Exhibition | Coaches from Versailles on View at Arras
From the exhibition website:
Roulez Carrosses! Le Château de Versailles à Arras
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Arras, 17 March 2012 — 10 November 2013
Curated by Béatrix Saule, Jean-Louis Libourel, and Hélène Delalex
Roulez Carrosses!, the inaugural exhibition of the partnership signed in 2011 between the Château de Versailles, the City of Arras and the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Region, is a landmark event. It is the first French exhibition to be devoted to horse-drawn vehicles. Berlin coaches, royal and imperial carriages from the Versailles collection have all taken the road for Arras, to be admired here until November 2013. The Musée des Beaux-Arts is thus hosting paintings, sculptures, sledges, sedan chairs, horse harnesses and several outstanding carriages such as the coaches of Napoleon I’s marriage procession, Charles X’s coronation coach or the impressive funeral hearse of Louis XVIII. From Louis XIV to the Third Republic, these little-known vehicles will offer a journey through the History of France. Chronologically displayed over 1,000 m², these works are set against a backdrop of innovative scenography combining reconstructions, activities, immersion and multimedia. The exhibition provides an opportunity to discover Versailles and its collections whilst at the same time highlighting the historical links between Arras and the former residence of kings. It will also provide an insight into the operation
and evolution of horse-drawn vehicles.
Curatorship
Béatrix Saule, Director of the Musée National des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon
Jean-Louis Libourel, Honorary Chief Curator of Heritage
Hélène Delalex, Heritage Conservation Manager at the Château de Versailles
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As Didier Rykner judges in his review for The Art Tribune (24 September 2012) . . .
Sedan Chair for the King’s House Versailles, Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon Photo : RMNGP/G. Blot
Even if it is much longer than the usual three-month period, this is a true exhibition, not a lineup of works; it is accompanied by a beautiful scholarly catalogue on a subject which is not often studied; it does not replace the display of the permanent collections as the exhibition rooms occupy the space acquired at the Saint-Vast Abbey; it does not deprive visitors going to the lending museum from seeing major works there since the Musée des carrosses (a rather exaggerated term given the usual presentation conditions) is rarely open to the public; and, above all, it will result in enduring benefits for the coach collection as well as for the Musée des Beaux-Arts itself. . . .
The museum staging by Frédéric Beauclair is very well done. Paintings, sculptures and drawings round out the presentation of the carriages illustrating their use, the way they functioned and the context in which they were produced. Visitors will also discover some little-known works. . . .
The full review is available here»
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Eight short videos accompany the exhibition:
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From the Château de Versailles bookshop:
Béatrix Saule, ed., Roulez Carrosses! Le Château de Versailles à Arras (Paris: Skira Flammarion, 2012), 256 pages, ISBN: 9782081278172, 40€.
Roulez carrosses! is the first exhibition in France devoted to horse-drawn coaches and carriages and, in this case, historical examples, all totally luxurious in every detail and all different: carriages for the outings of the children of Louis XVI, a sumptuous berline for the wedding of Napoleon I, the hearse of Louis XVIII, the coronation coach of Charles X, etc. Other outstanding masterpieces from the collections of Versailles accompany them: a series of paintings by Van der Meulen, major royal portraits, or unique vehicles like these fantasy sledges in which Louis XV and then Marie-Antoinette were pulled over the snow-covered walks of the park of Versailles. This book describes episodes from the political history of the palace, dynastic events and customs of the court, narrated and commented on here by eminent historians. Fans of handsome horse-drawn vehicles will discover the grand coaches for ceremonial occasions – from the “modern coach” invented in the reign of Louis XIV to the coaches for state ceremonies of the presidents of the Republic – along with their technical innovations, the refinement of their accessories and the extreme lavishness of their ornamentation, at a time when the art of French coach-building was at its apogee.
