I'm not sure what you're unhappy about. The pictures were grouped according to
theme, just as you desire. A room of Water lilies, another of Venice, another of
London, etc. The Weeping Willows were all in a row. The mural-sized canvasses
all together. If a few early depictions of a subject -- say, the Japanese
footbridge -- were separated from much later versions, or Venetian palaces
separated from one another by churches, I imagine it was to try to balance
interest in both chronological and technical development, which don't always
follow a single path. It is difficult to keep more than one narrative in place
when they move along at different rates, and when one has only a certain group
of pictures available with which to illustrate them. The curators also must
consider the overall impression of the installation as decor. A strictly
illustrational hanging may not look too good. Overall, I think the curators did
an admirable job. As visitors, I suppose we have to come up with an ideal
hanging in our own minds, perhaps even many different virtual hangings -- how
did Monet treat foliage, how did he represent sunsets, how did he paint water
seen from a distance? It takes acute short-term memory to see an exhibition
well, and as many return visits as time and wallet allow.


ST. Clair, Douglas W (Cahners) wrote:

> I attended the exhibition this weekend. The exhibition is large and very
> well attended. They have done an excellent job of crowd control. The rooms
> are not too crowed while they are clearly managing a high volume of traffic.
>
> All in all I found it a disquieting experience. The elements of space and
> time are fundamental to Monet's work. It is clear he tried to catch the
> moment. There are excellent examples the same view taken at different times
> of day. But the whole exhibition is laid out chronologically based on when
> he (started?) each work. The problem is he didn't finish many of the works
> for years. What is the correct point in time for a work started in 1900 and
> finished in 1904? Where on the wall does it go? I strongly felt that the
> works should have been grouped chronologically by room. For example showing
> the effect WWI had on him. In other words all the works from 1914 until a
> few years after the war. Within a room I would have like to have seen the
> works grouped either showing the same time of day and different scenes or
> (and this was done) the same scene at different times of day. But when the
> took the same scene it was broken up in a funny way. For example there were
> four views of the same building. The first two were separated from the
> second two by two works by paintings that fell chronologically between them.
> ARRRRGGGGHHHH!
>
> Thanks for listening to me whine. I would appreciate some thoughtful
> discourse however that would help me understand the logic that make a strict
> chronological presentation a better choice than others? I was left with the
> feeling the MFA was pandering. It expected to hype this work, get a bunch of
> people to come who didn't really understand what they were seeing, and make
> some money on the deal. If this is true then they blew a chance to educate
> the masses but not the chance to make a bundle.