Enfilade

From the Bundeskunsthalle’s website:

Napoleon and Europe: Dream and Trauma (Traum und Trauma)
Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn, 17 December 2010 — 25 April 2011
Musée de l’Armée, Paris, March — June 2012

The source of all great mistakes and thence of all the great suffering of our time was that Napoleon was
perceived either as a demigod or as a monster or, more often than not, as both at the same time.
Friedrich von Gentz, 1814

Exhibition catalogue, 368 pp, ISBN 9783791350882

During the nearly sixteen years of his reign, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821), more than any other historical figure, redrew the very foundations of European history. and wrought changes that can be felt to this day – both positively and negatively. The exhibition, which has been panned and organised by the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, draws on a selection of high-calibre loans from all over Europe to present a comprehensive picture of Napoleon and his time. Painting and sculpture reached new heights of excellence in the Napoleonic era – both in the propaganda paintings by David, Gérard and Ingres and in the work of those who opposed the French emperor, among them Goya and the German Romanticists. Staying clear of well-worn clichés that paint Napoleon as a warmonger or a larger than life political genius, the exhibition aims to draw a more differentiated picture of the Napoleonic era between war, politics, administration, art theft and
cultural prosperity.

The exhibition is held under the patronage of Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel and the President of the French Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy. The exhibition was planned by the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn, in cooperation with the Musée de l’Armée in Paris and will be shown in Paris from March to June 2012.

The exhibition is subdivided into the following thematic chapters, which are explained in a microsite NAPOLEON:

From the DAR Museum:

‘A True North Britain’: The Furniture of John Shearer, 1790-1820
Daughters of the American Revolution Museum, Washington, D.C., 8 October 2010 — 26 February 2011

Curated by Elizabeth Davison

The exquisitely detailed furniture of craftsman John Shearer is showcased in the DAR Museum exhibition ‘A True North Britain’: The Furniture of John Shearer, 1790-1820, which runs from October 8, 2010, through February 26, 2011. Noted not only for its form but also for the politically charged symbols inlaid in many pieces, the furniture helps to explore early America’s cultural ties to Great Britain during the most contentious period in the two nations’ shared history.

John Shearer worked in northern Virginia and western Maryland in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He left behind no paper trail, choosing instead to inscribe his biography and his politics directly on his furniture. While other early craftsmen were inlaying
their work with eagles to symbolize a new American government,
Shearer glorified Great Britain and its Royal Navy.

Shearer was from Edinburgh, Scotland. Like many from this region, he identified with the Kingdom of Great Britain, formed by the 1707 Treaty of Union which unified Scotland and England. Shearer touts his loyalty by signing two desks on view in this exhibition with the slogan, “A True North Britain.” On another desk, he cheers Napoleon’s downfall and Britain’s victory in the Peninsular War by depicting a crowned lion rampant (rearing on hind legs, paws raised) from the Scottish and English royal coats of arms along with the inscription “Victory Be Thine.”

Shearer documented the Royal Navy’s exploits almost like a political cartoonist. Although fine furniture was an unusual medium for these messages, 52 of his pieces survive, showing that his pro-British sentiments did not deter demand for the simple but unconventionally embellished furniture. As America formed a national identity, its cultural and political diversity included many who retained a strong sense of loyalty to Great Britain.

Not all Shearer’s messages were meant to be seen, however. Shearer, following the age-old tradition of artist retaliating against problematic patron, hid a note inside one desk accusing his customer, a slave holder and trader, of being “the Greatest Scoundrel in Loudoun County.” This unique piece is among 20 on display in “A True North Britain.” Independent scholar Elizabeth Davison is the guest curator for this exhibition. Her book, a catalog raisonne of Shearer’s work, will be published this winter. Her expertise informs this exhibition, exploring the work of one eccentric artist to show how a diversity of cultures and loyalty was built into the foundations of our country.

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Elizabeth Davison, The Furniture of John Shearer, 1790-1820: A True North Britain in the Southern Backcountry (Altamira Press, 2011), 256 pages, ISBN: 978-0759119543, $90.

Press release from the Getty:

Paris: Life & Luxury
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 26 April — 7 August 2011
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 18 September — 10 December 2011

Curated by Charissa Bremer-David with Peter Björn Kerber

The nation of France, and its capital city of Paris in particular, held a special status in European culture during the 18th century. The upper echelons of societies throughout Europe were predominantly Francophiles—imitating French fashions of dress and furniture in their daily lives. On view in the Exhibitions Pavilion at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center, April 26 through August 7, 2011, Paris: Life & Luxury re-imagines, through art and material culture, the complex and nuanced lifestyle of elite 18th-century Parisians who made their city the fashionable and cultural epicenter of Europe.

