The term ¡°neo-impressionism¡± suggests a sequel to impressionism and, just like with movie sequels, there is a faint lowering of expectations. But this is entirely the wrong way to approach ¡°Neo-Impressionism: from Light to Color¡± at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Some visitors will expect to see something from the earlier movement, and this box is ticked with a few relatively uninspiring seascapes by Claude Monet and some other impressionist works, such as Berthe Morisot¡¯s lush, unfinished ¡°The Garden at Bougival¡± (1884). But the sooner you shrug off the idea of this being ¡°Impressionism II,¡± the sooner this show will start to make sense.
Despite its backward-looking name, neo-impressionism was in essence a radical ¡°year zero¡± movement that wanted to reinvent the artistic wheel.
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