Early Modern Art Markets: Flemish & Dutch Paintings in Geneva
From the Geneva museum’s website:
L’art et ses marchés: La peinture flamande et hollandaise, XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles
Les Musées d’art et d’histoire, Geneva, 1 October 2009 – 29 August 2010
Frédéric Elsig (Paris: Somogy, 2009), ISBN: 9782757202500
This exhibition is in follow-up to La naissance des genres (2005-2006), and it similarly has two objectives. On the one hand, it will present a part of the Museum’s collection that is as important as it is little known: a selection of Flemish and Dutch paintings from the 16th to the 18th centuries that have been treated for purposes of conservation and restoration, and of which the catalogue raisonné will be published on the same occasion. On the other hand, it will illustrate a consequential phenomenon that first emerged during this period in the former Low Countries: the rapid expansion of the art market. With different sections devoted to what were then perfectly constituted categories, the display will highlight the new development’s principal characteristics as well as the predilection of Geneva collectors for Dutch paintings of the Siècle d’Or.
Review of the Met’s Watteau Exhibition and Catalogue
Recently added to CAA Reviews:
Katherine Baetjer, ed., Watteau, Music, and Theater, exhibition catalogue (New York and New Haven: Metropolitan Museum of Art in association with Yale University Press, 2009), 176 pages, ISBN: 9780300155075, $35.
Reviewed by Sarah R. Cohen, University at Albany, State University of New York; posting added 24 March 2010.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is ideally suited for an exhibition devoted to the theme of “Watteau, Music, and Theater” because two of Watteau’s most incisive treatments of these themes reside in its collection: the solitary singer “Mezzetin” (ca. 1718–20) and the tragic-comic “French Comedians” (ca. 1720–21). Both works also display Watteau’s ineffable fusion of performance and humanity, artifice and nature, and gestures both rote and heartfelt. The exhibition, rich in drawings as well as paintings loaned from a wide variety of institutions and private collections, allowed viewers to ponder the artist’s compelling transformation of music and theater into an exploratory pictorial language. But only about half of the exhibition featured works by Watteau himself; the rest comprised an eclectic mix drawn largely from the Metropolitan’s extensive collections of eighteenth-century objects, including paintings, graphic arts, porcelain figures, miniature boxes, and musical instruments. . . .
The exhibition catalogue, edited by Baetjer, features an essay on Watteau by Pierre Rosenberg as well as an account by Cowart of the multiple venues where eighteenth-century Parisians could encounter musical theater. Scholarly entries on all of the objects in the exhibition were contributed by the Metropolitan’s curators as well as outside experts, notably Mary Tavenor Holmes on Lancret and Kim de Beaumont on Gabriel de Saint-Aubin. . . .
For the full review (CAA membership required), click here»
The Circle of Tiepolo
From the cultura italia site:
Bortoloni, Piazzetta, Tiepolo: il ‘700 Veneto
Pinacoteca di Palazzo Roverella, Rovigo, 30 January — 13 June 2010
Mattia Bortoloni "Giunone chiede a Eolo di liberare i venti"
Finally, a major exhibit to ‘reveal’ Mattia Bortoloni, juxtaposing Piazzetta, Tiepolo, Balestra, Ricci and other greats from 18th-century Veneto. Some only know him for a Guinness-type work: the widest single fresco of all times and places – 5,500 square meters of delicate painting covering the entire, enormous elliptical dome, the largest in the world, of the Vicoforte Sanctuary, in Piedmont. A colossal work, more or less the dimension of an entire football field, considered the masterpiece of the Piedmontese Baroque period, frescoed in celebration of the Blessed Virgin, while at the same time, glorifying the House of Savoy.
Mattia Bortoloni (Canda di Rovigo, 1696 – Bergamo, 1750), famous, and quite sought-after during his lifetime, then faded into oblivion, considered ‘merely’ one of the best of Giovan Battista Tiepolo’s assistants, to the point that in not a few of the great master’s most celebrated pieces, it is to this day difficult to distinguish which brushstrokes to credit to which artist.
