By Liz Curtis

The National Gallery in Dublin opened its wonderful new Millennium Wing last week with a flourish, presenting a gorgeous visiting exhibition of impressionist landscape paintings from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The new wing is stunning and well worth a visit even if you don’t make it to this particular exhibition.

Clad in pale honey-coloured Portland stone, the entrance is unobtrusive. It is conveniently sited in Clare Street, near the south wall of Trinity College. The interior of the building is breathtaking, with an immense hall and grand staircase. Soaring, graceful and bright, it is modern and minimalist in the best sense. Panels in the roof allow glimpses of clouds floating past, and unexpected windows give views of the city or of people in other parts of the building.

As Frank McDonald, environment editor of the Irish Times, wrote: “If there is anywhere in Dublin with a ‘wow’ factor, this is it.” One odd experience is when you cross a bridge between two galleries and notice a slate roof below — the designers incorporated an entire Georgian house complete with Regency ballroom into the building, after planning permission for its demolition was refused. The house now forms a backdrop to the Winter Garden where the restaurant is sited.

The galleries on the upper level are designed to host visiting exhibitions, while those on the lower level are devoted to a permanent exhibition of Irish art from 1900 to 1950. There will also be specialist areas housing the Centre for the Study of Irish Art, a Yeats archive and a print room. The new wing also has a shop which aims to be “the best art emporium in Ireland”. The Millennium Wing is connected to the main National Gallery which faces Merrion Square. This was built in the neo-classical style in 1864 and was extended in 1903.

It did not have enough space for visiting exhibitions and the main purpose of the new wing is to rectify this. The wing’s architects are the award-winning British team Gordon Benson and Alan Forsyth, who won an international competition which attracted over 90 entries. The wing has cost some E33 million, around a third coming from the Irish Government, a third from the EU, and the remainder from the National Gallery’s resources and private donors.

As its name suggests, the wing was supposed to be completed in the year 2000, but its construction was dogged by difficulties, including the dispute about the Georgian house, questions over fund-raising methods, tensions between the architects and the Office of Public Works and a long strike by building workers. But it got there in the end, triumphantly.

The current exhibition is a glowing collection of 69 paintings done between 1850 and 1880 by impressionist artists including Monet and Renoir. It also features artists whom they influenced, including Gauguin and Van Gogh. It is the first major impressionist exhibition to be held in Ireland, and runs until April 14. Big crowds are expected, so it is wise to book ahead, especially for weekends.

The Boston Museum of Fine Arts has lent the paintings, and its director, Malcolm Rogers (no relation to The Irish Post’s Malcolm Rogers) came to Dublin for the opening. His museum has so many impressionist paintings because, he explained, “late 19th-century Boston had a love affair with French painting”. He took journalists on a tour of the exhibition, discussing the paintings with great enthusiasm. “Impressionism was revolutionary in its day,” he said. “It replaced the studio paintings of the French academic style, which were on classical and historical subjects. “The impressionists left the studio and went into the landscape to sketch. Their use of paint was freer and their paintings were smaller.”

The exhibition mixes famous paintings with less well-known ones. “The frames are different,” said Rogers. “The obscure paintings are in old frames, but the well known ones were given new frames, to match the homes of the millionaires who bought them.” Sunsets, haymakers, coastal scenes, expanses of beach and poetic skies were popular subjects, as were holiday-makers. “The informality and holiday feeling is probably influenced by photography,” said Mr Rogers. For the urban middle classes, such pictures were an escape from industrial city life.

The exhibition includes two fabulous Monet snowscenes. “Monet loves snow and brings out its radiance,” said Rogers, “the small feathery brush-strokes that the impressionists used are very suited to the rendition of snow. And snow is itself like paint on the landscape.” Also on show is one of Monet’s famous paintings of the pond in his garden. “He composed the garden himself, then he painted it. He loved the weeping willow.”