The Modern Garden: from Monet to Matisse
SKY ARTS continued their excellent series on exhibitions last night with this one at the Royal Academy.
Gardens, like pictures of them, are intensely visual. So they work well in translation to television.
The programme highlighted Monet and his garden at Giverny.
A few years ago in Paris I made the short journey to Normandy see the garden on the banks of the Seine.
The house itself is disappointing but the garden, divided in two by a road, is well worth a visit.
It’s the best example I know of visualising a picture in situ – the water lilies – then you can visit the Marmottan Museum in Paris to see Monet’s representation of them.
Although garden painting suited the impressionists as its en plain air others outside this group contributed to the exhibition at the Royal Academy, notably Max Liebermann whose garden was at Wannsee the lake in Berlin.
Another was Pierre Bonnard whose garden was close to Giverny.
Gardens also suited the supreme colourist Matisse.
Although the Royal Academy, and therefore the programme, did not have any of Monet’s pictures of the gardens of the French consul in Bordighera it was fairly comprehensive.
One gardening expert observed that flowers and gardens came well down the scale of esteem in artistic representation which is not totally fair as virtually every well-known artist painted flowers.
I have in my home three reproductions of flowers by David Hockney, Marc Chagall and Ken Howard.
The programme also benefits from input from the curators of the museum.
These are not only well-informed but you learn of the process of putting together an exhibition.
Finally a topic that often appears on the Rust: frustration with the internet.
I am a Friend of the Royal Academy.
This allows free entry to exhibitions, or did.
I tried to get my free ticket for the current Gauguin exhibition only to be referred to the website which, after 20 minutes of hopeless navigation, informed me that it was now sold out.
I tried to call, only to hang on for another 20 minutes.
Don’t come begging to me again for help with the familiar art-in-crisis plea when you have to pay a hefty subscription to become a friend which entitles you to no preferential treatment.