Exhibition | Nude Men in Vienna
With the advertising for this exhibition having been covered sensationally by the international press, the focus on contemporary work has obscured the late eighteenth-century offerings. Press release from the Leopold Museum:
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Nude Men from 1800 to the Present / Nackte Männer
Leopold Museum, Vienna, 19 October 2012 — 28 January 2013
Curated by Elisabeth Leopold and Tobias Natter
Ilse Haider, Mr. Big, installed at the Leopold Museum
The endless flood of images intrinsic to today’s lifestyle has given unprecedented public prominence to the depiction of male nudes. At the same time seemingly firmly established categories such as masculinity, body, and nakedness are apparently being redefined on a broad social basis, resulting in a new interpretation of male gender roles. These developments have prompted the Leopold Museum to embark on a topical as well as historical journey through the visual arts in search of the male nude, a quest leading predominantly from the longing for antiquity prevalent in art around 1800 to contemporary art. The exhibition Naked Men: Power & Powerlessness through the Ages also represents the fulfillment of the museum’s long-cherished ambition to present a counterpart to the highly successful 2006 exhibition Body – Face – Soul curated by Elisabeth Leopold, which explored the female image in art from the 16th century to the present. Thus, the current presentation constitutes a continuation of this theme, except that its focus is now on the opposite sex.
The exhibition Naked Men: Power & Powerlessness through the Ages is based on works by Egon Schiele, Richard Gerstl and Anton Kolig – three artists who are more comprehensively represented in the Leopold Museum than in any other institution and in whose oeuvre the depiction of the male nude features prominently. Schiele’s male nudes can be seen as unconditional explorations of the self, as expressions of inner emotions and as body images situated between vulnerability and provocation. Gerstl followed the tradition of Christian iconography with the first of his two life-sized self-portraits, while he elevated the fragmentation of form to a principal in the second with his wild brushstrokes. Kolig was captivated by the depiction of naked young men all his life and dedicated his drawings almost exclusively to this motif.
Based on eminent examples from its own collection and complemented by loaned works from all over Europe, the Leopold Museum’s exhibition will set out in two main directions, examining the depiction of the male nude in contemporary art, while also exploring the Old Masters’ approach to the subject from the Renaissance all the way back to antiquity. The exhibition unites examples of many different genres, including painting, sculpture, graphic arts, photography and new media, with special emphases on the following themes:
The Measure of All Things: The Male Body and Art Academies
Ever since the Renaissance, the naked male body was considered to be an important object of study and an indispensable part of the academies’ curriculum, which was one of the reasons that women were denied access to art academies for so long. The presentation affords insights into the life drawing rooms of European art academies from the Baroque period onwards and illustrates to what an extent all eyes were focused on the naked man, though he himself was the only one to remain naked.
Longing for Antiquity and the Male Ideal
For centuries, the depiction of the male nude was only legitimized by ancient art. These restrictions prompted the emergence of various artistic strategies that reinterpreted ancient ideals under the guise of antiquity. This is illustrated in the exhibition with examples from the period around 1800 up until the present.
The Naked Self
While Klimt still believed that nakedness and truth coincided in the Nuda Veritas, Schiele began to make his own body the object of his paintings. Expressionism brought with it a radical examination of the self, which saw the artists exposing themselves both physically and existentially and exploring the use of their own nudity as a sphere of political influence.
In the Sights of Women
The battle of female desire and male denial is not often addressed in the visual arts, but it has its historical sources both in the biblical story of Joseph and the Wife of Potiphar and in the ancient mythological traditions of Narcissus and Adonis. The emancipation of women as artists has brought with it a new basis for the depiction of such conflicts. Nowadays, female artists also have access to male nude models and are free to interpret and depict this motif at their will, currently often with a view to deconstructing gender and gender asymmetries.
Bathers — On the Beach
In the second half of the 19th century depictions of naked people in nature abounded. These renderings had their origin in a reassessment of man’s position in nature. Based on early depictions such as Dürer’s The Men’s Bath, the exhibition features many eminent examples of such encounters and get-togethers of naked men, from Cézanne to Mapplethorpe.
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In the United States, the English edition of the catalogue will be distributed by The University of Chicago Press:
Catalogue: Elisabeth Leopold and Tobias Natter, eds., Nude Men from 1800 to the Present (Vienna: Hirmer, 2013) ISBN: 9783777458519, $50.
