Museum news
AN AFTERNOON IN THE IMPRESSIONIST WING
September 8, 2026
AN AFTERNOON IN THE IMPRESSIONIST WING
Five rooms of broken color, from the cliff paths of Normandy to the gardens of the south — a docent's favorite walk.
I have walked the Impressionist wing four thousand times and I still take the long way. Start at the top of the ramp at two o'clock, when the skylight does the lighting for us, and let the building carry you down through the day: morning on the coast, noon in the garden, evening on the terrace.
The room most visitors rush is the one I would frame. Monet's cliff walkers are two brushstrokes tall, and people lean past them looking for detail — but the painting is the weather, not the walkers. Stand back until the path, the spray and the sky lock together, and you will feel the wind the eye invents.
Bring children to the watercolor room and give them my favorite assignment: find the painting with the most blue, then find the one with no blue at all. Both answers surprise adults. Then finish in the lantern court, where the afternoon light through paper lanterns is impressionism you can sit inside.
Docent walks leave the rotunda daily at 11:00 and 14:00, free with admission. Ask for the sketching stools — the wing was designed for people who stay a while.
Words — Mara Ellison, Head Docent