionist painter clearly had a far more positive experience.
In late Fall of 1908, Claude Monet was convinced by his wife Alice that a vacation in Venice might restore his enthusiasm for painting. At 68 years old, he had an amount of recognition, but not the fame his name now embodies. He had struggled over the years to make a living as a painter and his latest project featuring his now-famous lilies, was not being well received by his art dealer collaborator. Alice's friends Daniel and Ariana Curtis had offered a couple-week stay in their Palazzo Barbaro. Nice Airbnb.
Monet had already developed his ethereal style, often featuring architecture, water and soft light. Venice would seem to be a natural for such a painter, but he had always deferred. First, he felt many of his famous contemporaries (Canaletto on right) had already captured the city and Monet wondered what new he could contribute. (Even he had self-doubts, a lesson for all artists.) Besides, he claimed Venice "was too beautiful to be painted".
Within three days of their "two week" visit, a visit that extended to two months, Claude Monet had been captured by the city's light and beauty. He sketched 37 paintings, near and on The Grand Canal. The de Young exhibition featured about half of those paintings, from museums and private collections around the world. This is the largest public exhibition of the Venice paintings since the artist's own Paris show in 1912. Reportedly, he organized that show in honor of Alice, who had passed away the year before.
It is impossible to capture in a small web presentation the magic of Claude Monet's insight into the look and feel of early 20th Century Venice. He painted from the banks of the Canal or from rented gondolas, offering a perspective that emphasized the water and he went out at different hours to capture different light, especially the light off the water..
Here, are three of the five "motifs" of the Church of Santa Maria della Salute.
I think this painting of the same church, at sunset and from a different angle, may have been my favorite. The details of the brushstrokes were fascinating and it is hard to imagine how quickly he needed to work to capture the fleeting, reflected, light.
Despite earlier misgivings, Monet did repeat scenes done by his famous contemporaries, such as this of the Doge's Palace, giving a completely different sense from Canaleto's work. Worth his signature.
After Venice, Claude Monet went on to present his Lillies in an exhibition that established him as a great master of his time. In today's show, there were a few examples of the later work, although they were hard to appreciate among the crowds.
I suppose we were at our two-hour "wall", that point in a museum or gallery visit where we glaze over. If we would have stopped here, we would have met the trip's goal, but the de Young Museum has far more and we could not stop with just Monet in Venice.
Upstairs from paintings of Venice, we started with contemporary galleries of three-dimensional pieces including glass by Dale Chihuly, and ceramics by Rudy Autio and Viola Frey, Western American artists we recognize. The hard, bright, colorful surfaces were a good break from Monet's soft fuzz.
Less contemporary were the Arts and Crafts furniture displays. Again, this is art we have enjoyed ourselves, although not much since the days of our 1920s home in Los Gatos. Again, a very Western subject.
Back to paintings, we strolled through rooms with abstract masters we often gravitate to. The simplicity this Helen Frankenthaler work and the unique colors of the Richard Diebenkorn painting are recognizable.
Away from the earlier crowds, it was nice to pause and take in the art. Of course, I took scores of pictures, but can only show a few here. For more, it takes the museum catalog or, better yet, your own visit.
Not all the art was as traditional as these. There were several galleries with everything from Anatolian carpets to African masks. Here are a few samples, in case you haven't reached a second wall (as we had!) by this time.
We have Turkish and Azerbaijani rugs with these same colors and patterns.
But these are far older.
Western American art as well.
The African collection was huge, but we were tired.
After four hours, we were done with museum galleries. It was time to be picked up by our bus and whisked off to dinner. "Whisked" was not the right word, since our oversized transport needed to wind it's way through narrow San Francisco streets to our North Beach destination. A twenty-minute cross-town trip ended up taking 45.
Dinner at Fior d'Italia was exceptional, particularly considering the size of our group. They served Caesar salad, a choice of pasta, fish, or chicken, and a delicious tiramisu for desert.
At 8pm, our driver came back and we all piled in, late and ready for the long drive home. The best part was that only the driver needed to do the considerable work of getting out of the narrow city streets, across the Bay Bridge, and onto the highways into The Valley.
Almost seventeen hours after we left home, we arrived back, cleaned up, and crashed. It has been a very long time since we were up past midnight, but it was all worth it.
Next? Who knows.
Stay tuned.
John and Marianne