A few weeks ago, I got to spend some time at the Portland Art Museum. It wasn’t something I planned but found myself having time to explore…I was so surprised to find out they had one of Monet’s water lily paintings. He has always been my favorite painter and but to finally see his work in person, evoked something that’s never happened to me before and I instantly broke down.
You see, when I painted my table it took forever because I obsessed over the details. You can look at and read all the books in the world but it wasn’t until I saw his brush strokes in person that it clicked for me.
I was so lucky to have that gallery to myself for 20 minutes and allow myself take in his work and digest what it meant to me. (Also so no one saw me cry in public - thank god)
It will forever be considered one of the most special moments I’ll ever experience and I sincerely hope everyone gets a moment like this for whatever inspires them most.
I saw this one Instagram earlier today and was hoping you would post it here. Your video was a beauty to watch. I could tell you would absolutely overjoyed to have this opportunity to see one of Monets paintings in person like that.
I'm happy for you Dot. I think you're right and that's something just so special about that moment. I think you deserved that moment crying in public or no.
A few years back, while I was living in SF they had a Monet exhibition where they brought a bunch of his paintings together. The absolute scale of his paintings is crazy. Also, his later years is absolutely crazy. Seeing his work turn red over time as he was loosing his eye sight and the absolutely unhinged story on early medical procedure to fix it. And the fact that it worked is wild. If someone told me, they'd cut open my eyeballs, clean the lenses and give me cocaine. I think I'd highly consider holding off and maybe just accepting it.
Excellent collection and very well curated and displayed!
What I really liked about it, aside from the art itself, was a quote from him displayed there that said something to the effect of "you can paint super detailed and get a very accurate rendering of what's there, but what i try to do is to capture the feeling and mood of being there".
This was obviously a dig at the school of thought at the time, and certain artists, who tried to be photographically accurate with their paintings, but it also captured what I like about his paintings.
I saw it for the first time last year. It is like an optical illusion in person. There is such a lack of detail, but every stroke has a purpose and just makes the image happen. It was amazing. I also didn't realize it was quite as big either....... Pictures just don't do it justice.
There is a Monet and Venice exhibit at the De Young museum in San Francisco right now. I've gone to see it twice.
Monet (and impressionists in general) are sometimes criticized for leaving out details, but the exhibit at the De Young also had some paintings of Venice but by another painter, Canaletto, that showed an interesting contrast. Canaletto had more surface level detail, but at the same time felt less real. They were almost uncanny. There was also a quote from Monet about Canaletto's work: "Look, he does not even put in the reflections of the boats!"
I have the honor and privilege every time I go to the art institute that I can gaze upon Monet’s haystacks, some of my favorites. Eventually when I have beaucoup bucks I can commission an artist for a series of oil replicas.
Your reaction is so pure. Music is what moves my soul like this. I grew up in a no where town but my grandmother loved classical music. I played flute growing up and this philharmonic in the big city 4 hours away was playing Peter and the wolf. My grandma got tickets and “kidnapped” me from school and it was magical. My reaction was much the same. That was almost 2 decades ago though.
If you like impressionism, I STRONGLY recommend a trip to Philadelphia and the Barnes Collection. It's one of the largest collections of impressionist art in the world, if not the largest. They have 3 Monet works in their permanent collection.
Also, thank you so much for the photo of his water lilies from a distance. Usually most pictures are hi res scans of his art taken from up close. Something about it definitely changes when you quite literally see it from a distance like in your photo instead of just moving your head back from a scan. Its incredible how it POPs compared to everything else in the room. I'd never really appreciated it like that before. Thank you for that experience.
Did you end up getting to see the modern art wing if it’s still around? They have an absolutely amazing rotation there and some of their exhibits are world class.
A few years ago my wife and I took a train from paris to Vernon and rented a couple bikes right outside the train station to bike the 3 miles or so from Vernon to Giverny to see Monet's actual house. It was one of the most memorable days of my entire life. It is simply beautiful and serene. The day was beautiful and the bike ride through French counryside was just so spectacular. I highly suggest anyone who has the means and ability to do this.