Rodin’s Thinker. Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. Pigalle’s controversial portrayal of the philosopher Voltaire. From its earliest days, art history is rife with representations of nude men. But while there is no shortage of studies of art celebrating the female form, the male nude has suffered from relative neglect. This book seeks to correct this imbalance with a collection of paintings, sculptures, and photographs that challenge conceptions of the body and masculinity, many of which continue to have considerable cultural resonance today.
Beginning with a look at art completed in life-drawing classes popular across European academies, the book moves on to representations of masculinity throughout the French Revolution, including works by Johann Heinrich Füssli and Antonio Canova; provocative Sturm und Drang paintings by Edvard Munch and contemporaries; and late impressionist works. The unsettling self-portraits of Austrian artists Egon Schiele and Richard Gerstl exemplify an extreme candor that characterized the early twentieth century. Other twentieth-century artists whose work is included in this book are Jean Cocteau, David Hockney, Andy Warhol, Nan Goldin, and Louise Bourgeois.
With nearly four hundred full-color illustrations, the book also includes insightful essays examining topics like male identity, depictions of desire in modern art, and the use of nude men in advertising.
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Note (added 2 February 2013) — The sensational coverage is likely to continue. As reported by the AFP, viewers are invited to step out of their own clothes for a special viewing on February 18, “Our museum will be a clothes-free zone for one evening. . . Nudists, naturists are welcome!”
New Title | Art & Visual Culture 1600–1850: Academy to Avant-Garde
From The Open University:
Emma Barker, ed., Art & Visual Culture 1600–1850: Academy to Avant-Garde (London: Tate Publishing, 2012), 384 pages, ISBN: 9781849760966, $32.
Part 1: City and Country
Part 2: New Worlds of Art
This investigates the art and visual culture of the period from roughly 1600 to 1850. This was the period in which a distinctly modern art world began to appear, with its own institutions and associated ideas about art and artists. The book assesses the significance and value of the labels traditionally used to define the art of this period, notably Baroque, Neo-classical and Romantic. In addition, it explores the ways in which art and visual culture were shaped by the ruling elites of different European countries, as well as considering the impact of socio-economic change and growing engagement with the world beyond Europe.
The first part addresses the period from around 1600 to about 1760. Rather than attempting a broad survey of artistic developments, this part of the book highlights the way in which the relationship between the country and the city helped to shape different cultures of visual representation in different national contexts. Material covered includes: the embodiment of religious power in the restructuring of Rome by Bernini; seventeenth-century Dutch painting and the thorny problem of realism; the development of urban London; and the new culture of British landscape parks.
The second part is concerned with the period from around 1760 to 1850. It explores some of the ways in which art and other visual forms responded to changing societies and contributed to the emergence of a recognisably modern world. It covers: the emergence of public exhibitions in Britain and France and the codification of genres and types of art; the representation of the body in Canova’s sculpture; the meeting of western travellers with Pacific islanders, as reflected in images; and the emergence of the Romantic ‘genius’.
Book Talk | Simon Werrett on Fireworks
Simon Werrett, The History of Fireworks
Ealing Central Library, 8 November 2012
Simon Werrett will give talk on his book Fireworks: Pyrotechnic Arts and Science in European History at the Ealing Central Library on November 8, 2012 at 6:15pm. Enjoy a free glass of wine courtesy of Waterstones. Green Room, Ealing Central Library, Broadway Centre, Ealing W5 5JY. The event is free, but please book in advance at reading@ealing.gov.uk or in Ealing Waterstones.
New Title | Antiquarianism and Intellectual Life in Europe and China
From The University of Michigan Press:
Peter N. Miller and François Louis, eds., Antiquarianism and Intellectual Life in Europe and China, 1500-1800 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2012), 440 pages, ISBN: 978-0472118182, $65.
