Double visions

Was there ever a period when critical opinion united and gave Monet his due?

It’s very hard to say. For even as his radical method of painting was finding acceptance later in his life, his confreres in the avant-garde were busy finding fault. Impressionism, they argued, may have let in light and unleashed color, but it lacked solidity, permanence, the ability to articulate deeper meanings.

This perceived lack, of course, powered the forward lurches of the Post-Impressionists Van Gogh, Cézanne, Seurat, and Gauguin. It was also the subtext behind the backhanded compliment of Cézanne, who famously described Monet as “only an eye, but my God, what an eye.’’ Replace the word “eye’’ with “body’’ or “face,’’ and one can imagine the same thing being said of Elle “The Body’’ Macpherson or Kate “The Face’’ Moss.

Monet answered those who accused him of superficiality by setting out, in the 1880s, to paint in series. He painted the same subjects from the same vantage points at different times of day and in different weather. In this way, he converted postcard views criticized as ephemeral and arbitrary into haunting and resonant works united by an implied duration.

Treating time instead of space as a third dimension, he showed subjects truly “in the round.’’

Of all Monet’s series, the greatest - indeed, one of the high points in the whole history of Western art, an achievement of staggering beauty, gravitas, and philosophical depth - was his series of paintings of the facade of Rouen cathedral.

The Museum of Fine Arts is lucky indeed to own two of these pictures. For its new exhibition, “Monet/Lichtenstein: Rouen Cathedrals,’’ it has borrowed three more from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris (yet another indicator of the close cooperation between these two powerhouse museums). They hang in a row in a small gallery opposite a matching series of paintings by the lovable American Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein.