A CURIOUS BUT LOGICAL COMBINATION - ONCE YOU KNOW!


Why bring together Ferdinand Hodler, ( 1853-1918) Claude Monet (1840-1926) and Edvard Munch (1863-1944) in an exhibition? This is the question that I have been asking myself since the exhibition opened in September at the Marmotton Museum. I would find out as I had decided to go during the « silly season » when I hoped all those who would probably go, were drinking and being merry…I was right, there were few people in the museum.

So why should they be brought together? Because they are all essential European modernist painters, between Impressionism, Post-Impressionism and Symbolism. In many ways, Monet introduced that period to Europe but I certainly would not have thought to group him with Hodler and Munch.

Their works take us through the 20th century – up to 1918 for Hodler, 1926 for Monet and 1944 for Munch – and they have had a determining influence on the history of art. Taking my time, but not being able to photograph the paintings (that always makes me wild), I went through to the end and then backtracked.

All three confronted questions about art which seemed insurmountable, with the same constancy, and at the risk of being misunderstood - I would think.

How do you paint the dazzling brilliance of the sun head-on – simply with colours on a canvas? 

Edvard Munch - Rain 1902

Claude Monet - An impression of sunrise - 1872

Canal  at sunset - MUnch  1908
Edvard Munch - The Sun - 1910-1911


Edvard Munch -  Thuringe: A snowy landscape -1906
















How do you paint snow? 



Edvard Munch - Man and Sled : 1910-12

Ferninand Hodlet - Lac Leman - 1904

Claude Monet - Norwegian red houses in Björnegaard :1895


 


















Edvard Munch : Snow on the Avenue - 1906

Claude Monet - Norwegian Landscape - 1895










Edvard Munch - Winter night : 1921









































How do you suggest the movement and variations of light on water or on the trunk of a tree, despite the immobility of the painting? 






 
Ferdinand Hodler Strolling at the edge of the forest : 1885


Edvard Munch -From the Riviera :189


Claude Monet : Kolsaas Mountaint - 1895

Claude Monet - The boat : 1887

Edvard Munch - Summer in Kragero : 1911

 
Ferdinand Hodler - The Courageous Woman - 1886

"I still picked impossible things to do: water with grass rippling in the background ...it's wonderful to see, but it makes you go crazy wanting to do that."

These words are from Monet, but they could be those of the painter who, until his death, persisted in studying the horizon of the Alps from his terrace from dawn to dusk – Hodler. 

Hodler

Ferdinand Hodler - Lake Thourne and Stockhorn range in the evening  :1905

Ferdinand Hodler - Lake Thourne and Stockhorn range :1905

Hodler

Hodler - 1916

Or one who relentlessly returned – to the point of depression – to the same colourful motifs, as did Munch .  Or even the stars which reminds you of Van Gogh 

Edvard Munch - Starry Night 1922-24


Edvard Munch : The artist and his sick eye : 1930

Or those bright colours and variations on a theme...

Edvard Munch :Unsettled view - 1930

Claude Monet : Looking at the house from the rose garden : 1922-24


Claude Monet - Sasso Vally and sunrise - 1884

Ferdinand Hodler Landscape close to Neris: 1915

 All three pushed painting to the point of the impossible. And succeeded, don’t you think? 


Ferdinand Hodler : self portrait -  1914

Edvard Munch : after the "Spanish flu" 1919


My final words are simply these? It took me ages to find any of the photos in the exhibition on Internet. I photographed them in the « Connaissance des Arts » so the selection is limited.




Claude Monet - self portrait

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