Monet in Venice

choi

(1)
(a) Monet and Venice. Brooklyn Museum, Oct 11, 2025 - Feb 1, 2025.
https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/monet-venice
(Web page displaying Palazzo Ducale (Brooklyn version)/"Claude Monet once claimed that Venice was 'too beautiful to be painted' * * * since their [Monet's Venice Paintings'] debut in 1912. * * *Two masterpieces, the Brooklyn Museum's own Palazzo Ducale and The Grand Canal, Venice from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, are presented alongside selections from throughout Monet's career—including 19 of his Venetian paintings.   The artist's singular vision of Venice is also set in dialogue with portrayals of the city by renowned artists such as Canaletto, Paul Signac, John Singer Sargent, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Where others focused on Venice's busy streets and canals, Monet's interpretation is hauntingly devoid of human presence. Instead, he captures the interplay of architecture with color and light, enveloping viewers in the city's distinctive atmosphere")
(b) Monet and Venice.
https://www.famsf.org/exhibitions/monet-venice. de Young and Legion of Honor Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Mar 21 – July 26, 2026
(Web page displaying painting "The Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice. Indianapolis Museum of Art, The Lockton Collection, 70.76"/  "Although Claude Monet visited Venice only once, his paintings of the city are among his most dazzling. This exhibition, co-organized with the Brooklyn Museum, is the first dedicated to Monet's Venetian cityscapes since their debut over a century ago. Featuring more than 100 artworks, the exhibition places Monet's Venice paintings alongside select works from across his career, including his Water Lilies, as well as Venetian views by artists such as Manet, Renoir, and Canaletto. Unlike the bustling scenes painted by other artists, Monet's Venice is eerily deserted, its architecture, buildings, and canals dissolving in an encompassing, hazy light he described as the enveloppe")

Note:
(a) Brooklyn Museum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Museum
(1823- ; "is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects.[2] * * * The Brooklyn Museum is operated by a nonprofit of the same name, which was established in 1935.[236] The museum is part of the Cultural Institutions Group (CIG), a group of institutions that occupy land or buildings owned by the New York City government and derive part of their yearly funding from the city.[237]")
• Brooklyn Museum's Web page titled "Public Support" states, "The People of the City of New York provide major funding for the Museum's operations through the City's Department of Cultural Affairs."
• Brooklyn Museum's board of Trustees (not mayor, say) chooses new members, though the specific process is not found anywhere in the Web.
(b) Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine_Arts_Museums_of_San_Francisco
(1895- ; public (owned by city) )
(c) Palazzo Ducale
(i) For Palazzo Ducale, see Ducal Palace
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ducal_Palace
("Several palaces are named Ducal Palace (Italian: Palazzo Ducale [paˈlattso duˈkaːle]) because it was the seat or residence of a duke. Notable palaces with the name include: 'Doge's Palace, Venice' ")
(ii)
(A) Doge's Palace
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge%27s_Palace
(the current palace was built in 1340; Venetian Gothic style)

• Gothic architecture
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_architecture
("was prevalent in Europe from the late 12th to the 16th century * * * It originated in the Île-de-France and Picardy regions of northern France.[2]"/ section 6 Structural elements)
(B) doge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge
("Doge (title), a historical head of state in several Italian city-states, notably:
• Doge of Amalfi
• Doge of Genoa
• Doge of Venice")
(iii)
(A) For Palazzo Ducale (Brooklyn version), see Le Palais Ducal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Palais_Ducal
(section 4 Similar paintings by Monet)
(B) English dictionary:
* palais
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/palais
Note how Americans pronounce the French noun masculine.
(d)
(i) For The Grand Canal, Venice, see Le Grand Canal (Monet series)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Grand_Canal_(Monet_series)
(ii) Grand Canal (Venice)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Canal_(Venice)
(e) For The Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, see San Giorgio Maggiore (Monet series)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Giorgio_Maggiore_(Monet_series)
(f)
(i) The Lockton Collection was amassed by Mr and Mrs Richard C(urtis) Lockton, parents of David Lockton.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lockton
(ii) Lockton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockton
is a place name in England.

choi

(2) Walker Mimms, Venice Seduced A Reluctant Monet. Even on vacation, the father of French impressionism couldn’t resist the pull of optics and art history. A lush blockbuster show in Brooklyn helps you see why. New York Times, Oct 31, 2025, at page C1
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/ ... -museum-review.html

the first five paragraphs:

"Stay in your lane, or merge? 'I will not go to Venice,' Claude Monet liked to promise. His dealer had always urged him to try it, saying the paintings would sell back in Paris. But at 68 the most famous painter in France was sticking shrewdly to his territory, a triangle of Normandy stretching down through Rouen to the ornamental water garden he kept northwest of Paris.

"When his wife, Alice Hoschedé, insisted her husband forget his trials with 'endless water lilies' and accept an invitation to stay free of charge in the floating city, Monet agreed, on an off-duty sort of basis.

"They arrived on Oct 1, 1908, and hired gondolas down the Grand Canal. 'I'm too old to paint such beautiful things,' he assured her. They admired the Tintorettos at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco. They cupped handfuls of birdseed for the pigeons at Saint Mark's Basilica. Someone snapped a picture of them there, Claude and Alice, arms outstretched and covered in birds. The couple have that look of tourist obligation, dutiful, a little silly, tired. A bird perches on Monet’s cap.

"Then the dam broke. By Oct 9 he was putting in 10-hour days on the water in two-hour shifts, shivering at the easel until December, resulting in 37 paintings. What changed?

"If you judge by the 19 paintings the Brooklyn Museum has reunited for the lush and greedy 'Monet and Venice,' the largest survey of this detour in Monet's late career since Galerie Bernheim-Jeune's 'Venise' exhibition scattered these works to collectors in 1912, you;ll see that what grabbed him were the special density of the light there and the dreamlike supremacy of water. How could they not?

"Monet and his wife, Alice Hoschedé, in the Piazza San Marco in 1908.Credit...via Brooklyn Museum and Bridgeman Images

Note:
(a) father of impressionism: Claude Monet on Nov 13, 1872 in the port of Le Havre (where he was raised (in Normandy region of France); he had been born in Paris) painted Impression, Sunrise
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impression,_Sunrise
(French: Impression, soleil levant)
(b) Rouen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rouen
(a city on the River Seine in Normandy region)
is, in air distance, 45 miles air distance east of Le Havre -- and 60 miles northwest of Paris.
(c) "They admired the Tintorettos at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco."
(i) Tintoretto
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintoretto
(1518 – 1594 (born and died in Venice); birth name  Jacopo Robusti; "His father, Battista, was a dyer – [noun masculine] tintore [the letter e is pronounced in Italian] in Italian and tintor in Venetian; hence the son got the nickname of Tintoretto, 'little dyer,' or 'dyer's boy.'[4] )
(ii)
(A) Scuola Grande di San Rocco
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scuola_Grande_di_San_Rocco
("The building is the seat of a confraternity established in 1478, named after San Rocco, popularly regarded as a protector against plague.[1]")
(B) Italian-English dictionary:
* Rocco (proper name; from French [male given name] Roch [origin or meaning unknown] ): "a male given name [in Italy]"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Rocco
* Scuola (noun feminine; from Latin [noun feminine] schola [school]): "school"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scuola