Monet Changes Everything

What does Banksy have that I don't? Aside from $10 million....

When a big Claude Monet show came to the Denver Art Museum in 2019, I went twice. Once to the member preview, and again when my son Jake and his partner Lisa flew out from Brooklyn. For me, the exhibit changed from one visit to the next, just like the haystacks near Giverny did for Monet, from the summer 1890 to springtime 1891. That’s when he painted perhaps the most famous series of paintings ever done. Of humble haystacks!

The quotidian glance, transformed into high art. Which, when you think of it, is where genius truly lies: To hold up the everyday world to us, and say: See? It’s beautiful. Are you paying attention?

At the first show, I absorbed his paintings in reflective, worshipful solitude. That’s why you sign up for membership: To secure a gallery entry that excludes the riffraff, so you can have time alone with the art. Hush: You’re in the presence of sacred culture.

During my second crack at DAM’s Monet show, I was jostling with humanity, which always puts me into an antic …