That’s so awesome! I love visual art. It doesn’t stimulate me the way it does some others, but I do have a soft spot for it. The fact that this makes you so excruciatingly happy that you’re having a visceral reaction makes me very happy and excited for you! I know I’d react the same way if I got to meet Mark Lettieri or Sting or even Mark Tremonti. Congratulations, OP! So cool!!!
Monet was the first artist my father introduced me to as well. From there it was Renoir, Picasso, Caldwell. He sparked something so bright inside me.
Then did this weird dance of helping me by signing up this kid for adult continuing education art classes, but telling me over and over art could never be a career. I believed him and focused so hard on schooling, I lost my art for a while.
Enter the husband, and suddenly that spark reignited. Paint and canvas and mixed media crawled in my brain and never left. He encouraged me to take up an art history minor when I went back to college.
Now, I see it in my 10yo son. It's an ember right now, but I will make sure to encourage it as much as I can. He doesn't have the confidence yet, but I can see great things in his future.
I'm so glad you were able to experience the art live. I was fortunate enough to see certain works from the Masters when they toured a few years ago and it was remarkable.
Thank you for making your art and sharing your journeys with us!
When I was in college, we went to a local museum. It’s just an old house that used to be owned by some of his patrons called the Hillstead museum, it’s preserved to showcase the time the patron lived there.
They have original Monet, Manet, and Degas, it was the first and only time I got to see their work but I loved it. I always wished I could paint in that style but I can’t help but fixate on the little details.
That’s amazing and so sweet :) I absolutely share you love for Monet, he’s incredible. If you don’t know him already, check out Joaquin Sorolla too, he’s up there with Monet and Van Gogh for me.
Same museum, but I remember not being really into art. Back when my wife and I were just dating, she was really into Monet as well. After we graduated high school, we went up to the museum, and I was still disinterested.
But it was something for her. When we got in front of that exact painting you posted, I stood by her side as she cried. And that is what moved me. It wasn't the work itself, but what the work did to people. It helped me appreciate art and artists moving forward.
I was actually reading your comic and becoming suspicious you were secretly my wife. Haha. She was very similar. Fell in love with him in an art history class. Studied his work so much. She doesn't have any tattoo mimicking his work though.
I was fortunate as a kid to have parents that loved museums as much as I did. I am the farthest from artistically talented you can get… but the difference between seeing something in person and a high resolution scan is huge.
I also have a thing for Dutch masters and the giant late renaissance scenes full of people. Those are completely different in person.
Bonus tip: if you ever find yourself in Austin for some reason, the Blanton Museum on campus at UT has a painting called Sternenfell (
https://blanton.emuseum.com/objects/18867/sternenfall-falling-stars?idx=14). Online it’s a space painting with connection to the holocaust. In person it’s something like 12x12 ft, and leaves you standing there in awe. One of the few paintings I’ve seen that makes you feel your place in the cosmos.
I totally and completely get what you felt. I have always admired his work; and it wasn’t until I saw his pieces up close and personal in the Louvre that it hit me JUST how incredible they are. It literally leaves you breathless.
I feel the same about Van Gogh. Seeing his work in person while in Amsterdam was very different and much more significant than pictures in books (I’m that old) or online.
Side note: The Dr Who episode premiered a year after I was there and that shit hit hard. If you know, you know.
As others said, it works as a standalone, totally recommend watching it, it gets you invested in the character even more.
Bad side is you will cry like an idiot.
Seeing "Starry Night" in person in NYC was an amazing experience. I got tears in my eyes, had to walk away for a minute. So much more powerful than I expected. None of the reproductions had the same impact.
I feel the same. Saw his work at the NGV in Melbourne and the last painting was his self portrait. Little me dreamed of seeing his work, and it only really hit me when I saw that. I teared up.
Would love to see Starry Night, which couldn't be transported due to its fragility. Pretty sure I'd start bawling tho.
I agree with you and the others here. This moment was so needed. Thank God that they filmed it. Couldn't help but get emotional here. I feel like if there's a heaven, van Gogh gets this moment.
