“Monet: The Early Years” is an art exhibition in San Francisco’s Legion of Honor. It displays about 60 painting by Claude Monet from earlier in his career: 1858-1872. The collection travels through museums around the world and it will stay in the Legion of Honor until the end of May. Not only that, the Legion of Honor displays more art in the upper level of the building. After visiting the Legion of Honor, we ate lunch at a restaurant called “Rendez-vous” in Albany.
Initially, my first impression of the Legion of Honor was the contrasting style of architecture to the rest of San Francisco. San Francisco is starting to modernize most of its buildings meanwhile the Legion of Honor resembled what I saw in movies and tv shows where a rich lord…show more content… One of his paintings, View near Roulles was the earliest painting that Monet presented to the public in the city of La Harve.One of my favorite paintings by Monet in the exhibit was the Saint-Germain-l’Auxserrois depicted the view of Paris from the balcony of the Louvre. In that painting, Monet had such attention to detail especially to the shadows, the light, and the people in the courtyard. However, the judges at the Salon were not fans of this painting because they rejected it. Most of my favorites from the exhibit depicted his lover, later wife, Camille. The Red Kerchief was impressive because of how Monet painted the sheerness of a curtain and how he used the technique of broken brush strokes which would be common in impressionism. There’s something striking about the construction of the painting. Also, I find the act of painting one’s lover to be such a romantic gesture and to see Monet constantly paint Camille throughout their relationship shows the extent of his affection for her. At the end of the exhibit, I bought some postcards of my favorite paintings from the…show more content… I saw a statue called La Petite Vénus debout or Small Standing Venus which depicted a small naked female holding a cloth by French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir who was a friend of Monet. They both painted a version of La Grenouillere which I saw as a part of Monet’s exhibit. Then, there was a portrait called Comtesse de Morel-Vindé and Her Daughter (The Music Lesson) by Baron François Gérard in 1799. According to the description beside the portrait, it depicts the wife and daughter of Charles-Gilbert de Morel-Vindé, who was a former member of the French parliament, in the “salon in their fashionable Parisian home in the boulevard de la Madeleine” and the daughter just finished reciting a song called “à ma mére”. Then, we saw a bust that was called Le Chinois by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux in bronze and Betty exclaimed that she at least recognized that word. Lastly, we came full circle and saw Claude Monet’s Water Lilies which, in contrast to the exhibit, was produced later in his life at “Giverny, west of Paris along the Seine”. Comparing the exhibit and Water Lilies, I could see how Monet matured as an artist and the recurring techniques he utilized. Overall, I enjoyed the visit to the Legion of Honor and I would probably visit in my free time again. Maybe, I could visit the new exhibit after
