Since I didn’t title this blog “A Museum Rant a Day,” I’ll be brief but: there is a conspiracy of coat-check attendants in Parisian museums. The entrance hall, the ticket office, the cloakroom: all of these initial areas are nice and toasty. BUT: as soon as you’re tempted into checking your coat – boom! the rest of the museum is exactly the same temperature as it is outside (right now: maximum chilly). So don’t be fooled into giving up your coat – I myself have vowed that the Musée Marmottan-Monet is the last time my fingers will turn into little ice-lumps.
Anyway… this museum is a mixed bag, with Napoleonic era decorative art from the collections of Paul Marmottan on the one hand, and about a hundred Impressionist paintings from the holdings of the Académie des Beaux-Arts on the other (plus a special exhibition space). The real reason to go is to see Monet’s late works, donated to the museum by his son. Seeing these led me to my Third Stage of Monet Acceptance:
- High School: Monet is so laaaaame. Only dentists like him, for posters in their waiting rooms.
- Grad School: Since I have to teach Monet, I’ll fake an appreciation, so… hey, kids, isn’t it cool how we think that Monet is so tame, but he actually seemed like a threateningly revolutionary artist when he was young!
- At the Musée Marmottan-Monet: Hot damn, these late paintings, when he was losing his vision to cataracts, are amazing. Who would have thought that monumental close-ups of water lilies, irises, and roses could combine the mimetic splendors of representational art with the beauties of abstraction?
So, I might now actually like Monet – if only I could have stayed long enough to look as long as I wanted, without the risk of succumbing to frost-bite. There’s also a good assortment of works from others periods of Monet’s life, including some portraits of his children which will make you realize why he shied away from the human form in his main work (because he sucked at rendering it) and also the painting, “Impression: Sunrise,” which gave its name to the whole Impressionist movement (not that the incredibly thin signage tells you).
