Nymph & Nymphaeas

what a thrill to see in Melbourne, 50 paintings by Monet, the guy we all know for his nymphaea (a.k.a water lilies). He began painting in Paris about 1860 and was accepted by the Paris Salon in 1865.  By 1890 he had purchased Le Pressoir  (a cider pressing house and orchard) west of Paris at Giverny where  he spent 20 years creating his garden, and fighting with the local council to get a permit for his pond. He had a rowboat made as a floating studio and spent the rest of his life recording the changing light on the pond, the bridge and the plants. Most of the works now at NGV usually reside in Paris so do try to see them here - think of the expense you will avoid. Since art is money and the money rests on the provenance, I always want to see the back of famous paintings, so here is a Monet and also his palette with the outer curve sawn off, probably when he

got too much paint on the cuff of the suitcoat he seems to have worn for painting.

 

The NGV missed the obvious opportunity unique to them, of covering their own ponds 

with waterlilies. Their giftshop was selling rubbery ones for $20.

After the art, the tart.    Nymphette Chloe

.

 - then with my dear friend and tolerant arty cohort Art Of Pants we had a delicious wine in the  Chloe room at Young and Jacksons, reputedly Melbourne's oldest surviving pub where the painting called 'Chloe' has always been the main attraction.

Painted by a contemporary of Monet, Jules Le Febvre, a medal winner of the 1875 Paris salon, she was purchased in 1880 by a Melbourne surgeon Fitzgerald. Melbourne was shocked when it saw her nudity on loan to the art gallery and she was removed to Dr FitzGeralds house where he hung her so she was visible from the street. Publican Young bought her in 1909. She hangs alone these days, but 'Young' was a big art collector and over 200 paintings, sketches and statues used to be on display throughout the hotel.

Do please click here for the story of how the damn commonwealth bank nearly ruined the corner of Swanston and Flinders Streets (the same way they succeeded in ruining what had been a fine historic intersection in Ballarat); and here is a very very old photo of Y and J's before YandJ bought it.

post impression

When out and about, one sees other travellers. This one told me she hadn't stopped moving since her husband died. Her valise was a very visual start to a very visual day. Our train arrived -

and we travelled from the city whose flag is of The Southern Cross constellation, to the station named Southern Cross - from which one cannot actually see the sky at all.
Sky RADIANCE - the new exhibition of post-Impressionists curated by Dr Ted Gott at the NGV, was the reason to travel, and to meet another blogger and step through the entry with 750 other culturati in the first 30 minutes of viewing - and radiant they certainly were.
If you know nothing about art, and you are ever pressed for an assessment, it is always safe to say "well of course it's always about 'the light' isn't it?"
So many opulent golden frames ... and silver-haired women with geometric cuts (that would have thrilled Vidal Sassoon if he could have seen them. He actually shocked 'the world' 50 years ago with his creation so radical when compared with what went before; as these painting were in their time).

Usually, I can ignore any painting of a beach and a boat, but yesterday one was my favourite of the show. Georges Seurat painted Grave Lines on The 'English' Channel many times. the one in Melbourne is very small with an very very High-Relief frame that could not be a further contrast of the simple composition.

A picture of a painting is one thing, and getting close to one is another thing altogether. Seurat, bless his paint-stained fingers, can make a boat, and convey calm pleasure out of eight tiny tiny paintstrokes.
It truly is radiant and if you were stoned you could lose yourself in it for hours more than the prolonged contemplation this sober admirer (usually having the attention-span of a canary) was happy to give it.
I loved it enough to steal it for my own. My companion informs that the title role of Seurat was played by Mandy Patinkin in a film Sundays With George. It is probably just a lovely film, but Mandy creeps me out, even in Homeland. I think that's because I saw him in Yentl, where everything creeped me out.
Beaches and boats have the same effect on me, as a direct result of going to high school so close to the shore in a fishing town, that the 'art teacher' would always make us go down there for painting and drawing the many dinghies and moorings.
On one of these days a big slobby black dog came at the group full of enthusiasm and some of the prissy girls started shreiking which escalated the whole thing until the teacher ran across Point Nepean Road to the police station. Plod attended immediately and SHOT THE DOG.
When old people tell you youngsters how different life was before mini-skirts, you'd better believe them. The teacher was probably 22 and PC Plod probably the same.  If I could only go back in a Time Machine and knock their empty heads hard together ...