In Paris the other day we went to visit the Musée de l'Orangerie, only recently reopened earlier this year. The prime exhibit is the collection of Monet's paintings of waterlilies, "Les Nymphéas".
We had naively imagined that we would simply drift in and look around at our leisure, but our hearts sank as we spied the queue snaking its way around the Jardin des Tuileries. However, after a moment's hesitation, we got into line and waited our turn under the hot sun. Carol struck up a conversation with a charming English lady, while I went off to get some drinks to fend of dehydration during the long wait to come.
The fact is that the long wait entirely changes the nature of the visit. Instead of the casual but poised breeze through the exhibits we had imagined, we had unintentionally become involved in a sort of aesthetic pilgrimage, a strange Haj to some artistic Mecca. What cultural epiphany were we hoping to experience that could compensate for an irritating and tiring near two hour wait? Does the nature of our artistic gaze change as a result of the degree of discomfort endured in order to experience that vision? More pain, more gain? What impossible unconscious demands are we placing upon Les Nymphéas by turning them into a secular Kaaba?

As it turned out, the waterlilies were beautifully displayed, impeccably top-lighted in a generous circular space, giving ample opportunity to appreciate both the detail of technique and the powerful overall impression created of the vast canvasses hung, as was the artist's original intention, as curved panoramas. Viewed up close, the effect is almost entirely abstract and even from a few metres distance the apparently casual nature of impressionistic technique becomes apparent. A dab of colour here, a flick of the brush there and the viewer is induced into interpreting the paint exactly as the artist intends. It occurs to me that the artist's magical touch with colour and light together with the viewer's instinctive act of interpretation combine to invest the paintings with a sense of enhanced reality - our everyday reality re-revealed to us as living vibration. It seems to me that this must account for the enduring success of the impressionist style. Visit any art gallery around the world and as often as not it is the Impressionists that attract the greatest attention. I can't help feeling that, at some level, this must be because they match our deeply felt need to re-experience our "ordinary" lives as the miracle they actually are. An epiphany in other words.

Quite apart from Les Nymphéas, the Orangerie houses an impressive array of early modern classics, the collection of Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume: Cézanne, Renoir, Derain, Modigliani, Gauguin, Picasso, Rousseau, Sisley, Utrillo, Matisse, Soutine, Van Dongen...One is often torn between a desire to appreciate the paintings from an art history perspective and the feeling that any real work must function independently of context. Actually, at the end of the day, it is the temperament of the artist that decides for you. Because a painting is, willy-nilly, so revealing of the artist's nature, I believe there is a pre-conscious tendency to like or dislike the person. Thus I feel myself drawn to Matisse, while Picasso is difficult to like. Cézanne commands sincere respect without warmth of affection. Modigliani intrigues while irritating. Rousseau charms, but is somehow autistic etc. etc. It would be interesting to read the biographies of the artists without knowing their names to see whether one's reactions match up! Another project to work on...