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A Rambling Amateur Review of the Metropolitan Museum’s Art Show in Houston, in 3 Part Harmony Part One

Part Two, Part Three

I had never been and was determined to see one of the world’s best impressionist collections.  It was a Tuesday morning, early, so I’ve no idea why there were so many people, especially young people, literally thronging inside.  But everyone was polite and seemingly happy to be inside.  The ticket lines and coat check lines and bathroom lines all moved better than an exodus from Auditorium Shores in Austin after a rowdy fun nighttime concert.  I guess that’s to be expected  :-)

Anyway, once we finally made it through the various flights and turns of stairs, hallways, and out-stretched pointed hands of the guards, we found the impressionist collection wing.

Neatly printed on a clean new sign, outside the small rooms with a handful of impressionist art, was the cheerful info that the impressionist wing was being remodeled, expanded, improved, and, that the museum’s world renown collection, or most of it anyway, was doing it’s one U.S. stop before going to Berlin then returning home, in Houston. My mom, in Houston, got a good laugh out of that one.

Recently we made our way to Houston and saw both my Mom and the Met’s wandering impressionist collection.  What follows is my own rambling self indulgent take on the show; my thoughts and feelings it’s provoked then and now in me.  Originally I'd planned one grand verbal sweep to tell it all, now I realize it'll take 3 swipes at the mike so to speak, hopefully in 3 part harmony :-)

I also plan to post in a follow up email newsletter, sometime in the near future, any comments or thoughts any of you might wish to send to me. I’ll post them with either your first name or initials (your choice) and your city; no comments or responses added; “just the facts ma’am.”

Only “nasty” or mean-spirited vents, or personal notes directed to me, will be edited out.  If I only get one or a few responses I’ll title them the “Few Brave Responses.”  If there’s none at all, I might make some up, smile, then go on to work on my next painting  :-)

THE REVIEW

The Arrival

Probably the first thing one notices after identifying the building that is the museum is that there’s not only a parking lot across the street from the museum, but also a sign saying there’s an inexpensive parking garage right down the street ($3, try that in Austin, New York, or Paris!)

And the parking lot is free.  Plus, I've learned after more than 30 years of using that free parking lot, that no matter how big the crowd, patience will win you a spot.  Then it's just a quick walk across the street to the old new art museum.

Yes, the old new museum, the Caroline Wiess Law Building :-)  The new new museum,  the Audrey Jones Beck Building, is across the street to the east from the main bldg and is where the Met exhibit is at.  I call the old new museum such because i remember the grand but small stone building that was the original museum.  I don't recall how i came to find the original museum one day, it seems I'd come from Herman Park with my family one day and we'd wandered past the large fountain that someone's always putting soap suds into, and came to these beautiful wooded grounds with giant lions flanking the stone steps leading up the south side entrance.  I couldn't believe there was such a neat building in Houston.  And of course I just went right in not even knowing what it was.  I must've assumed the family would just follow me in (which they did.)  And surprisingly the guards were all very nice and encouraging that we look around.  Lots of old old art but interesting.

A nice history of the Houston Museum of Fine Art is available online.

The Entry

So once we crossed the street and found the glass doors flanked by the high reaching glass panels facing Bissonnet we quickly found the new member desk (no line!) and renewed our membership.  The membership lets us into the special exhibits free for the year.  So on my return trip to Houston to see my Mom for her birthday in April, I'll just stop in to see the Met show again, nice.

From the main building, one can go downstairs to take a tunnel beneath the street to the new building.  Usually there's a great exhibit of Remington art down there plus all sorts of rotating smaller exhibits, photography, new art, etc.  If you've only seen one or two Remington's in a magazine or such, and the exhibit is up, this'll be a treat. There's a real raw power of Remington's depiction of the West. Then there's a neon lit dark space in part of the connecting tunnel that creates all kind of disequilibrium.

Fun to do the first few times you come across it.  Sheila and I opted to go out the side door and dodge the little traffic there was yet that morning.  Looking to the right toward Rice University and Herman Park we could see the grand old fountain where Main and Montrose meet and merge, alive with it's huge splash of water and tons of white subs pouring out toward the Montrose street side.  Just like old times.

Inside the Beck bldg, again no huge lines, yet.  Got a time dated ticket to enter and headed up the tall tall escalators to the high second floor for the exhibit.

The Exhibit First Look

As usual we bypassed the free earphones (maybe next time) and headed right in. As advertised, the brilliantly designed building offers a wonderful soft ambient lighting so everything is seen in mostly natural light, probably how most things were seen back then (especially the early 1800's art) in both palaces, apartments, and huts.

The first groupings show a nice array of early 1800's work leading up to the impressionists and post-impressionists.  They're mostly darker and heavier than what I'm there to see, and have seen plenty in the past, but still, it's hard not to be struck by the power and quality of the work from Ingres, Corot, Courbet, Delacroix,  and Millet among others.  My intent was to pass quickly by through the now rapidly growing number of people standing, walking, sitting, even viewing from wheel chairs. But a clean line smooth Ingress, a dramatic Courbet and Delacroix, a really luminous horizontal Millet that just glows, and of course, a roomful of Corot, softened my pace.  I'll look more when I return later this month (no report though, this'll be more for mostly fun.)