Over the last twenty years, more and more detailed studies have brought about a rediscovery of the breadth of Bortoloni’s own talent. Today it is possible to say, without qualifications, that he was an extraordinary and rather original artist, “suffocated” during his lifetime and by his notoriety as an assistant to the titans of 18th-century artists from the Veneto region, from the Veronese Balestra (who was his teacher) to Tiepolo himself. This major exhibit, entitled Bortoloni, Piazzetta and Tiepolo: 18th-Century Veneto will offer a selection of Bortoloni’s masterpieces juxtaposed with around thirty extraordinary works by Pellegrini, Piazzetta, Ricci and Tiepolo, the ‘titans’ of 18th-century Veneto.
Giambattista Pittoni "Diana e le ninfe"
Among the masterpieces on display, some early works by Tiepolo are worth special mention, including the Glory of St. Dominic and the Temptations of St. Anthony, next to essays into mythological subjects such as Diana and Actaeon and The Judgement of Midas, made available courtesy of the Galleries of the Academy of Venice. Of Piazzetta to be displayed is a rather moving altar piece depicting The Ecstasy of St. Francis, a work on loan from the Civic Museum of Vicenza, next to an early attempt by Sebastiano Ricci depicting Hercules at the Crossroads, on loan from the historic Palazzo Fulcis in Belluno. By Giambattista Pittoni are two works placed next to each other, the first inspired by the tales by Torquato Tasso depicting Olindo and Sofronia and, also of 17th-century layout, the second, Diana and the Nymphs, which shows an already rocailles flavour.
Giambattista Tiepolo "Digntario della Serenissima"
By Bortoloni’s teacher, Antonio Balestra, will be exhibit a never-before-seen Nativity and two extraordinary paintings, on loan from the Benedictine monastery of St. Paul of Argon, following a lengthy restoration project. The exhibit will be further enhanced by a valuable sketch section featuring works by the greatest fresco artists of the 18th century: besides Tiepolo (Giambattista and Giandomenico), Piazzetta and Bortoloni himself, as well as Diziani, Crosato Fontebasso Guarana, who were the great followers of this art form in later years. For the first time, completing this snapshot of the group is one of the key players, unduly forgotten for many years: Mattia Bortoloni, around whom this major exhibit pivots.
Bortoloni was a revered artist, so much so that at just twenty years of age he earned a much sought-after commission – that of frescoing the interior of Villa Cornaro in Piombino Dese, one of Palladio’s masterpieces. An undertaking in which he, albeit extremely tender in years, wisely anticipated the rococo style, which his friend in later years,
Giovanbattista Tiepolo, would then articulate with aplomb.
Light and shadow accompanied his extensive career in which, together with others but often alone, saw his busy with a kind of tunnel-vision (even for those days) with major works in Venice, and throughout the Regions of Veneto, Lombardy and Piedmont. Among his masterpieces are the series of frescoes at the Cathedral of Monza, for the Sanctuary of the Consolata (“The Consoled”), and for Palazzo Barono in Turin, for Palazzo Clerici and Palazzo Dugnani in Milan, Villa Vendramin Calergi in Fiesso Umbertino, Villa Albrizzi in Preganziol, Villa Raimondi in Birago di Lentate and Visconti-Citterio in Brignano d’Adda, the Venetian Churches of Saints John and Paul, and of St. Nicholas in the Tolentini, Ca’ Sceriman and Ca’ Rezzonico, also in Venice, through to his unquestionable masterpiece, the formidable series for the Vicoforte Sanctuary, more than five-thousand square meters of the finest fresco for the world’s largest elliptical dome.
In addition to his work as a fresco painter, Bortoloni was also a wonderful historical-painting artist, works in which storytelling ability goes hand in hand with original interpretive skill. For obvious reasons, this important production was the first to be delved into at the highly anticipated exhibit at Palazzo Roverella. These are works often being studied for the first time, with credits and attributions assigned for the first time as well, pieces never before shown to the public (and others that are ordinarily quite difficult to access), works that restore Bortoloni to a well-deserved prominence, which he enjoyed during his life, before being eclipsed by the magnificence of Tiepolo’s art work.
