Exhibition | Closer: Intimacies in Art, 1730–1930
Now on view at the National Gallery of Denmark:
Closer: Intimacies in Art / Tæt på: Intimiteter i kunsten
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, 11 February — 8 May 2016
Curated by Mikkel Bogh
Jean-Siméon Chardin, Soap Bubbles, ca. 1733–34 (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Something happened in the eighteenth century. Artists gradually turned their attention away from historic and mythological scenes towards the private, intimate realm.
What do moods and emotions look like when expressed in art? And how can intimacy between people be depicted? The exhibition explores these issues by means of more than a hundred spectacular masterpieces and rarely seen gems from 1730 to 1930. At the same time the exhibition looks at how portrayals of intimacy have changed over time.
The concept of intimacy—the sense of being closely attuned to other people, places, spaces or things—has always been in a state of flux, and this holds true in art, too. In the eighteenth century, artists begin to depict intimacy in portraits featuring the artists with their families. In the nineteenth century, they invite observers to enter the intimate spheres of others in works that depict domestic interiors and everyday scenes. The early twentieth century sees the advent of experimental modern art, and at this point artists seek to forge intimate connections between art and observer. The exhibition relates how art became modern when it began homing in on the human face, the body, and everyday objects.
Delve into great masterpieces as well as previously hidden gems—and explore how they depict intimacies in widely different ways. Some display intimacy through close proximity; others by showing private moments, erotic tension, or through sensuousness, tactility and touch. One of the key examples presented at the exhibition is Jean-Siméon Chardin’s Soap Bubbles, which may cause you to hold your breath in order to avoid puncturing the fragile bubble that the boy strives so hard to keep intact.
You can look behind the surface of things as we reveal what lies hidden underneath a pair of traditional landscape paintings. Hinged on the back of quite innocuous-looking paintings you will find depictions of erotic aspects of intimacy that leave little to the imagination, and which are shown publicly for the first time ever at this exhibition.
Closer also delves down into experimental art from the early twentieth century. For example, it takes a close look at Franciska Clausen’s Cerles et Carré: the play of colour, nuance and shapes on the surface draw observers in, demanding very close scrutiny and a proximity that creates a strong sense of intimacy between work and observer.
The exhibition is curated by the director of the SMK, Mikkel Bogh, who set out to relate the story of how the intimate sphere and the private, personal body entered the realm of art from 1730 to 1930. The exhibition allows you to get close to more than a hundred works of art, exploring intimacies in paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints and photographs—by artists such as Jean-Siméon Chardin, Adolph Menzel, William Bendz, Berthe Morisot and Edvard Munch.
Conference | Leonardo in Britain: Collections and Reception
From the conference programme:
Leonardo in Britain: Collections and Reception
Birkbeck College, The National Gallery, The Warbug Institute, London, 25–27 May 2016
This conference explore the important role and impact of Leonardo’s paintings and drawings in key British private and public collections. With a focus on the reception of Leonardo in Britain, this conference also looks at the broader British context of the reception of his art and science by addressing selected manuscripts and the first English editions of his Treatise on Painting, as well as historiographical approaches to Leonardo.
Initially conceived as a collaborative project between the late Romano Nanni, former director of the Biblioteca Leonardiana, Vinci and Juliana Barone at Birkbeck College, University of London, the conference has developed into a wider collaboration between these two institutions and the National Gallery, the Warburg Institute, London, and the Kunsthistorisches Institut, Florence. The conference has received support from the Paul Mellon Centre, the British Museum, and the Leonardo da Vinci Society, London.
Each day of the three-day conference will be held at the different partner institutions:
25 May: Birkbeck College, free admission (book tickets)
26 May: The National Gallery, £55/£48 senior citizens/£45 members and Leonardo da Vinici Society members/£28 students
27 May: The Warburg Institute, £15
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
W E D N E S D A Y , 2 6 M A Y 2 0 1 6
4.45 Registration
5.15 Welcome and introduction: Juliana Barone (Birkbeck College) and Susanna Avery-Quash (National Gallery)
5.30 Martin Kemp (Oxford University) – ‘Spinning a yarn or two: Leonardo’s two matching Madonnas’
6.30 Drinks
T H U R S D A Y , 2 6 M A Y 2 0 1 6
10.00 Registration
10.30 Welcome and introduction: Juliana Barone (Birkbeck College) and Susanna Avery-Quash (National Gallery)
10.45 Panel 1: Drawings Collections
• Martin Clayton (Royal Collection Trust, Windsor) – ‘The ‘Windsor’ Leonardos after Arundel’
• Jacqueline Thalmann (Christ Church Picture Gallery, Oxford) – ‘Leonardo in the collection of General John Guise (1682–1765)’
• Hugo Chapman and Sarah Vowles (British Museum, London) – ‘Leonardo drawings in Bloomsbury and beyond’
12.45 Lunch break
1.45 Panel 2: Originals, Versions, and Copies
• Carmen Bambach (The Metropolitan Museum, New York) – ‘The St Anne Burlington cartoon: Function, provenance and dating’
• Caroline Campbell and Larry Keith (National Gallery) – ‘Some observations on the provenance and conservation history of the London Virgin of the Rocks’
• Pietro Marani (Università Cattolica, Politecnico, Milan) – ‘Clarifications and novelties on the issue of the copy of the Last Supper at the Royal Academy and its reception in England in the first half of the 19th century’