This book is a project in comparative history, but along two distinct axes, one historical and the other historiographical. Its purpose is to constructively juxtapose the early modern European and Chinese approaches to historical study that have been called “antiquarian.” As an exercise in historical recovery, the essays in this volume amass new information about the range of antiquarian-type scholarship on the past, on nature, and on peoples undertaken at either end of the Eurasian landmass between 1500 and 1800. As a historiographical project, the book challenges the received—and often very much under conceptualized—use of the term “antiquarian” in both European and Chinese contexts. Readers will not only learn more about the range of European and Chinese scholarship on the past—and especially the material past—but they will also be able to integrate some of the historiographical observations and corrections into new ways of conceiving of the history of historical scholarship in Europe since the Renaissance, and to reflect on the impact of these European terms on Chinese approaches to the Chinese past. This comparison is a two-way street, with the European tradition clarified by knowledge of Chinese practices, and Chinese approaches better understood when placed alongside the European ones.
Peter N. Miller is Dean and Professor at the Bard Graduate Center. François Louis is Associate Professor at the Bard Graduate Center.
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This volume is the first to juxtapose the autochthonous traditions of antiquarianism of Early Modern Europe and Late Imperial China. Rather than asking only what the West might be able to learn about China, it self-consciously and quite successfully seeks to open up new perspectives on both sides of the comparison. It moreover breaks important ground in suggesting historically traceable links between evidential learning in China and European traditions of ‘Herodotean’ historiography. —Lothar von Falkenhausen, University of California, Los Angeles
This splendid collection of essays is at once a major addition to the literature on the history of scholarship in Western Europe, a burgeoning field in its own right, and a model effort at comparative cultural history . . . The collection as a whole sheds light on areas little known even to erudite scholars. —Anthony Grafton, Princeton University
Exhibition | Bronze at The Royal Academy
Reviewed for Enfilade by Craig Ashley Hanson
Bronze
Royal Academy of Arts, London, 15 September — 9 December 2012
Curated by David Ekserdjian and Cecilia Treves
Critics have been raving about Bronze since it opened last month at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Notwithstanding the exhibition’s sweeping coverage–in terms of geography and history–I didn’t initially include it here at Enfilade as I had trouble finding eighteenth-century points of relevance. Indeed, out of dozens of objects shown across ten rooms, only a handful of works were produced during the period. And yet, now that I’ve seen the exhibition, I’m convinced dix-huitièmistes should pay attention.
Organized by theme rather than time and place, the range of works is staggering. If, in keeping with traditional historiographical models, the show begins with an achingly beautiful example from ancient Greece–a recently recovered Dancing Satyr–it quickly brings an international array of work into open and productive dialogue. On display are works from Ghana and Nigeria, Eturia and Rome, China and Japan, Northern Europe and the United States. Categories one might expect to see are well represented: ritual dining vessels from Shang dynasty tombs, classicizing work from Renaissance Florence, Buddhist work from India (including an extraordinary sixth-century Buddha Shakyamuni from Bihar). Rodin’s Age of Bronze is, of course, included. But there are surprises, too: ancient court objects from Israel (a crown, scepter, and vulture standard), sixteenth-century French spurs, a basketball by Jeff Koons. Works by Giambologna appear next to an oversized spider by Louise Bourgeois (climbing the wall, no less).
François Girardon, Laocoön and His Sons, ca. 1690 Houghton Hall, Norfolk/Photo © Royal Academy of Arts, London, Roy Fox (click for more info)
While it all could have gone horribly wrong, the experience of viewing the exhibition appears to be, for most viewers, one of coherence rather than confusion, coherence derived from the thoughtful attention to the possibilities of bronze as a material. The medium is the subject in an entirely convincing, indeed revelatory manner. The varieties of objects, selected from a global vision of art history, work thanks to careful attention to exploration of seven thematic categories: figures, animals, groups, objects, reliefs, gods, and heads. Scale and texture, color and composition, the tensile strength and resulting artistic flexibility of bronze all become matters of first, rather than passing, interest.
