Liverpool Arts: EXHIBITION REVIEW: Turner Money Twombly – Later Paintings, Tate Liverpool

EXHIBITION REVIEW: Turner Money Twombly – Later Paintings, Tate Liverpool

FIVE of Monet’s water lily paintings on display at the same time in a single venue should be enough of a draw for visitors to Tate Liverpool’s summer blockbuster exhibition.

Three of them provide the grand finale to the show, positioned so that you can feel completely surrounded by them, immersed in their serenity.

But turn too far and Cy Twombly’s bleeding peonies, Untitled (2007), smack you in the eye, jolting you out of your reverie just as the tragedies of war did to Monet while he was painting these very works.

This is the success of Turner, Monet Twombly: Later Paintings. Independent curator Jeremy Lewison takes work by two of the world’s most ubiquitous artists and, by placing it together and juxtaposing it with US artist Cy Twombly’s exuberant large-scale canvases, shakes our preconceptions.

Many famous pieces are included – among them Turner’s The Parting of Hero and Leander (exh. 1837) lent by the National Gallery, Monet’s London, Houses of Parliament, Burst of Sunlight in the Fog (1904). Presenting them in a fresh context allows us to see them anew.

For instance, the uncharacteristically hot palette and abstract technique Monet uses in his Japanese Bridge paintings of the early-20s appears even more forward-thinking when positioned near Twombly’s blazing, textured works.

Lewison poses the question of whether artists in old age are interested in the same subjects no matter the era in which they were working – and successfully demonstrates that they do.

Motifs of life and death abound – from funereal boats in Turner’s St Benedetto, Looking Towards Fusina (exh. 1843) and Twombly’s sculpture Winter’s Passage: Luxor (1985) to the overwhelming power of nature in Twombly’s striking Quattro Stagioni and, of course, Monet’s water lilies.

Turner’s painting of the parted lovers is hung with Twombly’s tetraptych on the same subject, Hero and Leandro (1981-84) – depictions of the same classical story told in radically different styles 150 years apart.

Divided into loose themes such as “Atmosphere” and “The Vital Force”, with no explanation panels, the exhibition leaves the works to speak for themselves, making it both a more challenging experience and a more immersive one.

It works well in Tate’s airy fourth floor gallery, where the dock views add an extra element, and rightfully recognises the enduring appeal of Twombly’s painting just a year after his death.