Join curator Vanessa Schmid as she gives a Noontime Talk on Seeing Nature: Landscape Masterworks from the Paul G. Allen Family Collection. Noontime Talks are brief, casual discussions on exhibitions or works of art in the galleries, given by NOMA curators and special guests.

About Seeing Nature

Seeing Nature explores the development of landscape painting, from a small window on the world to interpretations of artists’ personal experiences with their surroundings on land and sea. It reveals the power of landscape to locate the viewer in time and place—to record, explore, and understand the natural and man-made world. This exhibition presents masterpieces spanning five centuries by artists such as Paul Cézanne, David Hockney, Edward Hopper, Gustav Klimt, Claude Monet, Thomas Moran, Georgia O’Keeffe, Gerhard Richter and J.M.W. Turner.

In the 19th century, the early impressionists focused on direct observation of nature. This exhibition is particularly strong in the works of Claude Monet. Five Monet landscapes spanning 30 years are featured, from views of the French countryside to one of his late representations of water lilies, Le Bassin aux Nymphéas of 1919. Cézanne and his fellow post‐impressionists used a more subjective approach to creating works such as La Montagne Sainte-Victoire (1888-90). Also on view is Austrian painter Gustav Klimt’s rare landscape masterpiece, Birch Forest of 1903, exhibited for the first time since 2006.

Several works in the exhibition offer varying interpretations of a single location. Venice’s romantic vista is seen through multiple lenses, from Canaletto’s detailed renderings, to J.M.W. Turner and Thomas Moran’s dreamy visions, to Manet’s photographic crispness and Monet’s nearly abstract composition. The Grand Canyon’s immensity is seen in Moran’s intimately scaled depiction, Arthur Wesley Dow’s mesmerizing pattern of ridged peaks and David Hockney’s multi-canvas composition. The last part of the exhibition explores the paintings of 20th century artists, such as Georgia O’Keeffe, Edward Hopper, David Hockney, Gerhard Richter and Ed Ruscha, who brought fresh perspectives to traditional landscape subjects.

Thanks to The Helis Foundation, Wednesdays are free for Louisiana residents, so stop in and learn something new!