And for the eighteenth-century? The final room of heads includes original choices: Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi’s Damned Soul of 1705 after Bernini and Anne Damer’s Mary Berry from 1793, while François Girardon’s Laocoön from Houghton Hall, ca. 1690, exerts a commanding presence in the gallery dedicated to groups. Particularly compelling for me, in that same room, is the sensitive installation of Francesco Bertos’s 1730s allegorical group of Sculpture, Arithmetic, and Architecture from the Prado. Placed alongside Giambologna’s 1576 Nessus and Deianira (a centaur abduction scene) and Alessandro Algardi’s 1647 St. Michael Overcoming the Devil, Bertos’s work appears as an entirely legible development from Renaissance humanism, to forceful Baroque religious expression, to refined Enlightened optimism. Adrian de Vries’s Hercules, Nessus and Deianira of 1622 dominates the center of the gallery, making the relationships–the similarities and differences within this 150-year period–all the more striking.
Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi, after Bernini, Damned Soul (‘Anima Dannata’), 1705-07. Bronze with golden-red lacquer patina, 39.5 cm. Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna. Photo © Liechtenstein. The Princely Collections, Vaduz-Vienna
And so historical arguments do exist within the exhibition, even if there’s no obvious central argument based on tracking change over time (it is I think one reason material from all over the world can be placed side by side so effectively). One may wish there were more eighteenth-century offerings–I’ll leave those criticisms to the sound judgment of my colleagues. But, for me, it is an exhibition that likely would make a lot more sense to eighteenth-century connoisseurs than the much more tightly focused, monographic approaches dominating exhibitions in the present age. No only is it a show I think many eighteenth-century viewers would understand (with admittedly a bit of instruction), it’s a show I think they would like.
Alongside it, the catalogue offers innovative models for thinking about different ways exhibitions generally might succeed. The book pairs beautifully with the catalogue for the 2009 exhibition Cast in Bronze: French Sculpture from Renaissance to Revolution, available–for anyone regretting that there aren’t more eighteenth-century works on
display–in the Royal Academy gift shop on the way out.
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Catalogue: Bronze (London: Royal Academy Publications, 2012), 248 pages, ISBN: 9781907533280, $65.
Bronze, long celebrated for its durability and the wide range of effects that it offers, has been prized as an artistic material in many parts of the world throughout the ages. Magnificent bronze sculptures from the ancient times have emerged unscathed after millennia on the sea bed. It is a material that has been used on all scales, from the minute to the monumental. This sumptuous catalogue examines bronze’s earliest beginnings in North Africa, the Middle East and China as it transcended tools and weaponry to become a medium of fine art. Expert authors chart the virtuousity of artists in ancient Greece and Rome; developments in Asia and Africa; bronze’s great flowering in the European Renaissance and its use in the modern era by artists such as Rodin, Picasso, Brancusi and Bourgeois.
A unique testament to the works of art that one medium has inspired, Bronze contains lavish colour plates of over 150 masterworks arranged chronologically to take the reader on a voyage through time, tracing the work of sculptors, casters and chasers through the centuries.
New Title | The Origins of the Royal Academy
From The Royal Academy:
Charles Saumarez Smith, The Company of Artists: The Origins of the Royal Academy of Arts in London (London: Bloomsbury, 2012), 192 pages, ISBN: 9781408182109, $32.
On Friday 9th September 1768 an almighty row broke out within the Society of Artists. At its heart was a disagreement over the practice of art in Britain, and no amount of good humour on the part of the Society’s ‘jolly president’ could ‘persuade the disputants to lay aside their mutual Bickerings, and drown their Heartburnings in bumpers of wine’.
From this eruption emerged the Royal Academy of Arts.
An elegant and often amusing day-to-day account of these events and the two years that followed, The Company of Artists reveals the opposing models of a continental and a British art academy that divided leading artists of the day. As he explores their attempts to outmanoeuvre their fellows and win the support of King George III, Charles Saumarez Smith brings to life the characters involved and shows how they shaped the new Royal Academy of Arts, thereby changing the practice and perception of art in Britain for good.
Former director of the National Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery, Charles Saumarez Smith is Secretary and Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Arts. His previous publications include The National Gallery: A Short History (2009), The National Portrait Gallery (1997) and The Building of Castle Howard (1990).
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In Charles Saumarez Smith’s blow-by-blow account of the early days, I recognise the Royal Academy as it still is today. The big ego’s. How to teach art. The status of drawing. Whether or not art stems from genius, ambition or sheer hard work. Everything that is still important and good about the Royal Academy was discussed and debated in those first few weeks.
