Claude Monet Trekked Across Europe Seeking the Perfect Landscape. See the Results of His Quest, Gathered for a New Show

While museums around the globe are closed to the public, we
are spotlighting each day an inspiring exhibition that was
previously on view. Even if you can’t see it in person, allow us to
give you a virtual look. 

“Monet:
Places”
Museum Barberini Potsdam

What the museum
says:  “The exhibition ‘Monet: Places’ reveals
the strategies pursued by the artist in deciding where to live and
what cities to visit. This broad panorama of his oeuvre is
illustrated by over 100 exhibits, from his first recorded
composition to the famous water lilies painted in his garden in
Giverny in the final years of his career.

As visitors progress through the rooms they will be able to
trace Monet’s entire artistic development, culminating in his late
serial works, and will gain a sense of the various places which
inspired his Impressionist plein
air painting.”

Why it’s worth a look: This sprawling
exhibition is derived mostly from the personal collection of the
software billionaire Hasso Plattner, who founded the Museum
Barberini Potsdam, along with significant holdings from the Denver
Art Museum, and spans the breadth of Claude Monet’s endless thirst
to find new sources of inspiration in the varied landscape he
travelled.

As the museum points out, Monet was exceptional in his
transience as compared with many of his peers, “whose work was
inextricably linked to a particular area.” Portable tubes of paint
and a railway system were vital to Monet’s success, especially as
he traversed many popular tourist destinations, capturing the
magical light and aura of places frequented by the wealthy.

Monet was especially focused on the exact topographies of
the places he visited. And of course, his fascination with light
meant that each work was a precise documentation of a particular
time of day in a particular place. The exhibition serves as a kind
of lifelong diary of the artist’s career, taking the viewer along
his travel routes and into his mind.

What it looks like:

The post Claude Monet Trekked Across Europe Seeking the
Perfect Landscape. See the Results of His Quest, Gathered for a New
Show appeared first on artnet News.