Developed in collaboration between MFA Boston and NGS, Into the Modern presents a selection of over 100 Impressionist works from MFA Boston’s (clearly impressive) permanent collection. In NGS’ ten-year history, this is the second time we have the privilege to view French Impressionist works on such a large scale in Singapore. This blog Wording Art has also turned 10 (!!!), and I have loved sharing about Impressionism throughout the years, and so it’s super timely to end the year with nineteenth-century French Impressionism.

Nature and the Impressionists

Into the Modern begins — perhaps a little surprisingly — with the Barbizon School of painters, before Impressionism was fully formed. Located about 60km outside Paris, artists gathered in the village of Barbizon and painted in the nearby Forest of Fontainebleau. Artists like Théodore Rousseau embraced these scenic landscapes untouched by modern developments. I have a soft spot for Rousseau’s paintings of nature, so it was wonderful to see Pool in the Forest. The Barbizon artists painted nature in a Realist style, and influenced the next generation of painters to radically approach nature through Impressionism.

1874: The First Impressionist Exhibition

The reproductions of two prints and a photograph (most right) on this gallery wall offer a look into the annual Salons held in the Palais de l’Industrie from 1855 onwards (where it was previously held in the Louvre). Artists could submit whatever artworks they wanted to the prestigious Salon, but only those that met the academic criteria of the time would be accepted.

It’s probably not surprising that the Impressionist style of loose, rapid painting especially en plein air (in the outdoors) did not fit what the Salon wanted. A group of Impressionist painters gathered together to form the Société anonyme des artistes peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs, etc (Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, Engravers, etc.). They staged their first Impressionist exhibition in 1874, independent of the Salon, which later came to be a landmark moment for the Impressionists.

Very interestingly, Renoir and Monet painted the same ‘models’ in the portraits above: Monet’s first wife Camille, and their son Jean. Monet made many paintings with Camille and Jean set within lush gardens or fields. In Renoir’s take, Camille looks directly to the viewer (although I find her face not well-portrayed), while the toddler happily wanders off.

I just realised that a reproduced version of Meadow with Poplars was shown at Impressions of Monet at Gardens by the Bay last year! Now we get to see the real thing!

I particularly loved this stretch of four paintings by Renoir, Monet and Cézanne, showing how they depicted people within landscapes.

Waterscapes and Landscapes

This landscape painting looks very much like a Renoir, but reminded me of Cézanne somehow… Turns out Renoir visited Cézanne in the village of L’Estaque in 1882, which Cézanne regularly visited and painted since the 1860s. Together, the two artists painted the same view of the mountainous terrain.

I really like Renoir’s painting of The Seine at Chatou, which was known as a boating spot in the Parisian suburbs. Particularly, I love the details of the girl’s red hat and flowers, and the small boats in the distance.

A Little Post-Impressionism

It’s also a treat to see more of Cézanne’s works. While he shared the Impressionists’ penchant for painting nature, his compositions look quite different as Cézanne began exploring his own painterly style (flatter and with a kind of slanted perspective). Retrospectively then, he’s better known as a Post-Impressionist.

Camille Pissarro’s career was probably the most varied among the Impressionists. His early influences came from the Barbizon School of painters, later becoming the ‘father of Impressionism’. He helped to establish the Société anonyme des artistes peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs, etc, and acted as a mentor and father figure to key Impressionist figures.

The two paintings pictured here marks Pissarro’s late period when he explored Pointillism. After meeting the Neo-Impressionist artists Georges Seurat (not included in this exhibition) and Paul Signac (included in this exhibition but not pictured in this post), Pissarro experimented with the technique of placing dots of complementary colours next to each other. Seurat is best known for the Pointillist technique, which is actually so painstaking! Pissarro brought his own take on Pointillism in these scenes of ideal rural life and labour.

City Life and Paris

At this point, we reach the final Gallery 3 of Into the Modern at National Gallery Singapore. Out of the countryside and into the city! This is my favourite section of the exhibition, as we shall see…

Perhaps the ultimate ‘painter of modern life’, to borrow Charles Baudelaire’s words, was Édouard Manet. Although he did not exhibit in the Impressionist Exhibitions, he did his fair share of challenging the artistic status quo. In 1865, he exhibited his scandalous painting Olympia (which somehow managed to get accepted!) at the Salon. The stark image of a nude figure who confronts the viewer in Olympia was modelled by Manet’s favourite model, Victorine Meurent. The exhibition includes a print etching of Olympia. Meurent also appears in Street Singer below.

It’s so interesting to compare a self-portrait with a portrait of the same person… Manet’s portrait of Victorine Meurent and Meurent’s Self-Portrait were painted over a decade apart, and they certainly present different views of the model and artist. In Meurent’s Self-Portrait I find it intriguing how she is almost fully turned to the side, and she appears quite fierce or confrontational here.

Renoir’s Highlight Piece

A highlight of Into the Modern is definitely Renoir’s Dance at Bougival! I can’t believe we get the chance to see this in Singapore, as it supposedly rarely leaves Boston on loan. This is probably the best work by Renoir in my opinion. A couple dances in a café in Bougival, a popular recreation town along the Seine outside Paris. Dancing outdoors in a public setting — isn’t that so modern?

Degas and Cassatt

I was drawn to Degas’ painting because it depicts the ‘simple’ experience of a Visit to a Museum. It’s also the perfect sisterly activity to do, as Degas paints fellow Impressionist artist Mary Cassatt and her sister, Lydia, in the Louvre. Degas and Cassatt were close colleagues and friends, and it’s nice to see artists painting each other in this manner.

Hailing from America, it is a shame though that Cassatt’s works in the MFA Boston collection don’t feature in this exhibition. Mary Cassatt played a huge part not only in contributing to the Impressionists’ output, but she also advised American patrons to buy Impressionist works, especially the Havemeyer family. The original Havemeyer art collection now largely resides in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as in the Shelburne Museum, which you can read more about here.

In the lecture hosted in conjunction with this exhibition, the eminent art historian Griselda Pollock spoke about Mary Cassatt and how she was a key player among the Impressionists. As Pollock puts it, the Impressionists were the first egalitarian artist group where women could play equal roles as men. I also got to ask Prof. Pollock a question about Degas and Cassatt in relation to Visit to a Museum — which will remain as one of the best moments of my life! As anyone who works on women artists would know, Pollock’s work is highly influential in the field, so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to ask her a question about Cassatt and her appearance in Degas’ painting. :)

Still Life

I really liked seeing this section of the gallery focusing on the Impressionists’ work on still life (paintings of still, inanimate objects). I feel that the individuality and uniqueness of each of the Impressionists’ painting styles come through really well in these still lifes. Also, can you spot Renoir’s signature in the lower right of Mixed Flowers in an Earthenware Pot?

Cézanne’s paintings of fruit in his still life paintings would be the most well-known among them all. Even now, he still astonishes us with an apple…

Immersed in Monet

The exhibition ends with a roomful of Monet’s paintings. How amazing is that! I also love the look of the curved walls in this room (as you can see in the cover picture), as it reminds me of the display of Monet’s Water Lilies at Musée de l’Orangerie (my dream to visit one day!)…

Poppy Field in a Hollow near Giverny is one of my favourites in this selection. Many of these works were created after Monet settled in Giverny in 1883 for the rest of his life.

