AN ABIDING ENCOUNTER WITH MONET’S GENIUS

These are rare moments, moments of exception, and can happen when you least expect them. But they are rare.

One such moment happened to me on a Fall morning in New York City, completely alone in that vast room, freshly restored, of stunning panoramas at the New York Hispanic Society, way up above Columbia University, painted with patriotic fervor and true genius by the immense Joachín Sorolla to commemorate the history of the Spanish people. He was of course a master of light and color. Being the only visitor to enter that wing, suddenly it was for me as if for one moment Sorolla had employed all of his mastery of technique to create those giant panoramas for my unique pleasure and instruction. When the guard figured out I was harmless, he left the room, leaving only me and Sorolla.

And it happened one morning in Turin, Italy, just as we were about to leave the city after a series of singing ‘Roméo et Juliette’ at the Opera House (I was Frère Laurent). We took a taxi to see the amazing 18^th century Palazzina di caccia of Stupinigi on the outskirts of the city, near the Fiat factory. Not a soul in sight but we two visitors to discover, room after room, the wonders of that Baroque masterpiece, with mouths agape, and in complete silence. The painted ceilings, the marble floors and faux-marble columns, the fantasy decorations hand-painted in minute detail in that immense former hunting palace. The light, the pastel colors, the grand folly of pure, unlimited imagination. Unforgettable.

To be alone in the room with a masterpiece. To not only contemplate, but perhaps be invaded or even overwhelmed with a keen and renewed sensitivity, the art of unselfing named by the always inspiring Iris Murdoch, while face to face confronting the artist’s efforts and his intentions; his hopes and frustrations too.

And it happened this morning. The Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris is undergoing a facelift, and for the next two weeks only the famous Monet murals are open to the public. I reserved, and we went. The two immense oval rooms, as you might recall, are dedicated to eight oversized murals depicting the artist’s garden in Giverny. I’ve been to Giverny, I’ve visited these halls many times, but they are habitually quite brimming with tourists, happy couples busily moving around and taking selfies, etc. This morning, the two sun-filled halls were for at least a half hour entirely ours. When, without my noticing, Jacques stepped into the farther hall, it came to me in a deafening hush that this single moment was actually the unique juncture of a lifetime. My way of looking became a new way of perceiving the rich and varied hues. Monet was speaking to me. My way of understanding was actually more attuned to my intuition, my senses, than ever before.

After much silence, as if in reverence for this great human achievement of 100 years ago, after sitting a moment in communion with what was before me, I started getting out my camera. A young couple also stepped into the hall by that time, but I made an attempt at some filmed panoramas to try to convey the immensity not only in size, but in accomplishment, of this great final work of Claude Monet, considered at the end of his life as passé, of another generation, his fame overtaken by that time with that of Picasso and so many others who would follow.

Perhaps I’ll post that little film here at a later date.