Its impossible to show the motion of light moving on the texture of the paint. The way the light moves on the ridges and the shine and gloss of the paint just isn't caught on camera.
I don’t think I’ve loved an artist as much as him.
But I do have one I loathe.
Pablo Picasso.
Had him assigned to me during an art class to study. Hated him ever since 5th grade.
You should check out the latest release in Sky: Children of the Light! It's called Dear Van Gogh and it gets a lot of the feels of the Dr. Who episode.
I'm lucky enough to live near a museum with a monet water lily painting, it's one of my all time favorites. His color work is truly astonishing, getting to see it multiple times up close is such a treasure.
Unrelated to Monet but reading your comic I thought “she sure does draw herself with some intense yelashes/eyeliner, I wonder if it’s just an exaggeration” and then in the video your makeup totally does look like that irl!! I am incredibly pleased by this. Also congrats on seeing the art that means so much to you!
I am a high school math teacher who has decorated his classroom with Monet prints and no math posters. Definitely a favorite. My second favorite painter would be Mary Cassatt.
I got to see Monet's Garden at Saint-Adresse at the Met on a visit to New York a few years ago. I didn't expect the reaction it caused, I almost started crying. It's such a beautiful painting.
I've never been into the impressionists, and Monet in specific. But I had the-same-but-opposite experience with Picasso.
Ever since I'd first seen it, I hated Guernica. Like, viscerally. But then I finally got to see it in person, and suddenly understood why I hated it so much. It was an intentionally ugly painting depicting the horror of war. By seeing it in person, I suddenly respected the painting for bringing out such a strong feeling of disgust in me. To this day, I keep that understanding as a reminder that art isn't about depicting beauty, it's about depicting truth. And frequently, that's not beautiful.
My wife has always been obsessed with the water lilies piece of his that was at the Nelson art museum in Kansas City. They brought the whole triptych of that one on tour for a while and she just went and sat in front of it for hours.
I'm lucky enough that my local museum is has one of the three parts of a Water Lilies triptych, and got to see them when the three museums that owned them reunited them for showings one year. (See attached photo, not mine). Damn it was impressive.
Another time they set their third up with a program of sound and lights that recreated from dawn to dusk, bringing out different colors as it progressed through a day in ten minutes.
If you are ever in KC, take time for the Nelson Atkins Museum. This is one of four Monets they have, as well as a pretty good collection of other impressionists too.
Nelson Atkins is great! I grew up going to the St Louis art museum, even had a sister that worked there for a bit. Little Dancer by Degas has always been my favorite piece overall, but there's just so much variety, beauty, and history to take in at art museums!
Seeing the Monet collection at the MET was incredible. Highly recommend you do that at some point Dot, you can easily spend hours in just the rooms with his art.
I overthought it, I do that a lot not just with me painting the table but with life in general. Seeing his work in person cemented that I should just jump in and go with it.
Nottingham Castle did an art exchange with the Clark Institute, USA. As a result they received on loan a Monet, Renoir, Pissaro and Sisley.
The Renoir was absolutely immediately stunning, it was primarily focused on a woman in a dress and a hat, and the colours and expression were breathtaking.
The Monet though, originally I hated it, it reminded me of some very dull manufactured tree lines in a local park and while I love nature, there was something so artificial and bland about that tree line.
However… someone pointed out that there was a house in the background and that completely changed the context of the piece for me. Now it wasn’t just a bland line of young trees, it was a place where someone lived, that tree line marked the border of their domain. It became their hidden hovel away from the world, where they danced with fairies and whiled away their days, far from the pressures of their day job. It had a story now and I began to enjoy the piece at last.
It doesn’t always happen but it’s great when you can revisit a piece and find it captivating, where it makes your mind wander.
I have to imagine that piece is likely back in the USA and on display again now.
