Monet and more .....

Soutine the little pastry chef
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To the Orangerie to see the newly remodeled building which features Monet’s Water Lilies. In this case the new design is really a vast improvement. These 8 canvases are in the same original spaces (two large oval shaped rooms) in which they were installed when donated by Monet to the French Government in 1922. When I last saw them (with my sister Liz in the early 1990s) they were in a space which was rather dark; the floor above that space has now been removed and now the paintings are bathed in natural light (filtered through a gauze ceiling) and this really brings out all of the colour in them. Painted over 20 years, these works really confirm the importance of Monet to the whole development of abstract art.. other than the broad theme of water and flowers, there is no ‘composition’ as such, no horizon, and almost no way of placing yourself in the setting, so it is the paint and colour itself which dominates,

Soutine The village
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An added treat is that the Paul Guillaume collection (which was earlier displayed in rather haphazard fashion on the staircases and in the (now removed) upper floor is now in a new underground exhibition space which does them more justice. I thought that many of these works had been transferred to the Museum d Orsay, so was very pleased to see two of my favourite painters : Utrillo and Soutine given proper space. I think Utrilllo has been a big disservice by the popularised posters and reproductions of his Paris street scenes which make us a bit jaded about his work. It takes something like his early masterpiece .. the Church at Orleans .. to remind me what a great painter he was. As is Chaim Soutine .. 22 works on display, any one of which I would love to have. He is truly an original and there is a pleasure about his paintings of people and the visceral nature of his still lives (featuring raw meat or slain animals) always has an impact. Works by Renoir, Cezanne, Modigliani, and Rousseau are also in the collection. This was a high point on which to end my museum going for this trip.