Of course, don’t miss The Water Lily Pond! This is one in a series where Monet painted a view of the water lily pond in his Giverny gardens, featuring his Japanese-style green bridge — perhaps coloured a little differently in the sunlight in this painting.

I love the delicate pinks and blues that Monet captures in his paintings of Antibes. Antibes Seen from the Plateau Notre-Dame is displayed earlier in the exhibition, as you can see above in this post. I also especially love the detail of the tiny sailboats in Cap d’Antibes, Mistral. I need to see it again — it’s another of my favourites.

When travelling in Antibes, Monet wrote to Alice Hoschedé (who later became Monet’s second wife) in January 1888: ‘I am painting the town of Antibes, a little fortified town all golden in the sun that stands out against beautiful blue and pink mountains and the eternally snow-capped range of the Alps.’ I think Monet perfectly captured the pastel beauty of Antibes as he described.

Be sure to visit Into the Modern at National Gallery Singapore to see all of these beautiful Impressionist works and more! The exhibition is ongoing until 1 March 2026.

A special promotion is also ongoing, where you can get 25% off the exhibition ticket until 1 February 2026. Additionally, present your exhibition tickets to get 10% off Pierre Hermé macarons at the pop-up at Padang Atrium, Level 1, until 31 December 2025. My sister bought those Pierre Hermé macarons, and they’re sooo good!

Overall, I thought Into the Modern was an excellent exhibition. It’s wonderful to see so many people queuing (!) to see it. If you have seen the show, let me know what you think by rating it below!

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The exhibition of Impressions of Monet is such a treat, transporting us to Monet’s Giverny right within the grounds of Gardens by the Bay! When I first learnt about Claude Monet (only in uni), I instantly loved his impressionistic artworks. He remains one of my favourite artists, and I count myself very lucky to have viewed his works across Hong Kong, Singapore and London! Visiting Giverny one day remains on my travel list, but it’s so cool that I get to see a replica of Monet’s house and gardens in Giverny right here in Singapore! I also think this might be my favourite exhibition in Singapore in 2024 so far.

Impressions of Monet: The Garden (Part I)

Around the age of 43, Monet and his family moved to Giverny, settling in a house and accompanying gardens from 1883 till his death in 1926. Over the years, Monet transformed his property into what we know and love today. The paint colours of his home (a gorgeous baby pink and dark green combination) were meant to emulate houses on the French Riviera, and his gardens became known for the water lily ponds which inspired his painting series of the subject made in his later years.

Gardens by the Bay in Singapore has rotating flower displays every year (sakura or cherry blossoms, tulips, and roses are the key highlights). I loved that they did something new this time around by centring the floral display on Monet’s gardens in Giverny.

The exhibition Impressions of Monet consists of two parts: Impressions of Monet: The Garden and Impressions of Monet: The Experience. There is much to see here!

I loved seeing the flowers in this show, which are different from the usual lineup at Gardens by the Bay. Closely aligned to the theme, the flowers included here were also the ones that Monet planted in his original gardens.

Painting En Plein Air

Monet was one of the French painters who made up the art movement of Impressionism. Monet was especially known for his obsession in chasing after light effects in nature. This involved taking his easel, canvas, paintbrushes, palette, and painting toolbox out and about to paint outdoors. Or in French, to paint en plein air. This also meant to paint quickly, resulting in the kind of short, rapid brushstrokes that define Impressionist paintings.

Here, a bronze sculpture of Monet shows him painting within the gardens! I also loved that he’s seen in the act of painting Monet’s Garden at Giverny (1895). Fitting choice!

Inside Monet’s House

There are other interactive elements among the garden, like stepping inside Monet’s house and seeing the interiors!

Monet took inspiration from Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints from the Edo period, and some reproductions are included within the house too. To see more, check out my post on Life in Edo!

A spectacular setup of Monet’s Giverny maison et jardins is the highlight of Impressions of Monet: The Garden!

Flowers and Paintings

You may have noticed that most of the ‘artworks’ included within Impressions of Monet: The Garden were actually repainted copies. (Possibly due to copyright restrictions?) Monet has such a wide oeurve, and I loved having the chance to learn about some of his works that I didn’t know of before! The exhibition didn’t provide any ‘captions’, so I had to find out what these artworks are for myself!

Woman with a Parasol is one of my absolute favourites by Monet, and it’s nicely included here!

I especially loved seeing these sunflower-looking flowers — they remind me of my convocation earlier in July! Plus, they look a lot like the flowers in The Artist’s Garden at Vétheuil above! The last ‘artwork’ nestled among these yellow flowers is a repainted copy of Meadow with Poplars, about 1875, in the collection of MFA Boston. A repainted copy of a very similar composition, Poppy Fields near Argenteuil (1875) at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, also appears among an earlier section of these yellow flowers (see photo at the beginning of this post).

Water Lilies in Monet’s Giverny

It took me time to understand my water lilies. I had planted them for the pleasure of it; I grew them without ever thinking of painting them. – Claude Monet

It was wonderful to see a few water lily ponds (bassin aux nymphéas) throughout the exhibition. It was also the water lilies’ debut at Gardens by the Bay, appearing in a floral display for the first time! We also got to see Monet’s Japanese-inspired green bridges (usually painted in red in Japanese culture), like the ones that he built in Giverny.

Impressions of Monet: The Experience (Part II)

I thought Impressions of Monet: The Garden was wonderful on its own, but there’s even more to see with Impressions of Monet: The Experience! The second part is like what you might expect from an immersive experience: it begins with various information panels on the artists of the Impressionist movement, includes a few reproductions of Monet’s paintings, and has many photo spots and digital elements!

I thought this rather abstract version of Monet’s Nymphéas was fascinating! I’ve never seen anything like it before — it’s in a private collection.

Monet: The Immersive Experience

The major highlight is the immersive experience itself! Produced by Grande Experiences (Australia), the digital experience shows the progression of the Impressionist movement, set to a classical music soundtrack. There was also a fragrance element, with a specially developed scent diffused through the gallery — but to be honest, I didn’t catch it!

My favourite part might be the opening section where the dramatic music shows some of the artistic styles and artworks that preceded the Impressionism movement. For example, I spy Jacques-Louis David (neoclassicism), Eugène Delacroix (romanticism), and Gustave Courbet (realism). Then bam! The music rises to indicate the Impressionists arriving on the scene.

One of my other absolute favourites of Monet’s is his Houses of Parliament series (1899–1904) made in London. I was so happy to see a 1904 version in Hong Kong back in 2016! Monet’s Houses of Parliament painting series is also going to be a subject of the exhibition Monet and London. Views of the Thames at The Courtauld Gallery in London opening soon this month — really wished I could be there!

I liked that the immersive experience also included artworks by the other Impressionist artists! I just wished that the artwork titles were included within the immersive experience too. Above is an expanded view of Paul Cézanne’s The Montagne Sainte-Victoire with a Large Pine (around 1887) at The Courtauld.

