monet at the grand palais: a lesson in endurance

here in paris i've tried to keep complaining to a minimum because really what have i to complain about? i'm in paris! therefore i don't really deserve sympathy. but waiting in line for 4 hours in the cold just to get into a monet exhibit? that's un peu ridicule n'est-ce pas? i thought my feet were going to fall off; they were so cold and tired of standing. comment dit-on "frostbite" en français??? that deserves a little sympathy right? a teensy bit? no? ok fine.

the exhibit was fabulous. the scope of the exhibit was astonishing; there were dozens and dozens of monet paintings from museums all over the world: france, the us, the uk, germany, spain, australia, the netherlands, and even some from private collections. and it covered every phase of his career from his early landscapes to his portraits to his haystack, poplar, and cathedral series to his obsession with water lillies at the end of his life. and to sum it all up there is an beautiful exhibit catalogue that would make a great christmas gift (ahemparentswinkwink).

i've always liked monet's work. i mean who doesn't like monet? but i've never really loved monet. at least not in the way i love manet or caravaggio or matisse. and i was hoping this exhibit would make be love monet. but it didn't really. i still like him and i appreciated being able to see so many of his works in one place, which probably won't happen again, but i didn't fall in love.  i did, though, gain appreciation for how unafraid of color he was. i was struck by the paintings in which he strayed from his usual pallet of pastels to more vibrant colors.  i also really like some of his more abstract works from the end of his life in which his brush strokes are broader and particularly visible and he would leave parts of the canvas blank around the edges giving the painting an unfinished look. i would have liked to have seen monet working on these paintings because by this point in his life he was quite old and nearly blind but the paintings have such a vigorous physicality to them almost like a jackson pollock.  i tried to find a good reproduction but this is the best i can do.

so all the pain and suffering of waiting to get in turned out to be worth it. i feel like i experienced a part of the history of art today because i think it's unlikely that an exhibit like this will happen again anytime soon. and what are the odds it would be this year when i'm in paris? definitely the chance of a lifetime :)