Jump to content

I love this painting...including the title!


mint
 Share

Recommended Posts

What nobody likes this painting?  As Victor Meldrew might say, "I don't BELIEVE it!"

Doesn't speak to you about then and now, rich and poor, class division in society, environmental degeneration, nature and industry, manmade and manmade (yes, I dare say that garden was in fact planted by Monet)?  And even, in my particular case, the river Dronne, near which I now live and the river Neath that flows through Port Talbot where I lived for a few years.

Me, I LOVE paintings and not much pleases me more than having time in front of a painting and just thinking about what is portrayed.

You certainly don't have to be an expert to enjoy paintings but you do need to have some degree of interest[:D]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actually Becket, please don't apologise.  I don't require you to like it[:D]  I enjoyed your comment.

Bansy is indeed clever and topical and, of course, the nature of his work is a bit "crude" and sort of unfinished.  If I was made to compare, I'd compare him to Hopper whose work also lacks the finer details but the subjects are always wide and sets the imagination racing.

Nobody is going to ask me but, if I had a chance to rename it, I'd add the word "just"!  "Just show me the Monet" would make it all more smoothly menacing and more "godfatherish"[:D]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes its a clever title. I like the painting as well , i like the irony of it. The artist has a real gift and it isn't wasted. I once visited Monets house in Giverny and can visualise the bridge with the shopping trolleys in front of it. Whilst walking in the garden i noticed a piece of aubretia broken away from the main plant. To this day i regret not picking it up and propagating it.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have enjoyed all your comments......just goes to show that beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder.

Norman, I think you are a bit harsh because I do think that old Banksy does have a social conscience.

I have a magnificent print of Monet's waterlilies stretching along a wall in the "garden room" (well it does have double doors into the garden).  I have been known to refer to it sometimes as le petit salon but it is really a glorified higgledy, piggledy room to put some books, the large fridge-freezer, the rack where I keep tins of food, the bread maker and a cold storage for cooked food in the winter.

Some of the more uninteresting items are hidden behind an intricate carved wooden screen bought for some derisory sum from some real expats when they returned to the UK.  It is a lovely refuge for me in summer when the upstairs part of the house is too warm.  I also have some half a dozen prints of Breton ladies doing rather unladylike things in their costumes plus, musn't forget, a photo or two of OH's ancestors.

I think the painting is realistic.  The trolleys definitely do not belong and are never seen in the Dronne.  In Port Talbot, however, they are a common sight in the river as you walk on the bridge to get to the side where most of the big shops are.  I wouldn't be nostalgic about poor old Port Talbot at all, except that I had an interesting job there and I liked defending it when people run it down.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Mint, Monet is one thing, Banksy is quite another, and I am not sure the two go together, in this instance very well, though I quite get the point that Banksy is trying to make, it doesn't quite wash it with me .. masks, as some one else pointed out, would have been much more relevant at this moment in time!

I too have some good memories of my visit to Monet's house and garden, one of wish list actions achieved on one of my drives north, and this rather ruins it for me, without misunderstanding the statement Banksy was trying to make, it does just not work. 

But good that we can find humour, of whatever sort, at the moment ...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...