Monet Christmas! - Living, Loving, Thinking, Again

Kate Bush “A Monet Christmas Eve to All!”
https://www.katebush.com/news_article/a-monet-christmas-eve-to-all/

もう年は明けてしまったが、ケイト・ブッシュのクリスマス・メッセージ*1。
今年は、エドゥアール・モネのことが言及されている；

I went to see the Monet exhibition. Twenty one paintings in two rooms – all featuring the Thames in the smog. They were incredibly atmospheric. The fact that they were all of the same environment made you feel like you were there yourself, wrapped up in a mysterious smog of muddy sulphurous yellows, sun-starved pinks, car-sick greens.
You could only make out vague, blurred shapes through the etherial, swirling veils…a majestic bridge here, a wispy boat there… these paintings were completely mesmerising. They transported you to London at the turn of the last century.
Monet thought that the smog was beautiful and that London would’ve looked utterly uninteresting without it. For him it was the smog that created the magic of the place.
I imagined him ready at first light, stood at his easel spluttering and coughing as he peered through the polluted air, with no choice but to gasp at its beauty.
It made me smile to read that although he sketched them while he was in London, he took them home and finished them off in France. Ha ha! So all is not as it seems – that sun-starved pink was actually lavish Giverny pink.
Is that us? Standing in awe at the dawn of AI, the symbol of modernity, as smog was for Monet at that time in the newly industrial London? Do we only see the twinkling light of the new invention, which so often catches the eye of our imagination… and what are those vague, dark sardonic shapes we can see in the background, behind the theatrical gauze?
It’s hard to make them out, but could they be our human pods, like those from the Matrix, being readied for us by eager, playful digits? Or maybe they are freshly painted bridges – robust, and lovingly built to carry us all into a much longed-for new age of healthy thinking?
All will be revealed when the smog begins to clear.

倫敦を描いたモネの話がいつの間にかにAIの話になっている！　実はこのこと自体が印象派っぽい話なのかも知れない。
展覧会Monet and Londonについては、次のレヴューも見られたい；

Jonathan Jones*2 “Monet and London review – genius lurks behind the capital’s filthy light”https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/sep/26/monet-and-london-review-london-courtauld-gallery
Kelly Grovier”'A mesmerising mirage': How Monet's paintings changed the way we see London” https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20241018-how-monets-paintings-changed-the-way-we-see-london

*1:それ以前のクリスマス・メッセージについては、https://sumita-m.hatenadiary.com/entry/2020/12/24/104039 https://sumita-m.hatenadiary.com/entry/2021/12/22/124409 https://sumita-m.hatenadiary.com/entry/2021/12/25/140745 https://sumita-m.hatenadiary.com/entry/2022/12/23/100011 https://sumita-m.hatenadiary.com/entry/2023/12/29/111251 https://sumita-m.hatenadiary.com/entry/2024/01/05/145158を参照のこと