I really enjoyed the Impressionist Exhibit in the new building of the St. Louis Art Museum. I saw it yesterday and it was fantastic. I paid $14 to get in and that came with a "free" audio tour listening device to go along for the ride. That was simple to operate and I did enjoy additional insights and commentary from the various speakers/art historians.
The Exhibit is set up to show you the period from 1830-1870 in France -- it shows a transition from an agricultural country to one with increasingly important amounts of industrialization. It also falls during a period of reconstruction after the Prussia-Franco War. All your favorite impressionists are likely presented. Monet, goes without saying, but I also enjoy paintings by Renoir, Degas, Manet, Pizzaro and Morrisot. There are many impressive photographers represented too (3 main ones I believe).
The Exhibit is split into 7 (I think) environments (for lack of a better term) to show France's evolution. The city, country (agriculture), forest, oceans/beaches, mountains, industry, and rivers/streams. The exhibit and commentary tries to put this in historic evolutionary perspective and also provide insight as to how the average Frenchman/populace may have reacted to various depictions. There is also commentary how critics may have received these works.
I liked the mix of photography and paintings within certain subject areas. That way you received a mix of different types of images and were not restricted to a single medium at a time. From time to time, this was further supplemented with books, maps and computer audio visual aids -- plus you had your friendly walking tour audio commentators helping you around.
That said, I enjoyed turning off the audio from time to time and just looking at the paintings. I love impressionists (and find it hard to believe how many critics railed against their work in real time). The imagery and use of color and light is just fanastic. I was equally impressed that the photographers on display were able to do many of the same things with light -- at a time when technology of photography was much more limited. They did this with multiple negative and different exposure times. Fascinating effects.
It is a real pleasure to see an Exhibit of this magnitude mounted in St Louis. The art is coming from many places in the US (and presumably other parts of the world -- I confess I didn't pay enough attention). But I did notice pieces from my origihal home museum in Pittsburgh -- The Carnegie, and also noticed works from Nelson-Atkins in KC. It was a wonderful exhibit and you should check it out at least once while you are here. For the real art lover, it would be worth the trip to St Louis to visit.
Posted by Bruce Lehr June 23rd 2014.