Thursday, January 28, 2016

Greener Venues

I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels
~Lisel Mueller, "Monet Refuses the Operation"


On my sixteenth birthday, my French class took a trip to Washington D.C. to see Les Miserables and visit a French Impressionism exhibit at the National Gallery of Art. What a birthday that was! I couldn't see Les Mis well (my seat wasn't very good), but the Impressionists were a spectacular gift.

The world around me may be snow-covered, but we can always visit greener venues:

Le Bassin des Nympheas
by Claude Monet

Chemin Montant
by Gustave Caillebotte

A Rest in Rotten Row, Hyde Park
by Rose Maynard Barton

The Basket Chair
by Berthe Morisot

Eugene Manet and His Daughter in the Garden, 1883
by Berthe Morisot

Summer, 1909
by Frank Weston Benson

Banks of the Yerres
by Gustave Caillebotte

Le jardin aux pavots
by Robert Antoine Pinchon

In case you want to read all of Monet Refuses the Operation, here's the link.

2 comments:

HWY said...


I've loved Impressionists painting ever since I saw a work by Renoir for the first time. (No, it wasn't an original, just a print, but still....)

Glad to see that you've included some lesser-known Impressionists. I think that Berthe Morisot did some excellent work.

And I think that Summer 1909 by Frank Weston Benson is fantastic!

Retta said...

I've loved the impressionists, especially American Impressionism, for ages. But had never read the poem Money Refuses the Operation. Wow, it surprised me, the emotions it invoked! Powerful and touching. Thank you for sharing that.