Monet and Architecture

Beautiful exhibition at the National Gallery looking at how Monet used architecture in his paintings.
 

It did more than the predicted Rouen Cathedral and House of Parliament pictures and I loved the early sections on the picturesque looking at where he grew up in Normandy, a trip to the Netherlands, the coast near Dieppe and towns on the Mediterranean sea. In each case it looked at how he used repeated images to explore light effects.  

The next section looked at cities with pictures of central Paris and London including the wonderful Boulevard des Capucines which records the moment when bright sunlight hits the street and cuts it into a light and a dark side. It then looked at the suburb of Argenteuil where he moved in 1871 and I particularly like the pictures of the bridge which had been destroyed in the Franco-Prussian War being rebuilt.  

The final section entitled the “Monument and the Mysterious” did hit us with the pictures of Rouen Cathedral as well as pictures of the House of Parliament and Venice. Again these explored repetition and light.  

Closes on 29 July 2018 

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