Hodler, Monet, Munch. Painting the impossible

Exhibition catalogue Hodler, Monet, Munch. Painting the impossible, presented at the musée Marmottan Monet, Paris (15 september 2016 - 22 january 2017).

Because their works take us through the 20th century – up to 1918 for Hodler, 1926 for Monet and 1944 for Munch – and they have had a determining influence on the history of art.

And because all three confronted questions about art which seemed insurmountable, with the same constancy, and at the risk of being misunderstood.

How do you paint the dazzling brilliance of the sun head-on – simply with colours on a canvas? How do you paint snow? How do you suggest the movement and variations of light on water or on the trunk of a tree, despite the immobility of the painting?

"I still picked impossible things to do: water with grass rippling in the background ...it's wonderful to see, but it makes you go crazy wanting to do that."

These words are from Monet, but they could be those of the painter who, until his death, persisted in studying the horizon of the Alps from his terrace from dawn to dusk – Hodler. Or one who relentlessly returned – to the point of depression – to the same colourful motifs, a red house, sailors in the snow, the setting sun – Munch. All three pushed painting to the point of the impossible.