An expanded view of Monet’s La Pie (The Magpie) (1868-69) which was last in Singapore at National Gallery Singapore in 2017!

Gift Shop

The final touch of Impressions of Monet: The Experience is, of course, the gift shop! I ended up going home with a high-quality mug with a design of Woman with a Parasol – Madame Monet and Her Son (1875) and Woman with a Parasol, Facing Left (1886) photoshopped together.

Overall, I thought Impressions of Monet was excellently done, and I had the best time exploring Monet’s iconic house in Giverny — but in Gardens by the Bay in Singapore! I really think Gardens by the Bay has outdone themselves. Impressions of Monet: The Garden at Gardens by the Bay, with a touch of Giverny, is showing until 17th September 2024. Impressions of Monet: The Experience is showing until 18th February 2025.

Next up in Singapore, I’m looking forward to the immersive experience of Monet Inside (from Seoul, Korea) opening in October. Would the immersive experience be even more epic? Well, I’ll take any reason to see more Monet — whether physically or digitally!

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Going to London in May 2022 was such perfect timing as there were so many special exhibitions (and some still ongoing) that I was particularly interested to see! At The National Gallery, there’s the phenomenal Raphael exhibition — running until 31 July 2022. There was also the historic, once-in-a-century exhibition of Gainsborough’s The Blue Boy which ended on May 15th and I managed to see it in its final week!

| Cover image: Detail of John Constable’s The Hay Wain (1821) |

Raphael

I don’t think I really need to review the Raphael show and tell you how good it is, since it’s already gotten plenty of 5-star reviews from the British newspapers. There’s an incredible showing of artworks on loan, including the the Louvre, National Gallery of Art, Washington, the Prado Museum, Uffizi Museum and the Vatican Museum. I was also amazed that the exhibition pamphlet contained all the wall text and didactics in the show, so you could focus on viewing the pictures and reading up on each of them at a later time. Also very much appreciated since the ticket price is steep — I paid £24 to see it on a Monday morning.

I was super excited to go after viewing the exhibition trailer (so epic) and the photo highlights, which you can view on the National Gallery’s website here. I loved how they have blown up the portrait of Bindo Altoviti as the ‘star’ image, and it was fun seeing him on ads on buses and on billboards across the city!

I also loved seeing many of Raphael’s masterpieces of Madonnas, which was like a Renaissance art history class come to life! Love the colours, they’re so vivid.

But the absolute stunner of the show (spoiler alert?) to me is hands down, the final piece in the exhibition in the last portraits room: Portrait of a Woman (‘La Fornarina’).

I’ve actually been researching La Fornarina to include in my PhD, and I was so surprised and excited to find out that this was included in the Raphael exhibition! It is so much more beautiful and incredible than I’d ever expected in person. The Guardian says that ‘This great show is like falling in love again’, but I honestly just fell in love with this painting, it is so wonderful.

The sitter in question (La Fornarina, meaning the Baker’s Daughter) is not known, although she was purportedly Raphael’s lover. I would think she really was, as the entire painting is done with such intimacy and affection and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve seen. My favourite part is her face and her blue and gold turban — I was literally admiring the blue colour.

Gainsborough’s Blue Boy

I might have a thing for blues so it was also perfect timing to see The Blue Boy by the British artist Thomas Gainsborough. The epic story behind The Blue Boy goes that it was sold to an American collector and sailed away from British shores 100 years ago, and now resides in the collection of The Huntington in San Marino, California. The painting goes on loan to The National Gallery for the first time ever, and 100 years later to the day (!) opens to the British public again on January 25, 2022.

There’s a fantastic article from ARTnews that shares more about the history behind The Blue Boy, which you can read here. Coincidentally, a few days ago, I also find out about The Pink Boy supposed to be a counterpart to The Blue Boy at the Waddesdon Manor!

I love the regal pose of The Blue Boy — who is now thought to be modelled by Gainsborough’s nephew Gainsborough Dupont — and the lovely blue shimmer to his clothes!

The Blue Boy was shown alongside a few of Gainsborough’s portraits as well as Antony van Dyck’s portraits, like the double portrait of George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham (1628–1687), and Lord Francis Villiers (1629–1648) below, which inspired The Blue Boy.

The Collection and British Art

The National Gallery, London consists of a collection of paintings in Western art ranging from the 13th century to the early 20th century, going from the medieval, Renaissance, early modern to the modern era. I spent the whole day taking in as much as I could, but my favourite room was the one devoted to British art from the 18th and 19th centuries!

More Favourites from the Collection

Going to the museum feels like an excellent lesson in Western art history, but at the end, I realised how devoid the collection is of women artists. I only saw works by Berthe Morisot, and a self-portrait by Gwen John (that’s on loan from the National Portrait Gallery which is currently closed for redevelopment).

The National Gallery also has fantastic self-portraits by Artemisia Gentileschi and Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, but they are both out on loan to overseas exhibitions, so I was sad to miss them!!

Still, based on my bias, the National Gallery is one of my favourite museums in London!

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I chose this cover picture above of Roses (1893) by Peder Severin Krøyer, which I discovered from reading Women Who Read Are Dangerous, as I thought it’s a great illustration of the home-ly, sheltered lives we have been living in now — lucky for you if you have a gorgeous rose garden like the one pictured! I’ve had this image as my desktop wallpaper since I got my new computer last August, and I love it for its calm peacefulness. In the same way, I wanted to share some art content that I have been checking out recently that has brought both entertainment and reprieve during these times!

One great thing that has emerged during the global slowdown / lockdown has been seeing how art continues to engage and uplift people. I’m very appreciative of all the museums and their staff that have been working hard to deliver more digital content online, which has been great in allowing me to access more exhibitions and content which I might not been able to before. Also a big thank you to all readers who have been visiting Wording Art here for a dose of art! :)

Here goes a list of exhibition tours, films and talks that I have been enjoying lately. You may notice that many are from British institutions, but they have been my interest lately…

1. Royal Academy of Arts & Exhibition On Screen

Royal Academy of Arts has very generously released three Exhibition On Screen films on their Youtube channel and Facebook page featuring their previous exhibitions. Exhibition On Screen specialises in making films focusing on artists or exhibitions, and you can buy, download, or stream their great number of art films at their website (linked here)!

The three films featuring the Royal Academy of Arts’ exhibitions are:

David Hockney at the Royal Academy of Arts: A Bigger Picture 2012 & 82 Portraits and One Still Life 2016

Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse

Manet: Portraying Life

I will link to the RA’s Youtube and Facebook here (as they have disallowed playback on other websites), but be sure to click over to view these films featuring these great exhibitions! I think it’s such a great way to (re)discover exhibitions, and they’re also done in a documentary style, so you get further insights from the curators and art experts on the works.

2. Picasso on Paper at the Royal Academy of Arts

The RA also shared a virtual tour of their most recent exhibition Picasso on Paper, which had to close when the UK went into lockdown. A super interesting exhibition featuring an aspect of Picasso’s work that is not often discussed: his work with paper, in the form of sketches, prints, collages and even three-dimensional pieces.

