A door to monet's life

"Monet was never a descriptive painter who painted what he saw, but an emotional artist who painted what he felt."

Monet often worked on several paintings at the same time or worked on the same painting at different times. Some of his works leave irregular blanks on the margin, causing criticism from his contemporaries that he should not have sold or exhibited "incomplete" works.

Monet's painting with margins shows his wish to remain attuned to nature, according to Mathieu, which itself is never to be finished in its work. By renouncing completeness, he captures an aspect of nature that is open to infinity.

"Coincidentally, this kind of infinity is relevant to Asian art and culture, especially Chinese landscape paintings. Upon viewing many of these works, many Chinese visitors will easily see a connection with Chinese landscape paintings (with a margin left for viewers' imagination)," Mathieu says.

Organizers say they decided to hold the exhibition at Chi Space of Shanghai K11 because they would like to attract people who don't usually visit museums, which in return helps the box office.

"As we work toward our vision and mission to advance the development of Chinese contemporary arts and bring it to a broader audience at home and abroad, we are constantly inspired by our current and past experiences as well as those of the great masters before like Monet," says Adrian Cheng, founder and chairman of the K11 Art Foundation.

"We hope that Monet's bold and innovative spirit to break away from the 19th-century salon art, which the Impressionism movement is born out of, will stimulate young Chinese artists, students of arts and our community to experiment and create their own movement."

The operating costs behind the exhibition became a major concern when it came to deciding the venue of the exhibition.

As a private cultural industry enterprise, if we had chosen a government-subsidized art museum, the admission fee could be either free or too low to cover the cost of bringing the exhibition to China, says Jin Xiaojing, communication officer with Tix-Media, the company that organized the exhibition.

By March 9, about 70,000 tickets were booked and passionate visitors lined up for two hours outside the Chi Space to view the Impressionism master's works.

Zhang Nan, a 22-year-old student came all the way from Ningbo, 300 kilometers from Shanghai, to see the paintings.

He says the two-hour wait for admission and the 100-yuan ($16) admission fee were worthwhile because the exhibition gives him something "you can never find anywhere else".

He is impressed with Monet's sketches, the comic portraits he did when he was a teenager.

"I have never seen these works before in any other exhibition or album," he says.

"The works show that Monet was talented when he was still a teenage boy. It is quite impressive to see these works and to know his past, the past prior to the well-known Monet in our textbooks."

A door to Monet's life (photos)	Unprecedented demand in Shanghai for Monet exhibition