Monet and London: Views of the Thames (2024 exhibition at The Courtauld Gallery) (21 paintings)

Claude Monet (1840-1926): Londres, le Parlement. Trouée de soleil dans le brouillard / London, Parliament, Sunlight in the Fog. 1904. Huile sur toile. H. 81,5 ; L. 92.5 cm. Legs comte Isaac de Camondo, 1911. Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d'Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski.

Monet and London: Views of the Thames (21 paintings)

The Courtauld Gallery

Somerset House, Strand ; London WC2R 0RN

Denise Coates Exhibition Galleries, Floor 3

    Supported by Kenneth C. Griffin and The Huo Family Foundation, with additional support from the Dr. Lee MacCormick Edwards Charitable Foundation.

    27 Sept 2024 – 19 Jan 2025

    Karen Serres is Senior Curator of Paintings at the Courtauld Gallery, London, and curator of the exhibition.

    Jennifer A. Thompson is Curator of European Painting and Sculpture and Head of the European Department of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

    Frances Fowle is Chair of Nineteenth-Century Art, Edinburgh College of Art and Senior Curator, French Art, at the National Galleries of Scotland.

    Visited on 17 Dec 2024

    

Exhibition catalogue: Karen Serres - with contributions from Frances Fowle and Jennifer A. Thompson: Monet and London: Views of the Thames. The Courtauld in association with Paul Holberton Publishing. ISBN: 978-1-913645-73-1. Format: Hardcover. Dimensions: 25 x 26 cm. 152 pages, 80 illustrations. - Four solid essays, in-depth exhibition catalogue with full page illustrations of each of the 21 paintings complete with contextual illustrations, plus a complete illustrated catalogue of the 1904 Galeries Durand-Ruel exhibition of Series of Views of the Thames in London (1900 to 1904) with a run of 37 paintings.

The Courtauld: Highlights from the Gallery. Written by Ernst Vegelin von Claerbergen, Alexandra Gerstein, Ketty Gottardo, Coralie Malissard, Karen Serres, Rachel Sloan, Barnaby Wright and Alixe Bovey. First published in paperback in 2021. The hardcover edition © B. T. Batsford Ltd. 2024. ISBN: 9781785515811 - Dimensions: 23 x 19 cm - Pages: 136. A handsome volume with masterpieces from Fra Angelico to Frank Auerbach. The visual quality of the illustrations is high.

The Courtauld Gallery introduction: "Claude Monet (1840—1926) is world renowned as the leading figure of French Impressionism, the movement that changed the course of modern art. Less known is the fact that some of Monet’s most remarkable Impressionist paintings were made not in France but in London. They depict extraordinary views of the Thames as it had never been seen before, full of evocative atmosphere, mysterious light and radiant colour."

"Begun during three stays in the capital between 1899 and 1901, the series — depicting Charing Cross Bridge, Waterloo Bridge and the Houses of Parliament — was unveiled in Paris in 1904. Monet fervently wanted to show them in London the following year, but plans fell through. To this day, they have never been the subject of a UK exhibition."

"The Griffin Catalyst Exhibition: Monet and London. Views of the Thames realises Monet’s unfulfilled ambition of showing this extraordinary group of paintings in London, and just 300 metres from the Savoy Hotel where many of them were painted. By presenting the paintings Monet himself selected for his public in Paris and London, it provides visitors with the unique experience of seeing the show Monet curated and the works he felt best represented his ambitious artistic enterprise — brought together for the first time 120 years after their inaugural exhibition." (The Courtauld Gallery introduction)

AA: The year's last visit to an art exhibition is meaningful and memorable in many ways.

I admire it for half an hour outside the entrance. The exhibition has been sold out long ago. But if you believe in miracles, they can happen, and I finally enter the blessed rooms with the 21 paintings. I will be forever grateful for the angels that made it possible. Christmas time is still magical in London, and this exhibition becomes my greatest Christmas present. A sacred hour of art worship. In the danger zone of the Stendhal syndrome.

A miraculous bath in radiant light and colour. The subjects remain the same, but each painting is different. London by the Thames was Monet's favourite subject, and he was enthralled by its constantly changing views. He tried to catch the instant, and could spend years and even decades in trying to cover the nuances and the layers of the lights, the reflections and the atmosphere. 

This is the 150th anniversary of impressionism, and it was a Monet painting, "Impression, soleil levant", that gave the name to the movement. In 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, Camille Pissarro and Claude Monet went to exile in London where they were inspired by Turner and Constable. 

Monet returned to London 30 years later and created entire series of paintings of London by the Thames. His esteem rose to a new level in the Durand-Ruel exhibition of these paintings, and he wanted to bring his London series even to London. Alas, that never happened. Until now, 120 years later.

Claude Monet and impressionism were all about art for art's sake. But I am an incorrigible sociologist and always interested in the philosophy of history. These breathtaking paintings are for me also visionary about the capital of the greatest empire of the age - and the industrial revolution. Of smog, dust and dirt, health danger, pollution and environment disaster, Monet created poetry. 

Monet himself praised the beauty in the views, but in some paintings I ask: if this is beauty, who needs ugliness? I find that Monet transcends the distinction of "ugly" and "beautiful". Instead, I would use words like "eerie", "strange" and "uncanny". The fog-surrounded silhouette of the Neo-Gothic architecture even evokes horror. The imagination of disaster of the climate change. The new aesthetics of destruction and mutilation. Monet did not invent it: Turner and Whistler did.

But Monet is a techno-optimist. His art is a celebration of tremendous power, energy, drive and movement, reflected both in the mighty tidal river Thames and the steam trains rolling on its bridges. London can take it.

The sun struggles to bring its rays through the smoke, soot, steam and vapour. The Thames appears both as a river of life and a river of death - the Acheron and the Styx - and the phantom-like characters on the vessels evoke Charon, the ferryman of the underworld negotiating those rivers.

In his visionary London paintings Monet was a great poet of the industrial revolution.

I showed the Courtauld catalogue to Ehsan Khosbakht who gave yesterday a superb introduction to a rare film noir, and he pointed out that the Monet cover art (Westminster in the fog) shares its subject with the opening credits of that film, The Brighton Strangler. Let's also remember that the first really distinctive film of Alfred Hitchcock was The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog.

Yesterday on the South Bank, today on the North Bank. From the expressionism of film noir to the impressionism of Claude Monet. 

...

The Views of the Thames exhibition would deserve focus, concentration and meditation, but in today's circumstances that has become impossible. The dominant visual presence was not Monet but the photographers with LED screens brighter than the paintings. If Monet would have entered, he would have turned away.

The book The Courtauld: Highlights from the Gallery is lovely with a fine visual quality in the illustrations. The Monet and London exhibition catalogue is a highly rewarding keepsake (it took me almost two months to digest), but the visual quality of the illustrations fails to do justice to Monet.