DATE: Sunday, July 20, 1997                 TAG: 9707180097

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E9   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY TERESA ANNAS, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   51 lines

MONET JOINS REMBRANDT AT CHRYSLER THREE WORKS BY THE GREAT FRENCH IMPRESSIONIST ARE GOING ON VIEW JULY 31. THEY'RE PART OF AN EXCHANGE WITH THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS IN BOSTON.

THIS SUMMER, The Chrysler Museum of Art is engaged in a bit of name-dropping: first Rembrandt, and now Monet.

Three Impressionist paintings by Claude Monet are going on view July 31 at The Chrysler Museum of Art.

The Monets join forces with another special exhibit - ``Rembrandt and the Golden Age: Dutch Paintings from the National Gallery of Art,'' which went on view July 1 - in luring visitors to the museum in the slow months of summer.

The Monet paintings, dating from the 1880s, are coming here via an exchange with the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, which in turn was loaned the Norfolk museum's ``Dancer with Bouquets,'' a major Impressionist painting by Edgar Degas.

The Monets will be displayed in the museum's skylit Impressionist gallery, alongside paintings by Pierre Auguste Renoir, Paul Gauguin, Mary Cassatt and others, said Jefferson C. Harrison, the museum's chief curator.

The Boston museum owns the most extensive collection of Monets outside of Paris, Harrison said, and is particularly strong in works from the 1880s - one of the French artist's most prolific and creative decades.

The earliest of the three works - ``Fisherman's Cottage on the Cliffs at Varengeville'' (1882) - is one of the most famous Monets in America, he added.

``It's a stunning example of his high Impressionist style. He's going full throttle.''

Harrison described it as ``a joyful, almost Arcadian image of a kind of earthly paradise. This image of a fisherman's hut poised at the sea - with seagulls and sailboats, sand and water and sun - is a glorious picture.''

Also going on view are ``Ravine of the Creuse in Sunlight'' (1889) and ``Meadow at Giverny in Autumn'' (late 1880s).

These are works of a modest scale. The largest is about 36 inches by 32 inches, and the smallest about 24 inches by 35 inches.

By comparison, the Degas measures 71 inches by 60 inches.

Though small, these Monets are important. ``These are principal paintings from Boston's collection,'' Harrison said.

The Monets will be on view through Jan. 4 at the museum, 245 W. Olney Road. The shows of 17th century Dutch art and the Monets are free with museum admission: $4 adults, $2 students and seniors. Free to 5 and younger, and on Wednesdays. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. Call 664-6200 for more information. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

The three paintings by Claude Monet include the 1889 work ``Ravine

of the Creuse in Sunlight.''

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu