| Lancette Arts Journal Founded in 2000 |
Art Reviews |
June 2004 |
Turner, Whistler, Monet: Impressionist Visions
will be on view at the Art
Gallery of Ontario until Sept. 12, 2004.
By Alidë Kohlhaas
The Art Gallery of Ontario is currently exhibiting a very enlightening, intriguing, and exhilarating set of art works by three artists, whom we have literally domesticated in a way few other artists have been. Turner, Whistler, Monet: Impressionist Visions is an exhibition that one will want to see many times if only time allows. It is the brainchild Katherine Lochnan, the AGO's senior curator and R. Fraser Elliot curator of prints and drawings.
This thoughtful and creative woman made a connection between these painters that should have been obvious to us a long time ago. And she inspired the Tate Britain and two French art institutions, Réunion des musées nationaux and musée d'Orsay, to collaborate with the AGO to present this exhibition. Having gained their support, her vision also brought aboard various American institutions and private collectors, although this show will not travel to the United States, but only to London and Paris after it closes here.
It is hard to imagine that anyone could not have responded well to the paintings of these three artists in their lifetime. But we know only too well that they had many detractors. Today their artistic visions are almost household cliches. Think Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851), and to mind come his misty images of the British countryside; think James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), and Whistler's Mother is instantly recalled; think Claude Monet (1840-1926), and to one's mind come his flower paintings from Giverny. All are icons of art that seem about as unrelated as a cherry is to an apple, and an apple to an orange, their only commonality being that they are fruits.
But think again. The three artists are like an orange, a lemon and a grapefruit, relatives from the citrus family Rutaceae. The three artists discussed here are related through Impressionism, even if at first glace this does not appear to be the case, and historically we think of . . .
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