The Easel

Archives: Alex Greenberger

21st October 2025

New York’s Biggest Monet Show in 25 Years Is a Revelation

Brooklyn Museum has been castigated for its superficial exhibitions. A show of Monet’s paintings from a reluctant visit to Venice in 1908 gets a more positive reception. Monet, noticing the changing autumnal weather and shifted “closer to abstraction”. The real consequence of that was evident when, on returning to France, he resumed work on the Water Lilies series he had been unable to finish. Feeling renewed, his lilies became swirls of pink and red paint, ever “farther from legible figuration”. Critics were delighted.