ISBN: 978-1606060520, $45

Inspired by the Getty Museum’s extensive French decorative arts collection and the correspondingly strong holdings of French illustrated books in the Getty Research Institute, Paris: Life & Luxury will provide a rich cultural and historical experience that closely mirrors daily life in 18th-century France. Bringing together approximately 160 objects, roughly half of which will be on loan from twenty-six museums and private collections around the world, the exhibition will include a wide range of paintings, sculpture, applied arts, drawings, metalwork, furniture, architectural fittings, lighting and hearth fixtures, scientific and musical instruments, clocks and watches, textiles and dress, books, and maps.

David Bomford, acting director of the J. Paul Getty Museum said, “Paris: Life & Luxury will transport visitors back to Paris in the mid-1700s. More than celebrating the period or perpetuating the mythology of its charm and gallantry, this exhibition re-imagines the varied and complex range of values and practices of the city’s elite within a rich material context.”

Charissa Bremer-David, curator of sculpture and decorative arts at the J. Paul Getty Museum and the exhibition’s co-curator added, “The exhibition will be a rich and deep sensory experience, engaging the viewer’s initial attention with the compelling visual appeal of superlative and virtuoso works of art. From this breadth and diversity, visitors will learn generally about the contributions of the French, and in particular the Parisian, to the visual and performing arts, language, literature, history, science, and even culinary arts during this time period—in short, about their major contribution to the humanities at large.”

Following a structure based on the traditional visual allegories of the Four Times of Day, the objects in the exhibition are grouped according to their associations with common activities as pursued in the chronology of a single day, from morning to night. As such, objects of diverse mediums are juxtaposed, as they would have been within an 18th-century Parisian domestic setting, regardless of modern museological or academic categories. Through constellations of art and related artifacts, the exhibition follows the conventional activities in the cycle of a Parisian day, such as dressing, writing, collecting, eating, and evening entertainment—allowing visitors to envision the activities and accessories of quotidian life, in order to find resonances with their own daily lives. (more…)

From The Block Museum:

Thomas Rowlandson: Pleasures and Pursuits in Georgian England
The Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 14 January — 13 March 2011
The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, 8 April — 11 June 2011

Curated by Patricia Phagan

Thomas Rowlandson, “Progress of Gallantry, or Stolen Kisses Sweetest,” 1814, etching with stipple, in black ink with watercolor on cream wove paper (Yale University: Lewis Walpole Library)

Artist Thomas Rowlandson (1757–1827) depicted high society and politics, encounters on the street, camaraderie in clubs and taverns, outdoor entertainments, musings about art, drama, and dance, and romantic and sexual tangles. In other words, the social life of Georgian England. One of the most popular caricaturists of his time, Rowlandson’s work was noted for lighthearted, deft humor and the unmatched flowing line of his drawing.

Organized by the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College, Thomas Rowlandson: Pleasures and Pursuits in Georgian England presents more than 70 of the artist’s prints, drawings, watercolors, and illustrated books. The exhibition is curated by Patricia Phagan, the Philip and Lynn Straus Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center. The first major exhibition of Rowlandson’s work in the United States in 20 years, it will be accompanied by a full-color 184-page catalogue.

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Description of the catalogue, from the publisher’s website:

Patricia Phagan, Vic Gatrell, and Amelia Rauser, Thomas Rowlandson: Pleasures and Pursuits in Georgian England (London: D. Giles Limited, 2011), 184 pages, ISBN: 9781904832782.

Thomas Rowlandson: Pleasures and Pursuits in Georgian England is a completely new illustrated volume which presents 72 watercolours, drawings, prints, and illustrated books to reassess the legacy of this renowned 18th-century satirist. Published in February 2011 by D. Giles Limited in association with the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, it accompanies the first major exhibition of Rowlandson’s work in North America for 20 years, and reflects the growing emphasis on the social and political context of the satirical art of the 18th- and early 19th-centuries. In so doing, it rescues Rowlandson from what co-author Vic Gatrell calls “the immense condescension of posterity.” This catalogue explores Rowlandson’s unique perspective on Georgian social life, and the crossing of class boundaries.

With heavy-handed humour and a low subject matter, the work of Thomas Rowlandson (1757–1827) provides an invaluable insight into the workings and mentality of late Georgian society. He was quite simply a product of his times, who relished recording the street life of London and whose drawings and etchings reveal an attraction to repulsive visions of wickedness and hardship, whilst maintaining a high degree of humanity. (more…)

The current exhibition of drawings at the Art Institute includes works by Charles de la Fosse, Charles-Antoine Coypel, Panini, Canaletto, Tiepolo, Guardi, Gaetano Gandolfi, Fragonard, Jean-Baptiste Isabey, David, and Ingres. From the museum’s website:

Gray Collection: Seven Centuries of Art
The Art Institute of Chicago, 25 September 2010 — 2 January 2011

Curated by Suzanne Folds McCullagh

One of America’s foremost art dealers, Richard Gray, and his wife, art historian and author Mary Lackritz Gray, have gathered an unparalleled collection of paintings, drawings, and sculpture spanning the 15th century to the present. This exhibition features more than 120 of the couple’s most dynamic and important works on paper, including Renaissance- and Baroque-era treasures by Guercino, Tiepolo, and Rubens; 19th-century works by masters such as Delacroix, Degas, and Seurat; and stellar examples by acclaimed 20th-century artists Picasso, Matisse, and Miró.

