The other day I went to the Monet exhibition at the Royal Academy.
It's good. Very good. Much better than the lame, predictable poster for the show.
I've had an affection for Monet and the Royal Academy ever since my Mum took me to see the famous Monet in the 90's exhibition in 1990. Interestingly, Mum now says it was my reaction at seeing that exhibition that convinced her I was serious about this 'art thing'.
This new exhibition shows never seen before sketches and pastels from Monet, including some really early stuff and some preliminary sketches of some of his really famous works. It's a great exhibition and well worth a visit. It's small, but worth a visit.
There are some great caricatures that I didn't know Monet had started his career with. Alone they're not that stunning, but seen as the beginning to Monet's career they're fascinating.
Two pictures particularly struck me. They struck me because of their graphic qualities.
Seascape:Storm 1866
Towing A Boat, Honfleur 1864
Look at the drama. Look at the drama those simple compositions and simple colours convey (although you really have to visit the show to see the full effect). They're almost duotone images yet they're so rich in colour. The compositions are so simple, there's almost nothing in the pictures, yet the stories are so vivid. Really powerful stuff.
I love visiting art galleries. For me they're a huge source of
inspiration - after all if you're a graphic designer the chances are
you started out loving art and wanting to be some sort of artist. Art
can teach you so much, light and dark, shape, form, spatial
relationships, layering ideas, communicating messages, story telling
and of course chiaroscuro.
Ladies who've just lunched.
One other thing about the exhibition. They had loads of Monet's sketch books which were fantastic, but obviously you couldn't touch them. So instead there was an interactive display. Most art galleries interactive things are shite. Complete bollocks. But this one was brilliant. You could flick through the pages and you could rotate them and you could zoom in and look at pages in really close detail. Brilliant.
A bad photograph taken by a bad cameraphone of a brilliant interactive display of a brilliant sketchbook.
Go and see the exhibition.