I liked how the virtual tour zoomed in close on the details of the individual works and even spanned across the didactics and wall panels at a slower pace to allow you to read them! All set to the tune of peaceful music, no voices this time. :) Again, here are the links to the RA’s Youtube and Facebook, where you can check out the tour.

3. Titian: Love, Desire, Death at The National Gallery

Here is a brilliant curator tour of the exhibition Titian: Love, Desire, Death at The National Gallery, London that was also cut short thanks to the lockdown. It seems like this exhibition will be extended, but that’s really depending on when museums in the UK can reopen.

This exhibition features Titian’s six paintings depicting mythological scenes from the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Though it’s a small one, the exhibition is hugely remarkable as it marks the first time the series of paintings was brought together in one space in over four centuries! Here is also a link to a post on The National Gallery’s website explaining and describing each of the six paintings in more detail.

4. Young Rembrandt at the Ashmolean Museum

Young Rembrandt is yet another exhibition that was abruptly closed, but has now gone online! Young Rembrandt tracks the artistic development of Rembrandt, and the virtual exhibition follows the same pattern with its neat sectioning into five parts.

Unlike the other exhibition formats share above, Young Rembrandt is being shared on Ashmolean’s website linked here through the ‘old-school’ way of text and images, coupled with some supplementary videos along the way.

5. Open Courtauld Hour with the Courtauld Institute

While the arts content I’ve shared above are on exhibitions, I’ve also been enjoying listening to talks on art history online. Art history seminars used to be only presented and heard in-person, and it’s very interesting how going online means that they are made free and accessible despite distance and time difference!

The Courtauld Institute has recently concluded their Open Courtauld Hour event, a series of four talks that focused on the themes of (in the following order): Art in Isolation, Art and Wellbeing, The Future of Art History and Women Artists. Each talk invites a few speakers to present on the set topic, and ends with a reading by a poet every time.

All of the talks are available to watch on their Youtube channel (linked here). Out of all the talks, I have yet to complete watching the final one of Women Artists, which I have linked below:

I’m sure that the topic of Women Artists is probably going to be the most popular, and I’m also really interested in this one because this is what my research is about! More on that later…

6. Talks at the Asia Society Hong Kong Center

Final recommendation: The art history seminar Rome and her Legacy: Classical Art in the 21st Century presented by Susanna McFadden from the Fine Arts Department of the University of Hong Kong, organised by the Asia Society Hong Kong Center. Here is the link to watch the seminar on Asia Society Hong Kong Center’s Facebook page!

I pretty much like learning about any aspects of Western / European art, and this was a really interesting talk about classical Roman wall paintings. I also loved having this chance to connect with my alma mater!

And that’s a wrap! I hope you will enjoy checking out these talks, tours, videos, and films — if you hadn’t seen them yet! Of course, if you also have any recommendations to share, please let me know too!

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So you can most probably tell how excited I was to see it, and what made it even better was that I got to see a preview of it before it opened, and I could take all the photos I wanted without the swarms of people that I’m sure the Gallery is seeing right now.

With a popular theme like Impressionism (although what could beat Yayoi Kusama’s polka dotted works in popularity?), I feel like this exhibition is easily appealable to many people, though I have a few misgivings about the way the artworks were grouped by… colour.

| Cover Picture: Claude Monet, Champs de tulipes en Hollande (Tulip Field in Holland), 1886, oil on canvas |

Gustave Courbet, Branche de pommier en fleurs (Apple Branch in Flower), 1872, oil on canvas

James Tissot, La Rêveuse (The Dreamer), c. 1876, oil on wood

I guess the title of this exhibition pretty much gives it away, since it is simply named Colours of Impressionism. Along with Between Worlds, comprising works by Indonesian artist Raden Saleh and Filipino artist Juan Luna, the two exhibitions are combined under the title of Century of Light, which would be running until 11 March 2018. Just a note: This post only covers Colours of Impressionism.

Eugène Boudin, La Plage de Trouville (The Beach at Trouville), 1865, oil on board

The exhibition opens with paintings featuring a lot of black, before moving on to whites, mainly in snowy landscapes. I gripe about curating according to colour because it seems to simplify all of the artworks into “looking pretty”. While there isn’t any problem with appreciating artworks purely for their aesthetic, it’s sad if the stories and changes surrounding Impressionism itself is overlooked along the way.

Impressionism, as exemplified by name-stays Monet and Renoir, was part of the beginnings of what was considered Modern in art. Starting from subject matter, these artists started painting their surroundings like the serene landscapes that is heavily featured in this exhibition, and scenes of middle-class people who were starting to spend more time out and about, such as in Boudin’s La Plage de Trouville shown above.

Claude Monet, Argenteuil, 1872, oil on canvas

Triptyque May (The May Triptych): Camille Pissarro, Entrée du village de Voisins (Entry to the village of Voisins), 1872, oil on canvas; Claude Monet, Bateaux de plaisance (Pleasure Boats), 1872-73, oil on canvas; Alfred Sisley, L’Île Saint-Denis (Saint-Denis Island), 1872, oil on canvas

I love how these three paintings are put together, which I’m assuming was purposely done so for this exhibition?

To capture these scenes of the outdoors as best as they could, Impressionists went out to paint en plein air (translated literally in the outdoors), which at the time was a very new approach to painting. Artists often prepared studies of artworks they were going to create, so painting was very much centred within the artist’s studio. Impressionists began to break the mold by going outdoors to paint what they saw best represented their times and their society.

Alfred Sisley, La Barque pendant l’inondation, Port-Marly (Boat in the Flood at Port-Marly), 1876, oil on canvas

Berthe Morisot, Le Berceau (The Cradle), 1872, oil on canvas

Morisot, one of probably two female artists active at the time, is famous for her paintings of mothers with children. This painting is very famous and I remember my professor pointing out the clever layering of white on white with the veil. I was super excited to finally see a painting that I learnt about in class in real life, though there are others later in this post (and in the exhibition) that were even better experiences for me.

Paul Gauguin, La Seine au pont d’léna. Temps de neige (The Seine at Pont d’léna, Snowy Weather), 1875, oil on canvas

An early work of Gauguin’s, who was best known for his “exotic”, “primitive” artworks that he did on trips to Tahiti. While those works are entirely different from these Impressionist works, this one fits in with the rest of the white, snowy images.

Claude Monet, La Pie (The Magpie), 1868-69, oil on canvas

Alfred Sisley, La Neige à Louveciennes (Snow at Louveciennes), 1878, oil on canvas

Renoir’s paint box and Degas’s palettes

Claude Monet, Les Barques. Régates à Argenteuil (The Boats: Regattas at Argenteuil), c. 1874, oil on canvas

Moving on to the next gallery, and the next colour scheme of darker tones, which is pretty evident in all the paintings grouped together here.

Claude Monet, Un Coin d’appartement (A Corner of the Apartment), 1875, oil on canvas

One of my absolute favourites in this exhibition! This has to be seen in real life – the colours really pop, and the effect of the angled floor tiles doesn’t get captured well enough in a photo.