Lifelong Chicagoans deeply involved in the cultural life of city, the Grays have devoted more than half a century—both privately and professionally—to pursuits associated with the visual arts. Their first work on paper was a Paul Klee lithograph received as a wedding present in 1953; ten years later, Richard founded the Richard Gray Gallery, exposing the couple to a much more encyclopedic view of art as he helped major museums and private individuals form collections of real substance and quality. At the same time, the Grays acquired works for their own collection without any specific program, discovering the various pleasures of looking at and living with drawings. This highly personal collection has been shaped by Richard’s informed eye as a dealer—his intuitive sense, willingness to take risks and respond to opportunities—and Mary’s historical and contextual approach enriched by her graduate degree in art history. As the reach of their collecting interests in more recent years extended back in time from the modern and contemporary masters they knew so well, the art of drawing has offered a quality of instantaneity, a means to maintain contact with artistic genius across the centuries. The varied, individually important works collectively combine to create a rich and resonant survey of some of the most accomplished draftsmen of the ages. (more…)

From the Kunsthaus Zürich website:

Giant Herbs and Monster Trees: Drawings and Prints by Carl Wilhelm Kolbe
Anhaltische Gemäldegalerie, Dessau, 28 November 2009 — 31 January 2010
Städtische Galerie in der Reithalle Schloß Neuhaus, Paderborn, 24 April — 13 June 2010
Kunsthaus Zürich, 10 September — 28 November 2010

ISBN: 978-3865685179, $89.50

C.W. Kolbe (1759–1835) is one of the most intriguing figures in German art at the turn of the 19th century. With his fantastical, almost surreal landscapes featuring woods and marshes, Kolbe exerted a considerable (albeit long underestimated) influence on the graphic arts between Sturm und Drang and Romanticism. Kolbe, who did research in linguistics in addition to his artistic career, was born in Berlin and spent much of his life in Dessau. From 1805 to 1808 he lived in Zurich, where he produced engravings based on aquarelle gouaches by the late Salomon Gessner, celebrated at the time as a painter and poet.

As a souvenir of his time by the banks of the Limmat, where he had learned of the collapse of the ‘Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation’, he presented the Künstlergesellschaft with the drawing of the trunk of a dead willow tree. Kolbe’s renderings of trees are a wholesale product of his
imagination, and the fear of radical change lurks in his Arcadian fantasies.

Press release from the museum’s website (the catalogue is available through artbooks.com) . . .

Viaggio in Italia: Künstler auf Reisen 1770–1880
Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, 11 September — 28 November 2010

Künstlerreisen nach Italien sind in der Sammlung der Staatlichen Kunsthalle Karlsruhe durch eine immense Fülle von Werken belegt, von denen nun erstmals eine Auswahl vorgestellt wird. „Viaggio in Italia. Künstler auf Reisen 1770 – 1880“ zeigt mehr als 150 Skizzen und Zeichnungen, Aquarelle und Ölstudien, aber auch großformatige Kartons, Gemälde und Druckgraphik. Vor allem Rom als internationales Kunstzentrum zog Künstler aus ganz Europa an und bildete ein Forum für einen regen Austausch unter Malern, Architekten und Bild-hauern. So vereint die Ausstellung unter anderem Werke von Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Joseph Anton Koch, Bertel Thorvaldsen, Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Carl Blechen, Camille Corot, Johann Wilhelm Schirmer, Arnold Böcklin und Anselm Feuerbach.

Den Schwerpunkt der Ausstellung bilden Landschaftsmotive. Sie beginnt mit einigen Arbeiten französischer Künstler wie Claude Lorrain, Hubert Robert und Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Die jungen Stipendiaten der französischen Akademie in Rom durchstreiften die Campagna in der Nachfolge Lorrains, um zu zeichnen. Künstler wie Fragonard suchten nicht die unberührte, sondern die kultivierte Natur in Form von Parklandschaften, die sich als Kulisse für amouröse und gesellige Szenen eignete. Den französischen Werken werden Arbeiten von deutschen Künstlern wie Jakob Philipp Hackert, Wilhelm Friedrich Gmelin und Joseph Anton Koch gegenübergestellt, für die Italien vor allem aufgrund seiner historischen Dimension und seiner geschichtsträchtigen Stätten zum einzigartigen Anziehungspunkt wurde. Ihnen fehlte das Sammelbecken einer Akademie, doch knüpften sie vereinzelt Kontakte zu ihren Kollegen aus Frankreich und gründeten eigene Zirkel, in denen sie Ideen  austauschten. (more…)