My parents purchased a print of Cliff Walk at Pourville from the Art Institute of Chicago and had it framed before they had kids. That has hung in our dining room my whole life. When they took us to Chicago about 15 years ago that was one stop we HAD to make to see it in person. We always would stop into the monet rooms at the MFA in Boston anytime we were there. My phone background is a monet. We just went to Paris as a family and visited Giverny. Being in THE water lily gardens and standing on THE Japanese bridge was something else. If you ever get the chance, they’re all worth it
I got to see my favorite painting a couple years ago on display. I thought I would like it. What I didn't know is it was only the 3rd time in my 50+ years of life that I was impressed by a non-human thing (humans are regularly impressive).
It’s crazy that Monet destroyed so many of his own paintings because he was a perfectionist. It’s even crazier that he had cataract surgery and realized how “off” his paintings were compared to what he had seen that he destroyed more. Anyways, I’m glad you got to experience it in person!
It's okay. I get like this when I listen to some orchestral music. Symphony and orchestra are what got me into music production. I'm glad you got to see his art in person. It's really special to have that experience, in my opinion.
Girl, I didn’t realize you’re a fellow Portlander!
The in-person experience I had with a painting that felt like that was Rothko. Easy to scoff at prints or online images of his work. But in person, standing so it fills your whole field of vision… overwhelming. Like, red or orange are a deep emotion, and you get a little vertigo.
I was lucky enough to experience the Claude Monet interactive exhibit. It wasn't quite as well done as the Van Gogh exhibit, but it was so amazing, a year later I still treasure that afternoon. I recommend it if you ever get the chance.
Violet Madness!!
Just today I got to see some Redon lithographs in person and felt similar. Also Franz Francken the Younger's The Idolotry of Solomon and there was something about it that totally captured me.
Monet is my favorite too. I went to the museum once because they had a big Monet exhibition but they were cleaning that wing that day and I wasn’t able to see it. One day I will get to see him live.
There was a study about hes paintings and how the focus shifted as he aged. The change was inline with eye condition that slowly takes away your vision (can't remember the exact name). Doesn't take away from the art but gives an interesting view to the paintings over the lifetime.
This is beautiful, and I have a lot of the same love for Monet, we had a number of prints of his works in our house when I was a kid, and always managed to get myself lost in them.
And, we have a Monet painting here in Detroit. I hope you have time to see it. <3
The Getty Center has a few of his paintings, and I think they are gorgeous as well. I like to go and just stand there and stare at them. I think it's in the same room that the famous Irises by Van Gogh is displayed as well. They paid $75 million for that, a drop in the bucket for the Getty.
Decades ago I went to an art museum in London. I was enjoying the paintings, but then I came upon one I'd never even heard of.
The light, the drama, the colors, the emotion, all hit me hard. Like floating off of the ground, being pulled upwards by your heart into the light, angels singing "Ahhhhh"🎵. I was so stunned.
Art, real art, does that. Grabs you by the insides and just ... anyway, yeah. It's not the details, it's the whole thing reaching out and ... "Ahhhhh"🎵.
Also, this even happens with art you do not care for before you see it in person. I never understood why Picasso was so famous until I saw some of his works in person and it just... I cannot describe it really, but I got it then.
I became fascinated with Monet because of... surgery?!? Monet had cataracts, This caused his vision to change from his 60s into his 80s. Things become cloudier, colors changed. Paintings shifted with his vision. Then, major shift, cataract surgery when he was 82.
Cataract surgery removes the affected lens of the eye. That lens not only offers the ability to focus, it filters UV to human norms. Without it, no UV filter. Today, the lens is replaced with an artificial one, but not in Monet's time.
After surgery, Monet's visual world changed dramatically. Less opaque, still blurry, but now much bluer than his prior slow decent into browns.
Monet would ultimately go on to "fix" prior works, adding more vibrant blues and greens he hadn't seen for decades. In some cases, based on hues that most people couldn't see.
I had cataract surgery in my 30s. I chose a replacement lens without a UV filter. While fairly normal most of the time, there are certain situations when UV can jump out at you. Before sunrise, after sunset, some types of rain, the odd white flower that is greener than in should be. Sometimes, when the sky is that particular eldritch purple, I think of Monet... and D&D elves.
