Orsay

Musée d'Orsay • 24 June 2016

These pointillist paintings were the most surprising and gratifying to me ... what glorious color play! and yet, how explicit and clear the images. Up close, dots inside dots inside dots, carefully, effectively modulating color, foreshadowing the technique of aliasing used in computer graphics to make diagonal lines and curves look sharp.

detail from intersection of skirt, hand, and blouse

detail from mast and sail (right)

Always a surprise and a delight to encounter a new favorite artist or two. The magnetism of this lifesize sculpture was amazing, stopping visitors in their tracks. The painting at right transfixed both Rochelle and me, even in its overloaded environment of Signacs and Van Gogh's: the pure blocks of bright color delighted us.

A strand that comes up again in this gallery: timelessness. Where much “old art” doesn't age well (like the overwrought junk in the Louvre) some art seems as fresh and communicative today as it was when it was painted (and revolutionary) a century ago.

What is it about Van Gogh's great paintings, like these two, that is so fresh and compelling? Not the subject, but maybe the intersection of the brushwork and the subject matter suggesting the writhing life contained within the sky, water, haystack, the pair of sickles, even the nappers themselves?

And now, with the exception of a sweet Renoir at the Orangerie, this day turned into, for us, the Claude Monet show. He's the big surprise this trip. The context of his garden and house lends so much depth and authority to his paintings. And there are so many ... and they are so uniformly good! I have chosen these because of their new meaning to us, based on our trip to Giverny.

Orangerie • 24 June 2016