The boy in the centre of the painting is Jean Monet, Claude Monet’s son, and at the back of the space is Camille Doncieux, Monet’s first wife and Jean’s mother. I wrote an essay on Monet’s paintings of his family about two years back, and this painting came up during my research. Most of Monet’s paintings of his family involved Camille and Jean, not so much for his family after he married his second wife Alice Hoschedé after Camille’s death. A lot of the time, Camille and Jean are seen from a distance, positioned at the recesses of the space of the painting, and surrounded by plants and flowers which was clearly a passion of Monet’s.

Some people/scholars argued that Monet used his family as props for paintings that were chiefly about plants and flowers. I also read one argument that said that Camille and Jean were often portrayed as expressionless because they were tired of modelling and waiting for Monet to be done painting them. Plausible?

While I can’t say it’s entirely out of question, I disagree on the perceived apathy on Monet’s part. My official reasoning is that the association of Monet’s beloved plants and flowers with the careful placement and posing of his family within it would have meant at least some affection on his part.

The unofficial reasoning is that Monet painted scenes of nature without human figures within them perfectly fine – see: all of his Giverny works, including one below, although these were done in his later mature years – and another reason being that his paintings of the Hoschedés were frankly not as good.

Gustave Caillebotte, Voiliers à Argenteuil (Sailboats in Argenteuil), c. 1888, oil on canvas

Paul Cézanne, Cour d’une ferme (Courtyard of a Farm), c. 1879, oil on canvas

Paul Cézanne, Le Golfe de Marseille vu de L’Estaque (The Gulf of Marseilles Seen from L’Estaque), 1878-79, oil on canvas

I loved seeing Cézanne here as well and I realized how much more striking his paintings are in real life. Although he was a fellow contemporary alongside the Impressionists, his works are today considered part of Post-Impressionism as he had already began looking further ahead of the Impressionists in terms of composition, shapes and so on. I definitely want to see more of Cézanne in future!

Auguste Renoir, Pont du chemin de fer à Chatou (Railway Bridge at Chatou), 1881, oil on canvas

Claude Monet, Le Bassin aux nymphéas, harmonie rose (Water Lily Pond, Pink Harmony), 1900, oil on canvas

The all-important Giverny painting of this exhibition. Monet lived in Giverny in the later years of his life, and his famous garden is still maintained and open to visitors!

Paul Signac, La Bouée rouge (The Red Buoy), 1895, oil on canvas

The next section was dedicated to Pointillist works, also considered part of Post-Impressionism. Based on colour theories of the time, Seurat invented this method of painting by having dots of complementary colour placed next to each other, and when extended across the entire canvas, would supposedly blend together in the viewer’s eye and achieve greater luminosity.

Georges Seurat, Etude pour “Une Baignade à Asnières” (Study for “Bathers at Asnières”), 1883, oil on wood; Etude pour “Un Dimanche à la Grande Jatte” (Study for “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte”), 1884 and 1884-86, oil on wood

I was quite surprised to see that the Pointillist works included in the exhibition weren’t as good as I expected them to be in real life! The dots in Signac’s painting above felt too separated to me, which took away from the scene that he was trying to depict. Though this makes me more curious to see how Seurat’s works appear in real life, since he was after all the inventor of Pointillism and his dots/points appear much subtler even in digital images.

Paul Cézanne, Rochers près des grottes au-dessus du Château-Noir (Rocks Near the Cave above Château Noir), c. 1904, oil on canvas

Claude Monet, La Cathédrale de Rouen. Le portail et la tour Saint-Romain, plein soleil (Rouen Cathedral: The Portal and Saint-Romain Tower, Full Sunlight), 1893, oil on canvas

I’m constantly surprised by the difference between looking at digital images of paintings and seeing them in real life. Sometimes, like with Morisot’s The Cradle, it still feels familiar, meaning that digital images captures it well, but in other cases, like with Cézanne, the Pointillist works, and this one painting in Monet’s Rouen Cathedral series, a photograph of the painting is incomparable to how it is in real life. Some things just have to be seen for yourself. And re-seen!

Berthe Morisot, L’Hortensia (The Hydrangea), 1894, oil on canvas

Claude Monet, Vétheuil, soleil couchant (Vétheuil, Setting Sun), c. 1900, oil on canvas

I like the pastel colours of this painting, but I don’t think it’s that good a painting of Monet’s. If this exhibition is all about colour, then I’ll say that I don’t think colour best determines the effectiveness or quality of a painting.

Going back to the question of curating by colour: While the art world brings up a lot of talk about having more experimental methods of curating, and displacing chronological ways of presenting artworks, is curating artworks according to colour really such a good idea? Whatever overall theme that paintings within an exhibition might be fitted into, I personally think it’s important that I can understand how each exhibit fit within its time and colour doesn’t contribute much to that.

But one thing I really liked about the exhibition was the colours of the walls! That might sound pretty funny, but making an exhibition also involves deciding what colour walls would best display the paintings on show.

Loved the blue walls for Between Worlds!

Colours of Impressionism is showing at National Gallery Singapore until 11 March 2018, ticket prices and more information can be found here.

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Monet (1840-1926) was one of the forerunners of Impressionism, which focused on capturing modern 19th century life as one saw it by painting nature and scenery en plein air, which means to paint outdoors. The exhibition shows a selection of works that Monet did when living in different parts of France, including Argenteuil, Étretat, and Vétheuil, and while traveling overseas, including London and Venice, before finally settling in Giverny in the French countryside, so giving rise to the exhibition title ‘The Spirit of Place.’ (I like the Chinese title better 他鄉情韻, it feels like it has a better ring to it.)

The exhibition doesn’t bring in any big masterpieces of Monet’s, which is fine by me. One problem though is that I felt the order of the exhibits wasn’t coherent, with one continuous row of paintings jumping between places and the years painted. Since Monet had specific periods where he stayed in the above-mentioned locations, I was expecting a clear order when viewing the works.

I first saw Monet at K11 Mall Shanghai two years ago when they had an exhibition outlining Monet’s work from his early caricatures to his series of water lilies and Giverny Japanese bridges in his later years. Houses of Parliament (from Monet’s time in London) was one of my favorites from that exhibition at K11, and I’m happy to see it again!

While viewing this work, I actually overheard a boy asking his mom whether this work was real or fake… His mom replied that she wasn’t sure, but it was probably fake if it could be placed here for people to see… but he should go ahead and learn to appreciate the work whether it was real or fake anyway! That’s well and good, but these paintings are definitely genuine and real, people!

I really liked these two shots taken from an image slideshow at the exhibition. It shows the influence that Monet (and many other artists at the time) took from Japanese woodblock prints, such as prints of a Japanese style bridge which he recreated in his Giverny home. There’s also a black and white photo of Monet and his family on his Giverny-Japanese bridge.

I have to commend the exhibition’s super fun interactive activity, which allowed visitors to create their own water lilies and pond paintings à la Monet! It only takes a little tapping to choose your choice of flower and choice of color scheme to get round to creating your own large scale image. That culminated into tapping as much flowers and lily pads all over the screen as fast as possible, as you can see in the video below!

Besides the exhibition gallery, there are also two other education galleries that contain more interactive stuff. One of them features sets of Monet’s dining and living room, based on photos of his Giverny home.

An iPad showing a possible meal that Monet could have had, hehehe!

Okay, these paintings are fake. Only these ones outside of the exhibition gallery are fake though!