Catalogue available from Artbooks.com
In this panels, Bortoloni proves himself an inspired and original painter. These are compositions that are laid out in an anti-academic way, ironic and sometimes irreverent, which unquestionably ran against the grain with respect to the era’s other sacred painting. The piece with St. Thomas of Villanova of the Concordi Academy represents, in this light, one of Bortoloni’s highest accomplishments. Bortoloni, indeed, marked the passage from the late 17th century tradition, well ahead of his time even with respect to the great Tiepolo and – as demonstrated by the two historical paintings with the Adoration of the Magi and of the Shepherds of Fratta Polesine – much in line with Pittoni and Ricci’s innovations.
Exhibition Catalogue: Alessia Vedova and Fabrizio Malachin, eds., Bortoloni Piazzetta Tiepolo: il ‘700 veneto (Milan: Silvana, 2010), 255 pages, ISBN: 978883661503, €30 / $59.
Recent Reviews: ‘The Intimate Portrait’ and ‘Fuseli’s Milton Gallery’
Reviews from the current issue of The Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 33 (March 2010),
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The Intimate Portrait: Drawings, Miniatures and Pastels from Ramsay to Lawrence, curated by Kim Sloan and Stephen Lloyd, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, 25 October 2008 — 1 February 2009; British Museum, 5 March — 31 May 2009.
Reviewed by Kate Retford, Birkbeck College, University of London.
This exhibition brought together nearly 200 portrait drawings, pastels and miniatures from the rich collections of the British Museum and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, billed as “more intimate types of Georgian and Regency portraiture.” These were not regularly exhibited works. Miniatures are hard to display, particularly in a way that will convey full experience of their qualities and functions. Drawings can only ever be shown for limited periods of time, owing to the threat of fading. The show included some exceptional images, not least Thomas Lawrence’s 1789 drawing of Mary Hamilton, enhanced with red and black chalk, used for the publicity materials. It was the export licence deferral and subsequent acquisition of this beautiful portrait by the British Museum which prompted the show. . . .
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Luisa Calè, Fuseli’s Milton Gallery: ‘Turning Readers into Spectators’ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 273 pages, ISBN: 0199267383, $125.
Reviewed by Martin Myrone, Tate Britain.
The Swiss-born history painter Henry Fuseli (1741-1825) was a central figure in London’s cultural scene from the 1770s through to his death, both acclaimed and reviled for his extravagant paintings of supernatural, heroic and uncanny scenes. Approaching Fuseli from the perspective of a literary scholar armed with the lessons of narrative theory and reception studies, Luisa Calè’s new study makes a highly significant contribution to the literature on this artist, and seeks to establish his work in the context of a commercial culture of art that fostered complex dependencies and exchanges between the visual and the textual, the social and the aesthetic. The book focuses on Fuseli’s Milton Gallery – a scheme of ambitious paintings based on subjects drawn from the poet’s writings and life that preoccupied the artist through the 1790s – which opened, to almost complete public indifference, in 1799 and 1800. Calè offers an impressively thoughtful reconsideration of this major artistic project which has wide implications for our understanding of narrative painting and the commerce of art at the end of the eighteenth century. . . .
The Last Guillotine
Crime et châtiment / Crime and Punishment
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, 16 March – 27 June 2010
Théodore Géricault, "Etude de pieds et de mains," 1818-1819 (Montpellier, Musée Fabre)
The exhibition Crime and Punishment looks at a period of some two hundred years: from 1791, when Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau called for the abolition of the death penalty, to 30 September 1981, the date the bill was passed to abolish it in France. Throughout these years, literature created many criminal characters. The title of the exhibition is itself taken from a work by Dostoyevsky. In the press, particularly the illustrated daily newspapers, the powerful fantasy of violent crime was greatly increased through novels.
At the same time, the criminal theme came into the visual arts. In the work of the greatest painters, Goya, Géricault, Picasso and Magritte, images of crime or capital punishment resulted in the most striking works. The cinema too was not slow to assimilate the equivocal charms of extreme violence, transformed by its representation into something pleasurable, perhaps even into sensual pleasure.
