Seen and Heard Art Review

'Turner Whistler Monet' - Tate Britain, London (AR)

 

 

Tate Britain's blockbuster sell-out ‘Turner Whistler Monet’ exhibition (sponsored by Ernst & Young) is the first to juxtapose such divergent artists and reveals the importance of the American born Whistler as a linking figure between Turner, the forerunner of Impressionism, and the archetypical Impressionist, Monet. This exhibition reveals that Turner, Whistler and Monet were all in a sense Impressionists - or even Sensationists - as they were all influenced by the Thames’ haze and smog – smaze - a combination of man-made industrial pollution and man’s own sensations of sunny and stormy weathers. All three made the successful transition from realism to the more subtle art of sensation: the true birth of Sensationism.

 

A reviewer cannot possibly do such a mammoth show justice and it really required several visits to take in the intensity of the images. After absorbing so many sublime sensations, I reached an almost comatose state of saturation and knew it would be impossible to take in anymore. Here Stendahlism threatened on more than one occasion - I felt faint when confronted by the intense radiance of the magnificent Monets - they were the stars of the show eclipsing even such luminaries as Turner and Whistler.

Whilst the exhibition catalogue serves as a useful reference it fails to reproduce the sheer intensity of Monet, the subtle evanescence of Whistler or the dramatic dynamism of Turner. Even utilising today’s high standards of colour reproduction the illustrations appeared watered down and opaque, simply lacking the sensation and subtlety of the ‘originals’.

The well-planned layout of the exhibition allowed one to make immediate visual comparisons to how each artist approached similar subjects such as townscapes, riverscapes and smazescapes and sensation states - the sensation of mist and smog in the city. Whistler’s serene Nocturne in Grey and Silver (1873-75) is arguably his finest painting of the show with its mesmerising mist, distilled cool silence, appearing almost Rothkoesque. It is also strikingly similar in moody mistyness to Monet’s mauve and lavender The Seine at Giverny, Morning Mists, 1897. Whilst both images are painted in different styles and times of the day, the Whistler, depicting evening mist, is painted with invisible brush strokes, whilst in the Monet the brush marks are visible and form the image of the morning mist. Both have a strikingly similar mesmerising and shimmering quality arrived at by differing techniques. Whistler’s subtle translucence is partially achieved by the thinning down of oil paint with turps – peinture al’essence – perhaps partially derived from observing Turner’s opulent watercolours.

Whistler’s night-time views of the Thames, The Nocturnes, were painted from memory in the studio just as Turner’s Burning of the Houses of Parliament (16th October, 1834) was painted in the studio from a series of pure watercolour sketches he painted ‘live’ in a boat on the Thames, observing the action as it happened: seeing these vibrant watercolours on display for the first time reminded me of the fiery intensity of Emil Nolde’s watercolours in their burning primary colours. Whereas Turner painted the Houses of Parliament literarily in flames, Monet painted the Houses of Parliament, Sunset (1904) where river, sky and Parliament all appear to be aflame with the setting sun. Whereas Turner depicts Parliament burning Monet actually sets the Thames alight as liquefying flames: Parliament is floating in a river of fire.

In stark contrast to Turner and Monet, Whistler’s sombre and serene palette and the melancholic moods of his Nocturnes are strikingly reminiscent of Jawlensky’s dark and brooding Mediations. Whistler’s Nocturnes nurture the murky moments and moods of the twilight-zone, hovering between light and dark, smudging the vision of the viewer and producing a silent shudder.

For me the most stunning, dazzling and mesmerising painting was Monet’s Charing Cross Bridge Overcast Weather (1900) and no reproduction I have ever seen does it full justice. The sparkling and shimmering orange flicks of paint become gold tears reflecting the boiling hot sun.

At the end of the exhibition we are confronted with Monet’s murky Palazzo Contarini (1908) whose haunting and ghostly qualities return us to the twilight zone of Whistler’s mesmerising Nocturnes: the stone masonry has a soft jelly-like, shimmering, melting quality as if sinking into the lagoon which reflects and refracts it. The Palazzo is truncated and severed by the frame giving the impression that it is sinking and being devoured by the violently lapping water and creating the sensation of a crushing claustrophobia. Here the Palazzo is under siege by the invasive rising waters of the lagoon.

 

Monet’s dazzling, muscular and musical image of this vibrating, sinking palace left me with a floating feeling, and I left elevated and dazed. Yet, the only problem with this outstanding exhibition was that there was not one bad image in it; one had to censor what one saw in order to prevent becoming overwhelmed by sheer bedazzlement and fatigue.

 

Alex Russell