Boudin

There's all kind of interesting stories of how Boudin and Monet became acquainted.  My favorite is of how the same frame shop supplying Boudin with frames and paints was also showing Monet's caricatures in the front street window.  Evidently the young Monet's drawings drew a lot of attention in the window, people snickering at the purposely humorous renditions and guessing or knowing who they represented. Boudin also noticed them and wanted to meet Monet, artist to artist so to speak.  The shop keeper told Monet who promptly made an aborted attempt to avoid being there when he thought Boudin would be there, I mean, why paint with some old guy, outside no less.  But the shopkeeper tricked Monet re when Boudin wouldn't be there, and the two were introduced.  The older artist talked Monet into an excursion to paint outside.  Monet later stated it was a revelation.  That eventually Monet never later returned to doing caricatures defines how revelatory this must have been for him.

I don't know if this particular story was from one of John Rewald's books, but for great humanity clarity and fact, his art histories are among my very favorite.

Boudin's selections are almost always small, long, and kinda thin.  A nice flat landscape format for beach scenes and ocean and sky.  Lots of breadth and distance.  Galveston must've been a lot like this once. Once in a great while it still is.  But Galveston still has something Austin itself rarely does, dramatic skies on an almost daily basis.  And it was, so says the info signage next to one of Boudin's works, for his inventive work with skies that Boudin's remembered best.

Lacking a truly in-depth formal education re the validity of that stmt, I'm kinda free to experience Boudin's work within my own contemporary setting.  The sky's are nice, but I guess now that skies are done as objects in themselves, they don't have the impact on me as when skies like this were new.  No, to me it's something kind and peaceful and whole in his work that always catches my second glance.  I know there's times when one's on the seashore, on the beach, and the warmth has penetrated the worries and knots twisting through me, easing the thoughts and pains into the distances in the sky and water (and there are many distances), into the softnesses of the horizon and water, and i've sensed the water and sky being of the same element, the same ease of slow movement.  Boudin's paintings remind me of that, the consistently.

Degas

I can't say there was the better of his work on display.  Mostly earlier darker work, interesting in itself, but no not my favorite, none of the truly stunning pieces.  The one I liked best was an oil done with lots of white that had the pastel look of one of his dance pastels.  The layering effect, though similar to pastels, has it's own interest and effect.

I've debated whether to mention Degas' alleged anti-semitism (I say alleged because again I'm not versed enough to say with conviction if true, or to what degree) but have to admit it's being mentioned so often has colored my view of his work slightly.  Though I truly admire and love the best of his brilliantly colored pastels, I can't help but wonder if I'd also be a person who this otherwise generous person and teacher would recoil from and not allow himself to be a friend with.  But when I see his better work, I just can't help but feel there must've been an inroad into this person's heart, a person who could see beauty so brilliantly.  That work is not at this show though.

Manet

It's taken many exhibits and books, for me mostly of the exhibits through the years at this same MFA in Houston, to realize how truly versatile Manet was.  Though, like many of the impressionist artists, Degas' work in an earlier room and Monet's in a room to come, transitioning from dark work to lighter pieces, from purely representational to the beginnings of abstraction, Manet's early work was also dark, his often had a more appealing fluidity, and a clearer contrast of light to dark, missing in the other artists' works seen earlier. There's a slight show of this range of his work at the show.  The Matador (a woman in disguise in fact!) and Boating paintings being a simple but effective range.  The Matador has sway and movement, strong contrast of black and white; the boatsman has a shock of blue and the feathery strokes of Renoir.  Both have large planes of color.

Manet could and did imitate and make his own almost every style that appealed to him.  He could paint side by side with Renoir as Renoir had by Monet's side; he could create flowers with flourish, street scenes with bustle, and brushwork that sparkled and spoke with the ease of the best of Morisot (who I think loved him deeply all her life and ended up marrying Manet's brother.)

My own preference is for color and texture (brushwork) and I've seen samples of his work that equalled all my impressionist favorites.  The McNay Museum in San Antonio has a few really nice Manets as part of their permanent collection.  There's enough at this Met exhibit in Houston to give you at least a taste of what he could do.

When I came home from my Air Force tour in the 70's, I went to the MFA in Houston and, because none of the posters in stock appealed to me, chose three posters from artists unknown to me at the time, Renoir, Corot, and Manet.

Though it's common knowledge that many fine creative people died before their prime in the past compared to what medicine may have been able to do for them today, and this would be true for Pissarro and of course Van Gogh as well, it is Manet who had clearly continued to progress unrelentingly in producing new stunning work.  Not counting his last small floral beauties when he was dying (done as about all he could do then), his brushwork had begun to fly from the canvas as John Singer Sargent's would later, amidst colors as rich as Renoir's, with texture as nuanced as Monet's, and touches as light as Berthe Morisot's.

From this room lay Monet's own works in waiting.

Monet

I'm gonna tease you here with a preview and detour 'cause I took one look at this long tall room full of Monet's, the colors and variety of surfaces winking with pleasure, and dashed smiling into a small side room of Renoir's.

To Be Continued via the Next Email Newsletter
Part Two, Part Three

Thanks ya'll,
Adan

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