Ebay is rapidly becoming a universal solution for 21st century life, and it can only be a matter of time before they launch their own superfast network independent from the rest of the Internet. With a terminal in every room of your house. And a special wireless receiver implanted into your brain.
But anyway. I’d previously only used Ebay for buying and selling CDs, books, software and hi-fi/recording gear, but another cool use became apparent last week. As usual, we’d been totally disorganised and forgotten to get tickets for the Turner Whistler Monet exhibition at the Tate Britain. With only a few days to go, the £10 time-specific tickets were only available for quite inconvenient times. Ebay to the rescue… we managed to non-timed tickets for only a fiver each, and made our way up to Millbank early on Saturday morning.
I’ve never been a huge fan of Monet, to be honest… too many memories of ubiquitous lily pads designed to cover student walls as inoffensively as possible. However, this three-pronged exhibition was designed to focus on the artists’ interpretations of city scenes, particularly in London, and I gained a better understanding (and liking) for old Claude. The views of Charing Cross Bridge (now the combined Hungerford and Golden Jubilee bridges) are limpid and impressionistic, yet full of big city movement, and the multiple views (1 and 2) of the Houses of Parliament are astonishing.
Still, though, the major highlights for me were probably by the other two artists. What was apparent from the whole exhibition was how much of what we now call “impressionism” was already part of JMW Turner’s style several decades earlier. Whistler, staying in London around the same time as Monet, was a huge fan of Turner, and his series of Nocturnes seem like the logical conclusion of everything the other two artists were doing… almost monochromatic impressions of the Thames at night. I found one particular Whistler work very striking, a small painting of a moonlit scene with a luminosity which grabbed my attention from the opposite side of the room… but I can’t find the damn thing online.