Visit to #VancouverArtGallery to see #Monet exhibition.

I mentioned in my last post how we found the art gallery and to our surprise one of my favourite artists was being shown there. It was an exhibition of Monet's paintings from his garden in Giverny. 
We had tried to visit straight away but after queuing for over half an hour and hardly moving we decided to arrive early the next day.

This time the queue was not as long and we were soon stood in awe of all these great paintings spread over several rooms. One thing that was inspiring, as well as the paintings, was observing other members of the public, who would stand for ages taking in the nuances of individual pieces.

One of the sections was on his water lily paintings;
"To Monet, the pond was the perfect vehicle for reckoning with the fluidity of nature's appearances and translating this into a still image"

I have often been tempted to paint a picture of water lilies, such as a scene from Stanley Park; the day before, but feel it would be difficult when Monet has done it so well.

Another fascinating aspect of the show were his tree studies.  Again, this reminded me of some of the scenes from our walk the day before. These I may try to paint over the next few months.

​After being spellbound for a time, we moved on to the large modern art gallery on the floor above.

This proved to be an interesting experience and could be seen to reflect how much of an interest this type of art work holds for a lot of people. Here people merely glanced at some of the pieces and quickly moved on.

Whereas, the gallery, featuring the Monet paintings, was crowded and people were queuing all day to get in; then spending time focusing and commenting on the paintings. This gallery had a lively and exciting atmosphere and it was a joy to be there.

A tremendous and unexpected surprise and certainly something worth seeing. Work likes this inspires me to become a better artist.