Christopher Le Brun, President, Royal Academy of Arts
An enthralling behind the scenes look at the egos, the politics and the good and bad intentions that led to the founding of one of our most enduring cultural establishments.
Loyd Grossman, Broadcaster and heritage campaigner
In this short, neat, thorough and readable history, Charles Saumarez Smith, the current secretary and chief executive of the RA, has attempted to identify [the Royal Academy’s] unique quality… Saumarez Smith is smitten, as you will be after reading this touching and passionate love letter.
Brian Appleyard, Literary Review
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Note (added 17 October 2012) — On Thursday, 25 October, from 6:30 to 8:00 PM at Sotheby’s New York (570 Lexington Avenue), Charles Saumarez Smith will be presenting remarks on the project and signing copies of the book. RSVP to Andrew Gardner at a.gardner@sothebysinstitute.com.
New Title | The Origins of Sex
Dabhoiwala’s book appeared earlier this year, building on a 2010 Past and Present article, and I should have noted it months ago. I’m not sure scholarly reviews of it are yet in (please add what I’ve overlooked), but it was reviewed widely in the popular press. Here’s one of those from The Literary Review:
Faramerz Dabhoiwala, The Origins of Sex: A History of the First Sexual Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2012), 496 pages, ISBN: 9780199892419, $35.
Reviewed by Norma Clarke, Kingston University
A woman born in 1600 grew up being told she was the most lustful of God’s creatures. Come 1800 and the message was reversed: she was ‘naturally’ delicate and pure. No longer having lusts of her own to manage, her role was to control the ‘natural’ lust of men and thus preserve civilisation. Dogmas about sexuality had undergone remarkable change. What remained the same was female subordination.
In this ambitious and wide-ranging book, Faramerz Dabhoiwala charts what he calls ‘a history of the first sexual revolution’. He examines the religious, economic, intellectual and social pressures that provided the context for a shift in attitudes towards sexuality. The move from pre-modern to modern times was towards sexual permissiveness and privacy, and away from external controls of individual sexual behaviours. . . .
The full review is available here»
Exhibition | Dark Romanticism: From Goya to Max Ernst
Press release from the Städel Museum:
Schwarze Romantik: Von Goya bis Max Ernst
The Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, 26 September 2012 — 20 January 2013
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, 4 March — 9 June 2013
Curated by Felix Krämer
The Städel Museum’s major special exhibition Dark Romanticism: From Goya to Max Ernst is the first German exhibition to focus on the dark aspect of Romanticism and its legacy, mainly evident in Symbolism and Surrealism. Comprising over 200 paintings, sculptures, graphic works, photographs and films, it presents the fascination that many artists felt for the gloomy, the secretive and the evil. Using outstanding works in the museum’s collection on the subject by Francisco de Goya, Eugène Delacroix, Franz von Stuck or Max Ernst as a starting point, the exhibition is also presenting important loans from internationally renowned collections, such as the Musée d’Orsay, the Musée du Louvre, both in Paris, the Museo del Prado in Madrid and the Art Institute of Chicago. The works on display by Goya, Johann Heinrich Fuseli and William Blake, Théodore Géricault and Delacroix, as well as Caspar David Friedrich, convey a Romantic spirit which by the end of the 18th century had taken hold all over Europe. In the 20th century artists such as Salvador Dalí, René Magritte or Paul Klee and Max Ernst continued to think in this vein. The art works speak of loneliness and melancholy, passion and death, of the fascination with horror and the irrationality of dreams. After Frankfurt the exhibition, conceived by the Städel Museum, will travel to the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.
