Continuing through July 26,2026
In 1908, after having completed over 200 paintings of the water lilies floating atop his pond in Giverny, Claude Monet needed a shift in perspective. As astounding as it may now seem, the popular and critical enthusiasm for the “Water Lillies” series had started to wane. They were beginning to look too unfocused, diffuse and decorative in the context of the Salon des Indépendents exhibitions held in Paris during the previous decade, at least in comparison to the work of younger artists such as Georges Seurat and Henri Matisse.
So the 68-year-old Monet visited Venice in October of that year, initially planning for a two-week stay, but extending that visit to two months. During that time, he completed close to 40 paintings of that island metropolis. In so doing, he also refreshed his own practice and clarified his own vision just prior to being partially blinded by cataracts. Now, twenty-three of those works, curated by Lisa Small and Melissa E. Buron, are featured in “Monet and Venice” along with many additional works by other artists who spent time there.
The paintings from the “Venice” series are hung in two adjacent rooms that form a kind of inner sanctum within the overall exhibition. These are grouped around subjects, oftentimes with two or more versions of the same composition, none including a human figure. In Monet’s case, painting the same view is not the same thing as painting the same painting, in fact, far from it. The differences among his many “Haystacks” or his multiple treatments of the façade of “Rouen Cathedral,” as well as with the “Water Lilies,” lie in their painterly nuances. These are more consequential than their compositional similarities, because the real subjects of Monet’s paintings were always the effervescent interplays of light and color taking place amid shifting atmospheres at different times of day. This holds true for his Venetian paintings, which capture the interplay of light and mist in colors vibrating with evanescent energy. With that in mind, look at the seven paintings of the “Palazzo Ducale,” raking morning sunlight bathing its ornate surface in vibrant yellow and gold hues reflected and refracted in the water of the nearby lagoon. Evening moods are captured in another series of “Palazzo” paintings viewed from across the Grand Canal, their ornate façades treated in much the same way that Monet had treated the doors of ”Rouen Cathedral” in the early 1890s.
The difference that we see in many of the Venetian paintings is spatial organization, with compositions exaggerating the difference between foregrounds, middlegrounds and backgrounds. Several different types of deep-space illusionism are invoked, emphasizing atmospheric and chromatic perspective. This represents a departure from the “Water Lillies,” which were all presented in near-flat shallow spaces. In works such as “The Grand Canal, Venice” or the three breathtaking works portraying “San Giorgio Maggiore,” we see architectural landmarks occupying focal points for a renewed exploration of complex pictorial architectures encompassing the interplay of sky, sea and iconic buildings. “San Giorgio Maggiore by Twilight” is a veritable showstopper, depicting the church backlit by a fiery sunset.
Monet’s “Venice” paintings were not exhibited as a group until 1912, on the eve of the first World War, which perhaps explains why they have not been seen with any real frequency since that time. To balance that out, there is another room containing ten of Monet’s earlier works, mostly small and a bit too charming. The exceptions are two somber paintings made in London, “Waterloo Bridge: Effect of Sunlight in the Fog” (1902) and “Houses of Parliament: Sunlight Effect” (1903). These works recall a yet earlier time when Monet spent two years (1871-1872) in England evading military conscription, where he did some of the first paintings that the painter and critic Louis LeRoy would later denigrate as “Impressionist.” During that first trip to London, Monet almost certainty became acquainted with the work of J.M.W. Turner, another master of light and atmosphere who made three visits to Venice nearly a century before Monet arrived there. It is worth noting that both Monet and Turner were able to get their stunning chromatic effects by using relatively new pigments such as those based on cobalt and cadmium, made available as by-products of 19th century industrial metallurgy.
Seven of Turner’s watercolors of Venice are included in the exhibition, all delicate and delightfully subtle. As noted, “Monet and Venice” also includes a generous selection of work by other artists who either visited Venice or lived there. The earliest of these are two paintings by Canaletto (Antonio Canal), one of which depicts an 18th century regatta in grand style. In the context of this exhibition, Canaletto’s contribution comes off as a rather stuffy nod to the Venetian Rococo drenched in an ahead-of-its time Neo-Classicism. These works also hark back to the earlier Venetian Renaissance that Monet may have encountered. A large painting by Paul Signac titled “The Lagoon of St. Mark” (1906) points in the opposite direction, using bold Fauvist brushstrokes to describe its subject in an energized Modernist light. Also included are works by, among others, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Michele Marieschi and John Singer Sargent, plus a generous helping of archival ephemera. Thanks to its exhaustive scholarship as well as its glorious display, “Monet and Venice” should be at the top of any list of candidates for exhibition of the year.