On a separate note, this set of Monet’s living room has artworks of other artists working alongside Monet hung on the walls, but the photo of Monet’s actual living room shows his own artworks covering every inch of the walls, ha!

And a simulated image of Monet’s view out the window of his home.

I thought the exhibition was a nice look into Monet’s work, and again, I’m always happy to view anything of Monet’s. I also put together a video of other fun stuff at the exhibition, have a look below!

The post Claude Monet: The Spirit of Place | Hong Kong Heritage Museum appeared first on Wording Art.

Anish Kapoor, Untitled (Stellar Green Pearl / Transparent Black), 2014, aluminium and paint, kamel mennour

Anish Kapoor, Mirror (Magenta), 2016, stainless steel and lacquer, Kukje Gallery

Julian Opie, Runners (individual titles: Running men; Running women), 2015, pair of screenprints, Alan Cristea Gallery

Looks like Julian Opie’s theme for the year is all about exercise and running…

Julian Opie, Soldier and Pilot, I., 2015, vinyl on wooden stretcher, Lisson Gallery

Julian Opie, Teacher and Waiter, I., 2015, vinyl on wooden stretcher, Lisson Gallery

Julian Opie, Plastic Umbrella, 2014, silkscreen on painted wooden board, Gerhardsen Gemer

Julian Opie, Kukje Gallery

There were also these two works that are not part of the exercise theme and are more in line with his images of city walking, a lot of which was shown at Art Basel in Hong Kong last year. I missed getting the didactic for this last artwork, but it’s a moving image of women walking continuously over and over again.

Lee Ufan, Dialogue, 2014, oil on canvas, Lisson Gallery

Lee Ufan, Dialogue, 2015, oil on canvas, Kukje Gallery

Lee Ufan, Correspondence, 1995, oil on canvas, Ben Brown Fine Arts

Lee Ufan (이우환) is Korea’s answer to a Minimalist artist, and his works with a smooth dab of paint in the middle of a large white canvas are always around at Art Basel Hong Kong. I’m not really a fan of any kind of Minimalism, but I guess the precision and simplicity of such works appeal to people.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, “Untitled” (Last Light), 1993, light bulbs, extension cord, plastic light sockets, dimmer switch, Andrea Rosen Gallery

Morimura Yasumasa, Portrait (Futago), 1988, type C print, transparent medium, frame, ShugoArts

This was such an art history moment!! Granted, this probably looks really out there for first-time viewers, so a bit of background is needed here. Morimura is a well-known Japanese appropriation artist, and his photography features him dressed up and acting after models in famous paintings, artists, and famous figures in history, whether male or female. This work appropriates Édouard Manet’s Olympia (1863), an art history favorite, which at the time of its showing outraged viewers for its depiction of a prostitute holding a boldly confrontational stare. Traditionally, (male) artists painted female mythological figures in the nude that made it comfortable for the “male gaze,” since they were not “real” people and most never look directly towards the viewer. Manet however started something new, and while not particularly appreciated at the time for his efforts, he is now often known as the artist who began the wave of modern art.

Morimura’s enactment of the scene of Olympia is more extravagant but he gets the details of the painting down pat. He adds a Japanese flair to his work, with the black waving cat at the right corner and the blanket with a gold crane motif. Morimura’s work has come up in class on quite a few occasions, so it was great to see a properly blown up version of this photograph at the fair!

Keith Haring, Untitled, 1989, acrylic on canvas, Gladstone Gallery

Tracey Emin, You Saved Me, Galleria Lorcan O’Neill Roma

Not all of Emin’s works appeal to me, but I’m a big fan of her neon word art. There really needs to be a Tracey Emin font.

Also, I found the showing of this work at the fair over the Easter weekend nicely fitting, since it ties in with the commemoration of Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday. :D

Alexander Calder, Small Moths, 1974, Dominique Lévy

One of my favorites by Calder I’ve ever seen!

Alexander Calder, Ben Brown Fine Arts

Alexander Calder

Alexander Calder, Black and Blue, 1975, painted sheet metal and wire, Acquavella

Looking at Calder’s mobile from a different angle. And trying not to get blinded by the spotlights.

Alexander Calder, The Golfer (John D. Rockefeller as a Golfer), 1927, wire with wood base, Van de Weghe Fine Art

A different kind of style from Calder, and equally well done.

Jeff Koons

True story: I was trying to get a shot of Koons’s work from the side, but two women taking a selfie with the work told me to move aside because I was appearing at the side of their photo. -.- I don’t think a super crowded Art Basel fair is exactly the best place to exercise your supposed right not to get photobombed in your selfie.

Edgar Degas, Dancer Looking at the Sole of Her Right Foot, 1919-1937, bronze, Acquavella

I have to commemorate my first time seeing a Degas! He is now well-loved for his paintings of ballet dancers that examine the physicality of their bodies in movement. I would love to travel and see the masterpieces of modern art for myself one day, but I’m definitely happy to view these smaller works in Hong Kong!

Claude Monet, Route de Monte-Carlo, December 1883, oil on canvas, Acquavella

I patiently waited to get this MONEY SHOT. Monet is worth it, yes. On another note, Acquavella always brings in the bulk of modern art to Art Basel Hong Kong.

Pablo Picasso, Femme aux mains croisees II, December 19, 1960 – January 1, 1961, oil on canvas, Acquavella

Niko Luoma, Self-titled adaptation of the Young Ladies of Avignon (1907, Pablo Picasso), 2015, archival pigment print, diasec with floater frame, Atlas Gallery

Hmm, I’m not really buying it. Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (The Young Ladies of Avignon) is also an art history favorite (and also features prostitutes). Funnily enough, it was never fully completed as Picasso tossed it aside after his friends and peers criticized the painting while he was still working on it. I don’t actually think it’s his best and most groundbreaking work as a lot of people probably put it; I find his Cubist works with Georges Braque (his collaborator on Cubism who has been kinda forgotten) much more interesting and forward-looking.

Tom Wesselmann, Blue Nude #3 N125, 1999, oil on cut-out aluminium, Gmurzynska

This references to Henri Matisse’s Blue Nude, which was a motif that Matisse went back to over the years. Again, not really buying it…

Roy Lichtenstein, Water Lilies with Cloud, 1992, screenprinted enamel on stainless steel with painted wood frame, Edward Tyler Nahem

Rudolf Bauer, Furioso XII, 1918, oil on canvas

Andy Warhol, Mao, 1973, acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen, varnished, Ben Brown Fine Arts

So much of Warhol at the fair this year!

Andy Warhol, Mao (set of ten), 1972, screenprints on paper

Discussing serious business under the gaze of Mao. I find this quite amusing.

Andy Warhol, Flowers (portfolio of 10), 1970, screenprint on paper, Galerie Thomas

Andy Warhol, Self-portrait, 1966, synthetic polymer paint, silkscreen ink on canvas, Van de Weghe Fine Art; Self Portrait (Red), c. 1966-67, acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas, Edward Tyler Nahem

Andy Warhol, Campbell’s Elvis, 1962, silkscreen ink and acrylic on canvas, Edward Tyler Nahem

Andy Warhol, Diamond Dust Shoes (Green), 1980, acrylic, silkscreen ink and diamond dust on canvas, Edward Tyler Nahem

Diamond Dust Shoes (Green) and Campbell’s Elvis appeals more to me than Warhol’s more well-known serial artworks for some reason. I guess it’s one of those things about art.

