In Conversation: The Timeless Power of Impressionism with Dr Katie Hanson
On the eve of the opening of French Impressionism, from the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, VAULT Editor in Chief Alison Kubler spoke to Dr Katie Hanson, William and Ann Elfers Curator of Paintings, Art of Europe at the Boston MFA about the enduring appeal of Impressionism and how art speaks across time.
Image credit: Installation view of French Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston on display from 6 June to 5 October, at NGV International, Melbourne. Photo: Sean Fennessy
Katie, I know this exhibition had a false start due to the pandemic, but it’s back in 2025, and slightly larger. Do you think this second iteration is closer to what you wanted to achieve?
This was truly a special opportunity to work on this project with the NGV and to see it realised in this incredible exhibition design that they've developed. I mean, it really brings us into the ambience of the late 19th and early 20th century when these paintings were new by creating interiors that are evocative of the kinds of homes in Boston and Paris that might have housed these paintings at that time. And then, sitting in this gallery space, as we are surrounded by Monet's paintings, knowing that he had envisioned installing his works in a circular or elliptical gallery to create an immersive experience for visitors. He even talked about how it could be “calming to the jangled nerves of city dwellers” to be surrounded by his paintings. I think you walk into this space, and they've really achieved something that's so uplifting and luminous in the design.
I think that's an interesting point that you make because it's a much more experiential way of looking at art than a conventional visit to a gallery. How involved were you with the exhibition build from afar?
My role is primarily to provide a checklist of objects and the methods for grouping them, the adjacencies, and the kind of stories we tell with the paintings. And then the wonderful team here at NGV develops the scenography for the exhibition design and shares it digitally with us in Boston, allowing us to work together and review archival photographs of mansions from Boston and the surrounding areas to capture some of the proportions and mouldings, among other details. Likewise, they were examining interiors from Paris of this period. They really came up with this design for the space, shared it with us, and we thought it would be a really exciting way to experience the works of art in a different way.
Image credit: Installation view of French Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston on display from 6 June to 5 October, at NGV International, Melbourne. Photo: Sean Fennessy
I particularly love the room dedicated to the Barbizon School. Can you talk a little bit about including that at the beginning as an introduction: if you want to understand Impressionism, you need to understand the Barbizon School?
Well, I couldn't have said it any better than that! It was important to me, while thinking about presenting a sense of the mentors that the Impressionists looked to, as a reminder that they didn't just spring fully formed as “Impressionists”. They had foundational moments, standing on the shoulders of artists from a previous generation and looking to them for advice and mentorship on how to display their works, and the kinds of subjects they were interested in. They serve as a model for artists who faced challenges in being displayed and included in the Salon, who weren’t critically accepted, but who remained committed to their vision without being deterred by what might be seen as setbacks. It was essential for me to include a gallery of the Barbizon School, featuring a little Easter egg of a Claude Monet painting from the 1860s that's so beautiful! It might not look like a Monet until you get up close and maybe see the signature or the wall label. But also, you notice it side by side with a painting by Théodore Rousseau that has a similar composition and colour palette. Then you start to notice some of those hallmarks that will make Monet “Monet”: the broader brushstrokes and the greater luminosity in the palette he chose. I think it's such a special picture because it shows us Monet before he's Monet, but also with a glimmer, with the benefit of hindsight, of what we know will come.
Image credit: Installation view of French Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston on display from 6 June to 5 October, at NGV International, Melbourne. Photo: Sean Fennessy
I thought it was particularly beautiful and zeroed in on that one. It's just so luminous. It's very different from the other paintings in that room. I think that when I was studying art history, Impressionism was somewhat uncool. You learned about it, but at that time, it was all about contemporary and post-contemporary art. Most recently, I read Sebastian Smee’s book Paris in Ruins about Berthe Morisot and Edouard Manet, which reminded me of how renegade the Impressionists really were. As someone who is so intimately familiar with all of these works, what keeps you coming back to them? Why are you still so interested in Impressionism?
I see the world differently for having spent so much time with these paintings. These are artists and artworks that take everyday reality and say, this is worthy of consideration, this is worthy of looking closely, of thinking deeply, of recording on canvas. I see the world around me through the lens of having spent so much time with these great works of art. I think also they are so rich and varied in their own surfaces that I see something new every time I look at them. I have been a curator of this collection for 10 years, and so I've seen these paintings more times than I can count. I am very, very fortunate to be the keeper and caretaker, but I see them differently every time we hang them in a different grouping; we light them differently, they're on a different backdrop. I see different colours, different brushstrokes, and I think that's part of the enduring appeal of Impressionism: it allows us to bring ourselves to it, and there's so much richness just in the paint itself. And then you start thinking about the subject the artist has chosen, and it probably sparks memories of other times you've seen that painting or something similar in your own surroundings.
I know because they—dare I say the B word—are so beautiful. But as you say, they're really philosophical, aren't they? They're these meditations on time, life, and all those things. Do you think that's part of the enduring appeal?
I do. I absolutely do think that's part of the enduring appeal. I also think part of it is that we still live in a society that has much in common with the urban life that these artists were living, urban and suburban, the life that they were living. And I'm thinking about a painting just over my shoulder on the wall here, by Monet. I know you all don't get snow in Melbourne, but we sure do in Boston. And it's a painting from Argenteuil. It's every inch an Impressionist painting from the 1870s in France. And also, it's a painting that could encapsulate so much of my experience in Boston in 2025. I know the commuter rail is on the left margin of the composition. I know Monet's house is the one with the green shutters, and here are these people commuting home in the snow and holding their umbrellas against the falling snow. And we do that still. We can have that wonderful kind of accordion of time, speak across time. It is of its moment, but it also reaches to our moment in a way that reminds us of that continuity and of those touch points of commonality.
Image credit: Installation view of French Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston on display from 6 June to 5 October, at NGV International, Melbourne. Photo: Sean Fennessy
That's so beautifully put. I understand you just finished mounting a Van Gogh exhibition.
Yes, we have an exhibition called Van Gogh: The Roulin Family Portraits on in Boston right now. At the heart of the exhibition are two paintings from the Museum of Fine Arts’ collection. We have the first portrait that Van Gogh made of the postman, Joseph Roulin, which is actually incredible. We also have a portrait of the postman's wife, so they're at the heart of the exhibition, but then we have brought together portraits of the rest of the family, and then thinking about how Van Gogh saw these new friends through the lens of the art he admired in museums. This perspective informs the way he creates portraits. A real revelation for me while working on this project was gaining access to letters that Joseph Roulin wrote to Van Gogh himself, as well as to Van Gogh's brother and sister, during the time Van Gogh was hospitalised after cutting his ear. It was Roulin who came to the hospital every day to check on him. This connection becomes significantly important and so touching, as it highlights the bond of friendship they built in just a few months, and how this modest family has become an immortal part of art history. It's a story about friendship and family—those relatable aspects that people can see themselves in, in unexpected ways within these works of art.
Which is really the subtext for this exhibition too! Thank you so much for taking the time to speak to me.
French Impressionism is a major exhibition developed by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in partnership with the National Gallery of Victoria and is part of the Melbourne Winter Masterpieces series.
Until October 5.
ngv.vic.gov.au