The exhibition’s take on the subject is geographically and chronologically comprehensive, thereby shedding light on the links between different centres of Romanticism, and thus retracing complex iconographic developments of the time. It is conceived to stimulate interest in the sombre aspects of Romanticism and to expand understanding of this movement. Many of the artistic developments and positions presented here emerge from a shattered trust in enlightened and progressive thought, which took hold soon after the French Revolution – initially celebrated as the dawn of a new age – at the end of the 18th century. Bloodstained terror and war brought suffering and eventually caused the social order in large parts of Europe to break down. The disillusionment was as great as the original enthusiasm when the dark aspects of the Enlightenment were revealed in all their harshness. Young literary figures and artists turned to the reverse side of Reason. The horrific, the miraculous and the grotesque challenged the supremacy of the beautiful and the immaculate. The appeal of legends and fairy tales and the fascination with the Middle Ages competed with the ideal of Antiquity. The local countryside became increasingly attractive and was a favoured subject for artists. The bright light of day encountered the fog and mysterious darkness of the night.
The exhibition is divided into seven chapters. It begins with a group of outstanding works by Johann Heinrich Fuseli. The artist had initially studied to be an evangelical preacher in Switzerland. With his painting The Nightmare (Frankfurt Goethe-Museum) he created an icon of dark Romanticism. This work opens the presentation, which extends over two levels of the temporary exhibition space. Fuseli’s contemporaries were deeply disturbed by the presence of the incubus (daemon) and the lecherous horse – elements of popular superstition – enriching a scene set in the present. In addition, the erotic-compulsive and daemonic content, as well as the depressed atmosphere, catered to the needs of the voyeur. The other six works by Fuseli – loans from the Kunsthaus Zürich, the Royal Academy London and the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart – represent the characteristics of his art: the competition between good and evil, suffering and lust, light and darkness. Fuseli’s innovative pictorial language influenced a number of artists – among them William Blake, whose famous watercolour The Great Red Dragon from the Brooklyn Museum will be on view in Europe for the first time in ten years.
The second room of the exhibition is dedicated to the Spanish artist Francisco de Goya. The Städel will display six of his works – including masterpieces such as The Witches’ Flight from the Prado in Madrid and the representations of cannibals from Besançon. A large group of works on paper from the Städel’s own collection will be shown, too. The Spaniard blurs the distinction between the real and the imaginary. Perpetrator and victim repeatedly exchange roles. Good and evil, sense and nonsense – much remains enigmatic. Goya’s cryptic pictorial worlds influenced numerous artists in France and Belgium, including Delacroix, Géricault, Victor Hugo and Antoine Wiertz, whose works will be presented in the following room. Atmosphere and passion were more important to these artists than anatomical accuracy. . .
The full press release is available here»
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Available from the publisher:
Catalogue: Felix Krämer, ed., Dark Romanticism: From Goya to Max Ernst (Ostfildern: Hatje-Cantz-Verlag, 2012), 305 pages, ISBN 9783775733731 (German edition ISBN: 9783775733724), $70 / 35€.
The exhibition, which presents the Romantic as a mindset that prevailed throughout Europe and remained influential beyond the 19th century, is accompanied by a substantial catalogue with contributions by Roland Borgards, Ingo Borges, Claudia Dillmann, Dorothee Gerkens, Johannes Grave, Mareike Hennig, Hubertus Kohle, Felix Krämer, Franziska Lentzsch, Manuela B. Mena Marqués and Nerina Santorius. As is true for any designation of an epoch, Romanticism too is nothing more than an auxiliary construction, defined less by the exterior characteristics of an artwork than by the inner sentiment of the artist. The term ‘dark Romanticism’ cannot be traced to its origins, but – as is also valid for Romanticism per se – comes from literary studies. The German term is closely linked to the professor of English Studies Mario Praz and his publication La carne, la morte e il diavolo nella letteratura romantica of 1930, which was published in German in 1963 as Liebe, Tod und Teufel:
Die schwarze Romantik (literally: Love, Death and Devil: Dark
Romanticism).
Exhibition | Pride and Prejudice: Female Artists in France and Sweden
Press release from Sweden’s Nationalmuseum in Stockholm:
Pride and Prejudice: Female Artists in France and Sweden 1750–1860
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 27 September 2012 — 20 January 2013
Constance Marie Charpentier, Melancholy, 1810
(Amiens: Musée de Picardie)
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Pride and Prejudice – Female Artists in France and Sweden 1750–1860 explores conditions for female artists in France and Sweden during a period of revolutionary social change. The exhibition presents works by some of the French and Swedish women who managed to establish themselves as artists and create a name for themselves at this time. Works by amateurs are also on display, since women of higher standing were expected to master skills such as drawing and embroidery.
