Wisteria (right half) 1920

Curator: At first glance, it's a floral waterfall in blues and greens, utterly dreamlike. Editor: We're looking at "Wisteria (right half)," created circa 1920 by Claude Monet. He rendered this work using oil paint. Monet, of course, had a profound engagement with his gardens at Giverny in his later years. Curator: Waterfall is absolutely the sensation it creates, but that might be just how the hanging tendrils and clustered blossoms are designed. I suppose it speaks to a controlled nature. Editor: You know, many scholars view Monet's late works, like the "Wisteria" series, as a response to the trauma of World War I. After that war ended, people sought refuge, but the paintings were also about remembrance and mourning. How the fragility of beauty mirrors a world devastated by conflict. Curator: Absolutely. In that light, these soft lavenders and blues gain a certain gravitas. Wisteria, with its transient beauty, becomes symbolic. We’re encountering the cycle of destruction and renewal through something so fleeting. Editor: What also fascinates me is how these almost abstract representations of the wisteria resist easy categorization. It defies our modern compulsion for quick meaning-making and allows the viewers to be with grief. Its delicate structure can be read against images of devastation and the losses associated with global conflict. The images create a site for working through complex experiences. Curator: Yes! This painting operates almost like a visual elegy, one that shimmers on the surface but speaks to profound disruption at a deeper level. I do think it's interesting that Monet chose to present them almost without depth. There's something emotionally flattening that it achieves. Editor: Perhaps a recognition that there is little difference, as scholars now say, between the public and the private spheres. Monet created this art after great disruption and that art then also disrupted. Curator: Indeed, in our contemporary moment, we continue to engage with artwork which acts as both mirror and memento mori. Editor: Thanks for bringing me here to reflect and pause.