Art: Reverent Grandfather

By his own admission, Manhattan's opinion-making Museum of Modern Art Director Alfred Barr once thought Impressionist Claude Monet was "just a bad example." But five years ago, he looked again, changed his mind, and pronounced him grandfather of abstract impressionism (a phrase for the softer side of abstract expressionism). To honor grandfather, the Modern last week opened a stunning, 119-landscape show that began with postcard-like seascapes in the manner of Boudin and ended with the wide, conflated color vistas Monet drew from the depths of his private water garden 50 miles from Paris in the last years before his death in...

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