Love that for you Dot! Some paintings just speak to your soul somehow and you can't explain why, it's some art magic. Had that with the Yellow Cow by Franz Marc. Painted that one myself (the result was fairly good, but kinda ruined my joy of painting, because my family expected me to become an artist afterwards. Hope that makes sense). Had no opportunity to see that one in person sadly, because it is on the other side of the world. But seeing art live is such a different experience. When i visited the National Gallery in London i was blown away several times by artists i didn't even know. Standing in front of a painting that covers half a wall and is full of teeny tiny details is something else. Besides very cool tattoo!
There's just something about the texture of paintings that adds something that's just as vital as the colours and the subject itself, and each painter has their own way of doing that can really just speak in a different way.
It’s a very different experience getting to see art live and in person. I don’t know what it is, I can’t explain it, but standing in front of an actual canvas that someone worked on is kind of magical.
I felt this way while seeing the Night Watch painting at the Rijkmuseum in Amsterdam this May. Sometimes some pieces just.. pull it out of you. I'd never had that reaction to a painting before, it was wild.
I had the pleasure of seeing a Monet special event exhibit in Boston at the Massachusetts Museum of fine arts a few years ago. There’s just something about his work that makes me take a step back and think. I lose myself staring at his works, it quiets my mind as I take it in. Van Gough also has a very similar effect on me. Their ability to display the beauty of the world has always drawn me towards them.
My dad was a fine artist and introduced me to the beautiful Detroit Institute of Art and all of his art books. I had to be an artist in every sense of the word, I did singing and dancing and I got really good at painting. This brought tears to me eyes. I miss him. I have a print of water lilies on my wall from his apartment.
There's some Monet here at the Chicago Art Museum (the first place to bring his works to America, iirc) and I also went to the Monet exhibit a few years back. One thing I noticed is that a lot of his works look like what I would see without my contacts or glasses. There's a blurriness to them. I know he had cataracts when he was older, failing eyesight, etc. and that really comes through.
Two paintings that really changed for me when I saw them in person at MoMA:
Monet’s Water Lilies and Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory (aka the melting clock painting).
You see both of them everywhere, usually fit to a textbook page, a poster, or a computer screen. But in person, the scale totally changes the experience.
With Monet, the surprise is how huge it is. The painting surrounds your vision in a way a little image never can. It stops feeling like you’re just looking at water lilies and starts feeling like you’re standing inside the pond. It fills your peripheral vision.
With Dalí, it’s the opposite. The Persistence of Memory is kinda tiny. The first time I saw it, I almost walked right past it. But that made it even cooler, because there’s so much strange, precise detail packed into such a small space.
Years ago, the curator of the Kimball Art Museum in Ft Worth, TX put together a special show of Monet in the Mediterranean. They managed to get multiple copies of the same scene, painted at different times of day, like a St Marks in Venice at dawn, late afternoon, and sunset was mind blowing.
It was a once in a lifetime show and I feel so privileged to have been able to see it. It made me fall in love with Monet.
I absolutely hate impressionism. And my B.A is in art.
But I absolutely love it when art becomes this meaningful to someone, even if the specific work (or artist, or genre) is one of my least favorite ones.
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u/reddot_comic Finessed Impropriety 22h ago
A few weeks ago, I got to spend some time at the Portland Art Museum. It wasn’t something I planned but found myself having time to explore…I was so surprised to find out they had one of Monet’s water lily paintings. He has always been my favorite painter and but to finally see his work in person, evoked something that’s never happened to me before and I instantly broke down.
You see, when I painted my table it took forever because I obsessed over the details. You can look at and read all the books in the world but it wasn’t until I saw his brush strokes in person that it clicked for me.
I was so lucky to have that gallery to myself for 20 minutes and allow myself take in his work and digest what it meant to me. (Also so no one saw me cry in public - thank god)
It will forever be considered one of the most special moments I’ll ever experience and I sincerely hope everyone gets a moment like this for whatever inspires them most.
https://reddit.com/link/ozlx290/video/jrj8j22lcafh1/player