The exhibition includes six works by Marie Suzanne Giroust. She was married to artist Alexander Roslin and is The Lady with the Veil in his well-known painting of that name. During her lifetime, she was also a recognised figure, but she later came to be omitted from art history, a fate that she shares with many other female artists. Today only 19 of her works can be identified with any certainty. Giroust was one of the few women to be inducted into France’s Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in the late 18th century. Its members had the exclusive opportunity to showcase works at the Salon in Paris, the most important exhibition in France at the time. Within the Royal Academy, there was staunch opposition to female artists. In the mid-18th century, a ceiling was introduced that permitted no more than four members of this gender at any one time.
Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, Portrait of a Woman, 1787 (Musée des beaux-arts de Quimper)
During this period, family ties or social relations to male artists were crucial in determining women’s opportunities for training and inclusion in the art establishment. Giroust was accepted into the Royal Academy for her high artistic quality, but her husband’s prominence was no doubt also a significant factor. The same was true for other female members: Anne Vallayer-Coster, Elisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun and Adélaïde Labille-Guiard were all under Royal patronage and Marie Thérèse Reboul was married to the director of the French Academy in Rome. In Sweden too, female artists were unable to access the training offered by the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts. Ulrica Fredrica Pasch became the first female member of the Royal Academy in 1773. She was apprenticed to her father, portraitist Lorens Pasch the Elder, and her brother Lorens Pasch the Younger was a professor and director of the Royal Academy. Once again, family ties and relations to established artists were a precondition for admission.
After the French Revolution, the Salon was opened up to all artists. Art was broadened out, enabling women to exhibit on the same terms as men. At the same time, the revolution caused the well-heeled customers to disappear, which affected incomes and the chances of finding good patrons. Women were also still excluded from all public art-related education. Their only chance was to enrol at private art schools such as the studios of Jacques-Louis David and Jean-Baptiste Regnauld. Some of the most eminent female artists had their own students, but these were all women. Soon these exclusively female studios in Paris also began to attract Swedish students.
During the first half of the 19th century, more and more women were able to step out of the shadows and see their career follow an increasingly professional course. In certain areas, such as French miniature painting, women led the field. Portraits were a path to both fame and fortune and, coupled with genre painting, came to form an important area for women artists. Leading figures during the first half of the 17th century include Cécile Hortense Haudebourt-Lescot and Marguerite Gérard in France, and Maria Röhl, Sophie Adlersparre and Amalia Lindegren in Sweden. Women gained the formal right to become fully-fledged students at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in 1864, which is why the exhibition has taken this particular decade as its cut-off point.
Pride and Prejudice is a joint venture with Washington’s National Museum of Women in the Arts, where several of the French works have featured in the exhibition Royalists to Romantics. In Stockholm, they will be complemented with key loans from France plus works from Nationalmuseum and other collections. For many of the works, this will be their first appearance before a Swedish audience. The exhibition comprises around 250 objects, from works in oils and pastels to drawings, miniatures and embroidered artworks. The artists on show include Marie Suzanne Giroust, Anne Vallayer-Coster, Elisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, Marie Thérèse Reboul, Cécile Hortense Haudebourt-Lescot, Marguerite Gérard, Ulrica Fredrica Pasch, Maria Röhl, Sophie Adlersparre and Amalia Lindegren.
The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue containing articles written by various Swedish and international specialists. Magnus Olausson, Eva-Lena Bengtsson, Barbro Werkmäster, Eva-Lena Bergström, Eva-Lena Karlsson and Solfrid Söderlind are among the Swedish authors.
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Theme Day
Sunday, 14 October, 1–3 pm
(Program will be announced later in September)
Lecture
Thursday, 17 January, 6 pm
Royalists and Revolutionaries: Women Artists and the French Revolution, lecture by Laura Auricchio, Associate Professor of Art History, Parsons The New School for Design. In English.
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