The largest New York exhibition of Claude Monet’s paintings in 25 years, focusing on his time in Venice, opened at the Brooklyn Museum.
Initially resistant to the trend of artists visiting the “Floating City,” Monet finally acquiesced a few months shy of his 68th birthday. He spent an extraordinarily productive two months there, producing some 37 works, 19 of which are on display in Monet and Venice.
Like his numerous water lilies, these works continue his “fascination with water and light,” The Wall Street Journal wrote, but present a contrast by “dividing the canvas into rectangular zones,” alternately made up of looming palazzos and shimmering canals: “Look hard and you regret even more that Monet never returned to La Serenissima.”