Paint what you really see, not what you think you ought to see.
—Claude Monet
In this Cambridge Forum Classic, Paul Tucker, professor emeritus of art at UMass, offers a striking new view of Monet, the quintessential impressionist showing him to be a far more complicated figure than previously acknowledged, fiercely competitive and ambitious, as well as sensitive and inventive.
Monet created more than 2,500 paintings, drawings, and pastels that radically altered the way art was made and understood. Tucker reflects on the artist’s oeuvre as an evolving enterprise that evolved over his lifetime and was driven by Monet’s steadfast belief in the power of art to express ideas.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Exhibition: Monet and Boston: Legacy Illuminated, April 17–October 17, 2021
Speakers
Paul Tucker
Paul Tucker, a professor emeritus of art at the University of MA, is one of the foremost authorities on Monet, the quintessential impressionist. He offers a striking new view of the artist, showing him to be a far more complicated figure than previously acknowledged, fiercely competitive and ambitious, as well as sensitive and inventive.
Audio
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Learning to Look
Boston Globe art critic Sebastian Smee and Paul Tucker, curator of the Monet exhibitions at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, discuss the ways that looking at a work of art can open it up to reveal a rich web of information.
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