Denver: Monet's Water Lillies and More

"The richness I achieve comes from NATURE, the source of my INSPIRATION." ~~ Claude Monet ~~

Today's adventure germinated back in October. We were still in İzmir, Turkey at the time. Not sure if Mui got a message from Sonia and Boris or if it was vice versa. In any event, we ended up purchasing tickets for the "Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature" exhibit for 10:00a on December 23.

Fast forward to today. A quick breakfast this morning and at 8:30a we set out to drive from Colorado Springs to Denver. Google gave the drive time as one hour and nine minutes. With no mishaps along the way, we pulled into a parking lot near the Denver Art Museum at the appointed time. A few minutes later, we were hanging up our jackets and heading to the queue to enter the exhibit. Perfect timing ... no waiting in line.

When Monet's name is mentioned, most will immediately think of his famous water-lily paintings. As we were reminded at this exhibit, however, he painted a wide variety of subjects ... most, if not all, focused on landscapes in one way or another.

Audioguides in hand (included in the admission), we slowly wandered through the various galleries, stopping frequently to gaze at paintings that made a particular impression on us. I thought it was interesting that we often found ourselves studying different paintings ... our interests as varied as the paintings themselves.

After exiting the last Monet gallery, we went on to check out some of the other exhibits at the museum. But I'll leave that for another footprint and end by quoting the artist himself ...

"Above all I wanted to be truthful and exact. For me a landscape hardly exists at all as a landscape, because its appearance is constantly changing... You have to know how to seize just the right moment in a landscape instantaneously, because that particular moment will never come again, and you're always wondering if the impression you got was truthful."
~~ Claude Monet ~~

That flash-free photography was allowed came as a pleasant surprise. I've attached a few photos, but if you would like to see more, click the link below to visit my online gallery.

https://eenusa.smugmug.com/North-America-US-Can…Read more