The world of the Visual Arts...

From "Impression" to Impressionism...

On November 13, 1872, Claude Monet (1840-1926) painted a view of the port from his hotel window in Le Havre during the early morning hours, when it was shrouded in mist. Two years later, this painting was exhibited on the Boulevard des Capucines, under the title Impression, Soleil levant. The critic Louis Leroy admired it and coined the term Impressionist for the group formed by Monet and his friends. Impression, Sunrise is part of the permanent collection of the Marmottan Monet Museum, where we were fortunate enough to see it, as it is usually on loan around the world for exhibitions related to the movement.

Impression, Soleil levant, by Claude Monet (1872)

Technique: oil on canvas.

5:42 p.m.
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Berthe Morisot at the Musée Marmottan Monet...

19th Century

November 5, 2025 - In 1996, the descendants of Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) donated her collection to the Musée Marmottan Monet, which is why this institution holds the largest number of publicly exhibited works by the artist.

In her youth, she painted portraits of girls and young women surrounded by flowers and worked with models as well as those in her immediate circle, such as her nieces Paule Gobillard and Jeannie Gobillard (who later married the French writer and poet Paul Valéry). However, her favorite was Julie Manet, her only daughter with Eugène Manet, brother of Edouard, as she was also the most accessible.

Au bord du lac, by Berthe Morisot (1883)

Technique: oil on canvas

It is worth remembering that Morisot was the first artist of the Impressionist movement. Her works capture the light through a palette ranging from blues to whites, comparable to the works of Watteau and Fragonard. In her later years, she showed an affinity to the colors of Renoir, who, along with Manet, Monet, and the poet Malarmé, were her closest friends.

Bois de Boulogne, by Berthe Morisot (1893)

Technique: oil on canvas

Her painting teacher, who introduced her to outdoor painting, was Corot, and later Degas, who also invited her to join the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874. Manet was an essential figure in her life, not only because he was family (her brother-in-law) but also because he encouraged her to paint.

The museum houses many of her watercolors, in which we see the freedom of her brushstrokes and the quality of her color choices, along with the interplay of transparencies that highlights her virtuosity.

1:40 p.m.
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Carrie Bencardino II...

Temporary Exhibitions

Artist Carrie Bencardino painted an armchair she called El Mal (Evil), and she invites us to see, as with the Lamp, what lies behind this object.

With this and most of her works, Bencardino intends to delve into the spectral life of objects and emanate a certain darkness from them. Let's not forget the distortion that accompanies her work, which, according to the artist, is her way of seeing the world. To achieve this effect, she drags the pigment "out of focus" with a rag soaked in turpentine. The result: to remove the dullness of the static. This is how this armchair evokes a strangeness, as if it existed in a world of obsessions or were simply part of the nightmarish residue that remains when we wake up.

El Mal, by Carrie Bencardino

MALBA Museum

9:54 a.m.
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Carrie Bencardino I...

Temporary Exhibitions

The unspoken laws of touring art exhibitions dictate that you should start on the left and walk clockwise through the entire gallery, then move on to the next. Currently, visitors walk past the works on the right, the left, and, if they're not interested in what they see, through the center of the gallery. Sometimes a work is so compelling that we skip over the rest of the exhibition, focusing only on what caught our attention.

Lamp, by Carrie Bencardino (2025)

Technique: oil on canvas

Carrie Bencardino (Buenos Aires, 1993) is exhibiting for the first time at the MALBA Museum in Buenos Aires. Just like researcher and artist Lucas Disalvo, the work that caught all my attention, and the one I went to see up close, ignoring the rest, was Lamp. Let's try to put into words why this "lamp" caught our eye.

In my case, it was the use of color and texture. I see velvet and the incongruity of that material reminds me of surrealist artists. I see green, the color of nature in all its splendor. Is it perhaps a message from an activist for the care of the planet? (The more electricity we consume, the fewer natural resources we have). I see an object from the early 20th or 19th century, and there I agree with Lucas Disalvo, who related this painting, by its color and shape, to the absinthe or wormwood consumed by the decadentists. Why? Because of the green color and the lack of clarity in the workmanship, just like the blurred vision of the drinker, a certain dullness.

Ultimately, the painting conveys something that transcends the canvas and sends messages to whoever sees it. Bravo, Carrie!