3.45 Refreshment break
4.15 Panel 3: What Was Thought to Be a Leonardo?
• Margaret Dalivalle (Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Oxford University) – ‘Said to be of Leonard de Vincia: Or out of his Scoule: Appraising Leonardo in 17th-century England’
• Susanna Avery-Quash (National Gallery) – ‘Sir Charles Eastlake at the National Gallery (1843–1865): Towards a clearer picture of Leonardo as an artist’
F R I D A Y , 2 7 M A Y 2 0 1 6
10.00 Registration
10.10 Welcome and introduction: Juliana Barone (Birkbeck College) and Susanna Avery-Quash (National Gallery)
10.15 Panel 4: Leonardo on Art and Science
• J. V. Field (Birkbeck College) – ‘Leonardo’s after-life in the world of new philosophy’
• Domenico Laurenza (Museo Galileo, Florence) –‘Leonardo’s science in 17th- and 18th-century England: The Codices Leicester, Arundel, and Huygens’
11.30 Refreshment break
12.00 Panel 5: Around the Treatise on Painting
• Juliana Barone (Birkbeck College) – ‘The Treatise on Painting: British collectors’ manuscript copies and the first English printed edition’
• Harry Mount (Oxford Brookes, Oxford) – ‘Leonardo’s Treatise and the empirical undertow in British art theory’
1.15 Lunch (provided)
2.15 Panel 6: Teaching and Theoretical Knowledge
• Charles Saumarez Smith (Royal Academy, London) – ‘Leonardo’s legacy in London: The teaching programme at the Royal Academy’
• Francesco Galluzzi (Accademia Belle Arti, Carrara) – ‘Alexander Cozens, Leonardo da Vinci and landscape painting in England between the 18th and 19th centuries’
3.30 Refreshment break
4.00 Panel 7: Re-reading Leonardo
• Francesca Fiorani (University of Virginia, Virginia) – ‘Kenneth Clark’s Leonardo’
• Alessandro Nova (Kunsthistorisches Institut, Florence) – ‘John Shearman’s Leonardo’
• Claire Farago (University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado) – ‘Re-reading Richter and MacCurdy in conversation with Carlo Pedretti: Lessons in translation’
5.30 Concluding remarks
Call for Papers | Copies of Paintings in the Iberian World
From H-ArtHist (which includes Spanish and Portuguese versions). . .
Copies of Paintings in Portugal, Spain, and the New World, 1552–1752
Fundação Gulbenkian, Lisbon, 11–12 October 2016
Proposals due by 29 April 2016
The artistic patrimony of Portugal, Spain, and the Latin American countries that once formed part of the Iberian empires includes a great number of pictorial copies made between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries. Although on a smaller scale, copies of paintings also circulated and were a part of the heritage of the African and Asian territories that had ties to the Portuguese and Spanish empires. These works have received little attention even though they constitute a valuable source for understanding artistic taste as well as the devotional preferences of Iberian and Latin American society in this period. At the same time, pictorial copies shed light on a number of art historical issues, including the means of diffusion of artistic models, stylistic trends, the kinds of referents available to local painters, and the dynamics of the art market and collecting. Although copies after works by Portuguese, Spanish, and Latin American artists existed, it is notable that copies of famous paintings by Italian and Flemish painters such as Raphael, Titian, Francesco Bassano, Rubens, and Van Dyck were far more abundant. The copies of non-Iberian art are a valuable testimony to the political, commercial, and cultural ties that existed between the Iberian territories and Italy and Flanders.
The international congress Copies of Paintings in Portugal, Spain, and the New World, 1552–1752 invites reconsideration of the topic of the copy in these territories over the course of these two centuries. The period covered begins in 1552, the year in which Antonio Moro arrived in Portugal, and ends in 1752, when the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando was established in Madrid. To a certain extent, these events mark the beginning and end of the history of the copy during the early modern period in the Iberian world. This time period also includes the period of sixty years during which Portugal and Spain were unified under the same government owing to the turns of dynastic succession, the so-called period of the ‘two Philips’ (1580–1640). Leaving aside the conflicts that emerged from Iberian union, which would eventually lead to the Portuguese Restauração in 1640, this period saw a rise in the circulation and exchange of sources and ideas between Spanish and Portuguese artistic centers, a circumstance which may also have had repercussions for the production of pictorial copies.
The congress will be organized around the following four sessions:
1. The state of research: Projects completed or currently being undertaken on the copy in Iberia, Latin America and Asia. Artistic Literature and Copies
2. Case studies on Iberia, Latin America and Asia, 1552–1640
3. Case studies on Iberia, Latin America and Asia, 1640–1752
4. Technical research and study: the process of production, under-drawing, priming and grounds, conservation, technical analysis.
Members of the academic community are invited to submit their proposals for this conference before 29 April 2016. Please email abstract proposals (up to 20 lines), including a brief CV (1 page), to copimonarch@gmail.com. Papers will be accepted in Portuguese, Spanish, and English. The committee will inform of their selection to all the applicants in June 2016. A registration fee of 50€ will be required of all participants. The conference is unable to cover travel and accommodation costs for speakers. The organizers encourage interested parties to apply for outside aid from their respective institutions.
The selected speakers will have the option of submitting their papers for publication in a special issue of the journal Revista de História da Arte–Serie W, due to appear in 2017. Papers for publication will have to comply with the journal’s editorial guidelines, including peer review.
Further information on the conference will be available from April 29th 2016 at the conference website.
Organising Committee/ Comissão organizadora/ Comité organizador: Pedro Flor (Universidade Aberta de Lisboa), Susana Varela Flor (Universidade Nova de Lisboa), Luisa Elena Alcalá (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid), David García Cueto (Universidad de Granada) and Carla Mazzarelli (Università della Svizzera italiana)
Sponsored by the Instituto de História da Arte, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, the Spanish National Research Project COPIMONARCH (I+D HAR2014-52061-P) at the Universidad de Granada, and the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon
A Cópia Pictórica em Portugal, Espanha e no Novo Mundo, 1552–1752
La copia pictórica en Portugal, España y el Nuevo Mundo, 1552–1752
Enfilade 
leave a comment