Las Vegas Weekly

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The 19th century radicals have returned to Las Vegas, which can only mean one thing: landscapes—heavy with golden fields, thick brush strokes, forest-green hills, glowing sunsets, rich grasses, thickets of trees and endless skies set upon weighty horizon lines that launch us into the dreamiest of daydreams.

There’s a reason why the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art is hosting another Impressionist exhibit, headlined by Monet. People love him. He brings them through the doors. Add works by his predecessors and contemporaries—Corot, Daubigny, Pissarro, Troyon, Boudin and Signac—and you get a better sense of the movement that set art in another direction entirely (and came to look so great on contemporary museum postcards!).

But Claude Monet: Impressions of Light, opening February 18 at Bellagio, shouldn’t be confused with A Sense of Place: Landscapes from Monet to Hockney, which closed in January. Place mixed it up a little, threw in contemporary works that pushed the bounds of what is expected in a rendered landscape.

The 28 pieces in Monet (including seascapes and snowscapes) focus heavily on light and how it falls onto natural elements, says gallery director Tarissa Tiberti. “You can really see what they (Impressionists) were doing.”

This is another show pieced together and provided by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which first brought Monet to Vegas in 2004 and has partnered several times since with the Bellagio gallery. There are some repeats, but also works that are new to Las Vegas. Just don’t expect water lilies. There are none.