Flowers make an impression
Painters prove their love for – and skill at – floral arrangements.
A cynical citizen might take stock of the major cultural offerings in Denver right now and categorize the whole summer as The Great Pander of 2015.
Pretty flowers at the art museum. Giant horses at the botanic gardens. A traveling exhibit on poison in the city’s hallowed headquarters for nature and science. Not exactly challenging stuff, for adults in particular, though a generous boon to institutional box offices.
Still, it’s hard to be down on things when the exhibitions themselves are so well-executed — and that’s ultimately the case at the Denver Art Museum, where “In Bloom: Painting Flowers in the Age of Impressionism” is filling considerable space in the Hamilton Building.
It’s all pansies and peonies, lilies and roses; and more asters and lilacs and tulips then you can probably stand. The place even smells like flowers, thanks to a “scent room” whose sweet, perfumy odors spill out through the entire place.
But individually, a good number of the works are stunningly beautiful. If you can isolate your view amid painting after painting of flowers hanging side by side,
there are more than a few jawdropping moments.
That begins as soon as the action gets underway with works showcasing the realism of the late 1700s. Meticulousness is a marvel in oils such as Gerard van Spaendonck’s 1785 “Basket of Flowers on an Alabaster Pedestal,” which captures every detail of its subject matter down to a tiny ladybug crawling on a leaf.
The show quickly moves to the next century and a new way of painting as artists such as Gustave Courbet added bolder brush strokes and looser lines to those careful compositions. Eugène Delacroix’s 1833 “Still Life with Dahlias” feels at once formal and personal.
From there. it’s a quick trip to the big names of Impressionism and their full embrace of emotion. Claude Monet keeps the settings simple but amps up the feeling in 1888’s “Flowers in a Vase.” There are various shades of painterly freedom in works from Pierre Bonnard, Odilon Redon, Édouard Manet, Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas and PierreAuguste Renoir.
The journey wraps with a full affirmation of the powers of color and personal point of view embodied in the brilliant creations of Vincent van Gogh and Henri Matisse, which give the experience a colorful climax.
If there seems to be a lot of name-dropping in the mix, then the hook is clear. The celebrities of 19th-century art power this show, as they seem to power so many museum exhibits these days. This one — shared by the Dallas Museum of Art, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and DAM — is aimed at a familiar draw.
It also plays a familiar tune, laying out a narrative about the decline of representation and the emergence of abstraction as the ideal of fine art. It’s not the constant reappearance of the mostly French Impressionists in blockbuster shows that is beginning to feel repetitive these days; it’s that the song is old now and the remixes don’t feel all that different.
“In Bloom” tries to distinguish itself by focusing so thoroughly on a single subject, flowers, and it remains true to its chosen course through all 50-plus of its paintings, a considerable number of floral still lifes for one outing. Even beauty has its consumable limits, and this exhibition finds them.
Yet the show, curated locally by DAM’s Angelica Daneo, chooses its wares wisely. The display has the required quota of dazzling fireworks, including Jean Marie Reignier’s 1856 “Homage to Queen Hortense,” with piles of petals and statuary carefully arranged.
But it also supplies moments of simple elegance, such as Henri Fantin-Latour’s 1889 “Chrysanthemums,” and some small, unexpected surprises, such as Manet’s studied 1880 “Still Life with Brioche,” a painting as much about bread as it is blooms.
These tiny stops imbue “In Bloom” with a credibility that competes well with its pandering ways . It may raise eyebrows, but it indulges in eye candy, and there are worse ways to go.