Andy Warhol, Dollar Sign, 1981, synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink on canvas, Van de Weghe Fine Art

Jaume Plensa, Slumberland XXXI (Patricia), 2015, graphite on paper, Richard Gray Gallery

Subtle, charming, and so beautiful.

Jaume Plensa, Roots (Study), 2015, painted stainless steel, Richard Gray Gallery

Nice to see this again, albeit in a smaller size! The big one sits at Raffles Place in Singapore.

Jaume Plensa, Laura Asia; Paula Europe; Mar Asia, 2015, marble, Galerie Lelong

These three sculptures are pretty large in size, and are based on portraits of women who Plensa knows. Feels like a bit of quiet amid the bustling fair.

And that’s it for my review of Art Basel Hong Kong this year! To see the first half of my review of Art Basel featuring contemporary artworks, click here, and if you’ll like to see my review of Art Basel last year, click here to see all of the related posts!

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Update: Singapore Pinacothèque de Paris closed in April 2016. The main branch in Paris has also closed in February 2016.

From the name, it’s telling that the first Pinacothèque de Paris is located in well, Paris, and their second branch opened in Singapore at the end of May. The museum is divided into 3 galleries: The Collections Gallery, The Features Gallery, and the Heritage Gallery.

The Collections Gallery contains a permanent collection of 40 Western and Southeast Asian artworks, ranging from 17th century European paintings to modern and contemporary works by artists including Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock and Lucio Fontana. The Features Gallery holds themed exhibitions, its first being The Myth of Cleopatra. The Heritage Gallery contains artefacts from Southeast Asian cultures that are pertinent to Singapore, and is the only gallery with free admission.

I visited The Collections Gallery and Heritage Gallery, but decided to skip the Cleopatra exhibition due to the pretty steep price! I was really interested in checking out The Collections Gallery because of its promises of Western art and its curatorial approach of “transversality.” Head curator Marc Restellini’s focus was on combining Western and Southeast Asian artworks in the same space, crossing over cultures, time periods and mediums. I really like that idea and it’s not something you often see in most art places, so I was looking forward to what the museum had to offer.

Before going more into that, first off: the fantastic interaction panels! After buying the tickets at the fancy counter with changing graphics, you walk down the long corridors and reach these touch-screen panels with a cute talking chameleon or whatever it is.  (It actually waves and goes “Hello!” when no one’s playing with it.)

It’s a long screen but you can actually stand at one spot and slide through the various artworks the green chameleon wants to talk about. Press the key icon when you want to hear more about an artwork! The green guy does talk for quite a bit, but if you’ve got the patience to hear him out, there is a lot of helpful background information and images. This is really the best interactive section I’ve seen at an art museum – fun and informative!

Claude Monet, Suzanne with Sunflowers (on view in Collections Gallery) and Water Lilies series (not on view)

I was lucky to have the whole space to myself long enough to go through all the artworks included in the interaction section. They’re taken from The Collections and The Features galleries, and I forgot how many exactly were included, but it’s probably about 10 or more.

Despite the long panel catered to allow multiple people to interact with the chameleon, I thought it best to listen while on my own. It was harder to hear what he was saying when someone else was playing his speeches, even when we were standing at opposite ends of the screen.

Jackson Pollock, Composition with cubic form (on view in Collections Gallery)

My favorite was the explanation of Modigliani’s Young Lady with Earrings that was both fun and cute, and which also well demonstrated the theme of transversality by addressing the connection to African masks in Modigliani’s painting.

Amedeo Modigliani, Young Lady with Earrings (on view in Collections Gallery)

Moving on to the Collections Gallery! The Western artworks mostly consisted of paintings, many of which were from the 17th century. Otherwise, they were from the modern and contemporary era. Southeast Asian pieces were mostly sculptures. I have to say that my bias lies in Western artworks! ;)

Note: Photography is allowed in the galleries but the modern and contemporary artworks are not allowed for photo taking. There’s a no photography indication on the wall beside these artworks.

Amedeo Modigliani, Young Lady with Earrings, 1915, oil on canvas

I was expecting this to look very flat, but it looks so much better when you see it for yourself! There are many layers to the flesh tones, and the lady’s hair is very textured in the center.

This mask was placed beside Modigliani’s Young Lady with Earrings, and I felt this was the best example of the theme of transversality in the collection. I didn’t get a good shot of the didactic, so I don’t know the details of this piece, my bad!

Antony Van Dyck, Portrait of a Gentleman, 1619/1620, oil on canvas

The gentleman’s facial features are so well painted. The rest of the background and landscape are instead sketchily painted, hehe!

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijin, The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, 1640, copperplate

You wouldn’t expect that the copperplate is really small, with the amount of detail in this biblical scene. With the number of portraits in the collection though, it would have been great to see one of Rembrandt’s famous portraiture works! ;)

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Portrait of Georgette-Marie Malivernet, 1896, oil on canvas

I think of Renoir as a popular Impressionist artist, with his idyllic images of pretty people in fashionable clothing. I like to compare him to a modern-day person who relies on Instagram filters for pretty photos, haha! Beautiful images, but not much beyond the surface.

Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, Portrait of Maria Dircksdr Bogaert, 1670, oil on canvas

Now, this portrait I absolutely love! The portrait seems to glow from within, and the detailing of the lady’s curls and the lace of her gown is exquisite.

Claude Monet, Suzanne with Sunflowers, 1890, oil on canvas

This painting is huge, much larger than I was expecting. It’s even bigger than lifesize! It’s not my favorite of Monet’s… but I don’t think it was his favorite, either. Monet didn’t do many figure paintings, preferring to paint scenes of nature and water. His best figure paintings and portraits were those that his first wife, Camille Doncieux, modeled for. After her early death, Monet painted a few more figure paintings with his second wife, Alice Hoschedé, and stepdaughter, Suzanne Hoschedé, as models. In my opinion, Monet didn’t put much heart into his later figure paintings, especially since they lack the overall oomph of his paintings of Camille.

The effect doesn’t come out well in the photos, but the sunflowers seem to be the main focus of the painting despite the fact that Suzanne clearly occupies most of the painting. Suzanne however looks washed out and fades into the background, while the yellow of the sunflowers makes them pop. The sunflowers are also too long and extended, relative to the figure and the table, and their deliberate positioning around Suzanne’s head seems to bring home the idea that the sunflowers are so much nicer to look at than Suzanne herself. Ouch, right?

Gregorius Oosterlinck, A Tavern Interior with Soldiers Merrymaking Around a Table, 1637, oil on canvas

Generally, I was happy with what I saw with the Western artworks. In a small collection, it is impressive that there were a few big names included in the selection. I of course would have loved to see more, but I think I have to leave those expectations for an art trip to Europe, haha!

The Southeast Asian pieces were pretty limiting though. There wasn’t much variation with most of them seeming to belong to the ancient tribal art category, and I think there could be a lot more said about Southeast Asian art.

