We saw the Venice and Monet exhibit in San Francisco over the weekend.
Such a feast of color, light, and joy!
It closes at the end of July, so if you’re in Northern California, get thee to the DeYoung Museum!
The exhibit features an audio guide explaining Venice and Monet’s connection and how that connection influenced Monet’s painting.
My husband sat back and contemplated how Monet expressed his feelings about Venice in the paintings.
My friend and I listened to the audioguide, stepping close, back, and through the crowd.
It felt enthralling for several different reasons.
Venice and Monet and Me
I’ve traveled to Venice a half-dozen times.
I visited for the first time at fourteen, sailing on a ferry from the lido (beach) where my family camped.
A trip across the water is the most romantic way to first glimpse the island city of Venice. That first short trip left me awestruck as the Basilica de San Marcos seemed to hover above the water in Byzantine glory.
(I could see it on that crowded ferry because I was one of the tallest people on that boat crammed with vacationing Europeans. Only my father was taller than me that day. The same thing happened six years later. I am, however, only 5’9″ tall.)
I didn’t know at the time, but I saw Monet’s fascinating “light,” and watching it spark off the very blue Adriatic Sea, left me awestruck.
Much like Monet, I stood dazzled by the light and the water reflecting off the astonishing buildings. What was this place? It seemed more like a fairy-tale city than a powerful tenth-century center of commerce.
Magic.
My next visit was a tourist nightmare. Too many people, too hot, too many complaints.
And then two firm nuns measured my short skirt and denied me entry into the basilica.
I knew better the next three visits!
(Two other visits to Venice with young people were memorable when they caught a pigeon in the square! Monet and his wife did as well!)
But like Monet painted in this wonderful exhibit, I reveled in just walking through the floating city. We pushed through the tourist areas, slipped down narrow alleyways, came up short at the water, marveling at the gondolas.
That’s what we saw in the exhibit.
Pictorial life for Venice and Monet
In addition to the paintings–which followed an 1890s video of Venice–we also viewed postcards from the time.
Monet only spent two short months painting like mad before needing to return home.
But he brought postcards with him, along with his memory and the intriguing sights of changing water and light.
That’s what I remembered, too.
In March 2015, my husband, son, and I spent a night in Venice. I’d never been there after sunset.
The town emptied, quieted, muted lights came on, the moon rose, and we were in another place altogether.
That night, we dined in a candlelit restaurant and wandered alone through empty streets to a Mozart concert.
It, too, was in candlelight.
Venice after dark is a completely different place: quiet, empty, eerie, mysterious.
The light at night comes from the moon shining through the same narrow alleyways and glinting off the canals.
More magic.
Monet’s paintings of Venice
Claude Monet’s wife, Alice, wrote many letters while her husband painted. They visited the same sites each day while Monet experimented with the light.
Here are a few examples:
The painting on the right, San Giorgio Maggiore at dusk, is one of the few Monet paintings not primarily blue.
“He was particularly impressed by the Venetian sunsets, ‘these splendid sunsets which are unique in the world.'”
The couple had to leave Venice after a two-month extended visit. Monet was said to feel that “Venice was a city too beautiful to be painted.”
The Monets planned to return, but Alice died. A grieving Claude Monet never returned.
He did comment, however, that painting Venice helped him see his lily pad paintings differently. Monet finished his Venice paintings, returned to the lily pads, and they made him famous.
I haven’t returned to Venice since that magical night in 2015.
This Monet in Venice exhibit reminded me so much of what I loved about the floating city.
Maybe another time, off-season, on another dreamy night.
But only off-season.
Thoughts? Reactions? Lurker?