Monet Loved, Defended

Christopher Knight’s hatchet job on the San Diego Monet exhibition did not serve your readers well (“Blockbusters: Real and Imagined,” July 25). He dismisses the exhibition as unnecessary after other exhibitions in recent years, complains that the paintings are poor because of Monet’s failing eyesight and carps at the number and quality of the works.

Well, while we can all take comfort in the fact that Knight saw the “full, sprawling retrospective at New York’s Metropolitan Museum 13 years ago,” I’ll wager that very few of your readers saw it or the other “focused” exhibitions he refers to. And while he and other “Monet enthusiasts” may sniff at the caliber of the collection held by the Paris museum whose works make up most of the current exhibition, I for one never expect to get to Paris to see it and welcome this opportunity to do so.

This kind of art criticism serves nothing except Christopher Knight’s ego. The vast majority of us do not share his learning or discrimination, but we do have the potential to love and support art. We would be better served by criticism that attempts to share and engender that love, instead of crushing it.

KAY MELCHER

Rancho Cucamonga

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Please convey to Christopher Knight my thanks for his review. I attended the Monet exhibition and thought afterward that I had wasted my time. Now I am certain I did.

PAUL J. SHETTLER

Corona del Mar