Overall, the theme of transversality was not well conveyed. There were way more Western pieces than Asian pieces for one, so the Western pieces were well distributed around the gallery, while the Asian pieces were scattered here and there. The crossing over time periods also wasn’t well conveyed, since I felt many of the artworks were from European 17th century painters, and the subject matter of the artworks did not differ much from the others. In that way, the connections between supposedly vastly different artworks weren’t well illustrated.

The gallery was also too dark for my taste. Spotlights shine directly onto the artworks, making them very well-lit, but the effect on photos is not great.

I don’t think the museum is well worth the high price, but I will say pay a visit if you’re keen on getting a taste of viewing Western artworks!

Singapore Pinacothèque de Paris is located at Fort Canning Arts Centre, 5 Cox Terrace.
Opening hours are as follows:
Sun – Thurs: 10 AM – 7:30 PM
Fri – Sat : 10 AM – 8:30 PM
Very important note: Last admission is 30 minutes before closing time! (I had to learn it the hard way.)
Find the ticketing info here.

View Singapore Pinacothèque de Paris’s website here.

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This illustration was the first image I saw in my first Fine Arts class. Western art history – made simple! Back then, my professor said we would know all about the various artists and their smiley face representations by the end of the class. I hadn’t even heard of almost all of the artists stated here, but I’m happy to say that I’m familiar with most of the artists now, except Rembrandt. My bad.

A lot of my friends, when they find out what I’m studying, like to ask, “So what do you do exactly?” or they exclaim, “Really?! I did art in high school, and I did so badly!” I never have a good response to the first question, I just don’t know what to say, and when I hear the second statement, I always think I wished I had the option to take art in high school, since I wasn’t enjoying math and science much anyway…

So it got me thinking about why I like what I do, or why should people study art history? Everyone has their own reasons, and I wanted to share about mine.

| Cover picture: Donald Seitz, History of Art, 1991, illustration |

I’ve always loved stories. And they come in all shapes and forms, in books, TV, and a good history story. History is interesting that way, when my dad tells me stories of his dad going through the war. It’s just not that fun when you’re reading about the same war in a history textbook. And having to memorize dates and names and titles and places and go to exams to spill it all out. Not for me.

The great thing about art is how history is incorporated into it. Art can be identified by the century, the region, the movement, the style. For example, I could be looking at a painting of a couple in a vast field, but I could tell you that it was painted by the French artist Millet in 1859 during the nineteenth century, in the style of Realism when the reflection of nature in art continued, but new ideas of what constituted beauty emerged. That’s history right there.

Jean-François Millet, The Angelus, 1859, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France.

For contemporary art too, one day someone is going to look at an artwork and go, that was painted in 2015 in that style back then. With time, the numerous artworks in the various mediums and styles we see today are going to be neatly categorized by century and movement and a new art term that people come up with to explain the period.

Art is informative and it’s so much easier to absorb history stories when looking at works of art, rather than going through long, dry passages of history text. (Though books of any topic are winners in their own right.) But that’s only the background information. What you see in an artwork itself contains other stories, unique to our own interpretations.

You could argue that fine arts is in the same way made up of the boring bits like memorising titles of artworks, artists’ names, years, centuries and mediums. All that is true but having a picture to go along with it makes all the difference. I really like how we get to somewhat see how things were like back then. The way people looked, dressed, their jobs, their social activities, their interiors, and so on.

One thing that I was curious about was art in wartime. When you learn about wars in the typical history fashion, it’s always about aggressors and victims, people fighting, people suffering and all that. But what about the people left at home? It’s like an entire period of the war solely belongs to the battlefield. And it turns out, art still goes on, though not far from the topic of war.

Unknown artist, Entry of Marshal Oyama, Commander-in-Chief, into Mukden; Mukden Railway Station after the Battle, 1905, color lithograph, collotype and letterpress; ink on card stock (postcard), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

I think that studying Fine Arts has made me look at things differently, too. There is always a conception that art is supposed to be beautiful, show delightful things to viewers. And that was probably the norm in a time long past, but it certainly isn’t now. Art can reveal the bad, ugly stuff, too. And it makes for an interesting way of looking at things, that I can somehow see things in an alternative way, even in real life.

Like when I was in Shanghai at the Free Trade Zone, and large blouts of dark gray fumes were coming out of giant factory buildings, released into the clear blue sky. Yes, pollution and industralization and I’m not discounting any of that, but I was weirdly encaptured by it. Maybe because it was the first time seeing it so close and so clearly, and maybe it was the color contrast, the tubular gray slowly moving into the clear blue and dissipating into thin air. I couldn’t take my eyes off it for a while. It sounds weird, I know. But it was just interesting.

Art is, in a sense, interdisciplinary to me. There are so many topics in art expressed in different ways and approached from different angles. A large part of studying art involves considering the socio-historical context, meaning social issues present in a historical period that influences the art made then. There could be politics involved as well. Paintings of war or battles are definitely political, but artworks could be interpreted as political even if the artist did not have the intention to do so. Not all artworks necessarily contain all of these factors, but there is always more than one thing going on in an artwork.

Technology also brings about new styles and mediums, such as photography. The combination of mediums also creates a new kind of visual. Entry of Marshal Oyama, Commander-in-Chief, into Mukden; Mukden Railway Station after the Battle is a mix of a painting and a photograph of the same Mukden location printed on a postcard, like a before and after of the Russo-Japanese War, but the after is painted instead of photographed to make it seem less real, maybe? And it certainly looks and feels very different from an oil painting made from a different culture though made in the same year.

WIth (oil) paintings, I find it interesting to think how the layers of paint applied can determine the style of the work and how it would look like. When I first learned about Monet’s paintings, I was wondering how the different colors used could manage to make the reflection of sunlight in the water look so natural in a digital image. Seeing his works in real life though, the reflections still look very naturalistic when the artwork is viewed at a distance, but when you go up close, you can see the many almost random dabs of paint in different colors that somehow cohesively form the effect of reflection. Monet totally won me over with that. My favourite Western artist ever!

Claude Monet, Parliament, Reflections on the Thames, 1905, oil on canvas, Musée Marmottan, Paris, France.

Monet’s work comes along only a few decades after Millet, and the style has moved on from Realism to Impressionism. What I find so fascinating is that an artwork can be analyzed on its own, or within the historical period it belongs to, or within the entire history of that particular art type (Western art, for example).

I could keep going on, but I guess the idea is that art can be viewed and thought about in so many different directions, and there are many other parts to it that I’m still discovering. Fine Arts, Art History, or anything to do with the word Art, is always discounted as “impractical,” and “not useful for a job” in a school context. It’s sadly underrated, but I strongly believe that art is of value and learning about it is of value, too.

My sister always reminds me that university is the best time to learn whatever you want. The things I learnt in school before university were out of necessity, though still important, but I didn’t have the liberty to choose what I wanted to do. University is great for that reason, and I think that every subject taught matters.

I just hope to let others see why I like Fine Arts so much. Outside of school too, I think everyone can learn about and appreciate art and I’m hoping to do that for a long, long time.

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