Well, we finally made it to the Monet and the Impressionists exhibition at our national museum in Wellington, Te Papa.  We really enjoyed the exhibition, which included paintings by Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Pissarro, Corot and Degas, along with a couple of sculptures by Degas.  There was a short film of Monet painting in his studio and some large black and white photos of him in his garden by the water lily pond.  It is amazing to see these paintings in real life.  Some of them were much larger than we expected, others were smaller.  Photos and sketching were not allowed in the exhibition so you will have to settle for some links to the museum's Flickr albums and some short notes on our favourite paintings.

Here is the album on Flickr for the exhibition.  It is quite interesting to look at the photos of the museum staff setting up the paintings.  There are some photos of the inspections of the paintings upon arrival in New Zealand.  Wow, do they go over those paintings with a fine tooth comb to check for damage!  There is also an album of the opening night, where several ladies dressed up as subjects in some of the paintings.   It is worth a look!

This was Eeuwe's, Ainsley's and my favourite painting in the exhibition:

 Woman with a parasol and a small child on a sunlit hillside

Pierre Auguste Renoir, c1874-76

The two things that really struck us about this painting were the large brush strokes and the beautiful vivid green.  This picture doesn't do the real painting justice!

Bethany's favourite was this one:

Gathering wood in the forest of Fontainebleau

Theodore Rousseau c1850-1860

There is a tiny figure in the middle of the painting, a bit hard to see in this copy!

Emily's favourite painting was the cathedral...

I'm not sure why, perhaps the haze fascinated her.  This painting was definitely better viewed from a distance!

Ruby's favourite (and it came a close second for me) was this one:

Again, the beautiful colours appealed to us and the detail achieved, even though larger brush-strokes were used here too.  Ruby especially liked the little babe reading a book.

Fashionable Figures on the Beach

Eugene Boudin, 1865.

This image isn't very clear, but the painting made us laugh - imagine going to the beach in all that fancy attire!

Fisherman's Cottage on the Cliffs at Varengeville

Claude Monet, 1882

This was beautiful, the white fluffy clouds, the pretty blues & greens in the sea, the reds in the flowers.  Monet love reds.  This painting makes me want to live by the sea....

I could go on...there were so many beautiful paintings.  We were thankful for the opportunity to go and see them all.

We finished off our museum visit by viewing the colossal squid!  It's not quite as colossal as you might imagine, but still pretty amazing.  There was a 3-D movie showing the squid catching prey - it's long tentacles seemed to come out and catch you!  The most fascinating aspect of the squid for me was the model of one of it's oscillating hooks - amazing!  Have a look at the presentation on this website for more information.

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