It was at the end of the 19th century that a new theory appeared purporting to establish a scientific approach to the criminal mind. This tried to demonstrate that the character traits claimed to be found in all criminals, could also be found in their physiological features. Theories like these had a great influence on painting, sculpture and photography. Finally, the violence of the crime was answered by the violence of the punishment: how can we forget the ever-present themes of the gibbet, the garrotte, the guillotine and the electric chair? Beyond crime, there is still the perpetual problem of Evil, and beyond social circumstances, metaphysical anxiety. Art brings a spectacular answer to these questions. The aesthetic of violence and the violence of the aesthetic – this exhibition aims to bring them together through music, literature and a wide range of images.
Exhibition catalogue by Jean Clair (Editions Gallimard, 2010) ISBN: 978-2070128747, 49€
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As reported at History Today (17 March 2010),
One of the last guillotines to exist in mainland France went on display yesterday in a new exhibition entitled ‘Crime et châtiment’ at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. The model was designed by Léon Alphonse Berger in 1872. The curator of the exhibition is former justice minister, Robert Badinter, who successfully abolished the death penalty in the first year of Mitterrand’s presidency in 1981. The last person to be guillotined in France was Hamida Djandoubi at Baumettes prison in Marseille in 1977. The guillotine is displayed alongside over 450 works of art, including sculptures by Rodin and paintings by Degas and Munch, in this exhibition which explores attitudes to crime, rehabilitation and punishment from the French revolution onwards.
New Titles
A selection of new titles from Michael Shamansky’s artbooks.com:
Nancy Keeler, Gardens in Perpetual Bloom: Botanical Illustration in Europe and America 1600-1850, exhibition catalogue (Boston: MFA, 2010), ISBN: 9780878467495, $24.95.
Originally developed as an aid to professional herbalists, botanical illustration quickly blossomed into an art form in its own right. The first flower books were intended as medicinal guides, or else illustrated volumes that catalogued the elaborate and extensive gardens of the well-to-do. But when Carl Linnaeus first classified the plant kingdom in 1735, the botanical book quickly took on a more scientific cast. By the nineteenth century, the flourishing of botanical publications reflected both the rapid rise of gardening as an amateur hobby and the desire of artists and decorators for new visual resources. Gardens in Perpetual Bloom: Botanical Illustration in Europe and America 1600–1850 traces the appreciation of flowers and their depiction, from the studious world of monks and princes to the era of the gardening enthusiast. The book’s 110 prints and drawings—which include masterful engravings by Georg Dionysus Ehret, the eighteenth century’s most accomplished botanical artist, and hand-colored prints by Pierre-Joseph Redouté, the premier draftsman of flowers for Marie Antoinette and Josephine Bonaparte—are remarkable for their technical virtuosity, delicate tonalities, scientific accuracy and seemingly infinite variety. Gardens in Perpetual Bloom is both a valuable historical survey and an affordable, attractively designed volume of jewel-like beauty.
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William Eisler, Lustrous Images from the Enlightenment: The Medals of the Dassiers of Geneva (Milan: Skira, 2010), ISBN: 9788857205076, $60.
The Dassiers (Jean Dassier,1676-1763 and his two sons, Jacques-Antoine, 1715-1759 and Antoine, 1718-1780) were the only medalists of their time to have had the honour of being mentioned in the Encyclopédie by Diderot and D’Alembert, in which one can read that they “have rendered their names famous through their same talent: their fine medals after nature and several other works emerging from their burin prove that they are worthy of being counted amongst the most celebrated engravers”. The book examines the works that established the reputation of the Dassiers, starting with an elegant silver watch case by Jean Dassier for the Fabrique de Genève (Paris, Louvre), three series of small medals or tokens: The Metamorphoses by Ovid (1717; 60 pieces) and Illustrious men of the century of Louis XIV (1723-1724; 73 pieces) and, finally, The Church reformers (1725; 24 pieces). This last series was dedicated to William Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury, who offered the Dassiers his support in obtaining royal authorization to strike two major series, The Kings of England (1731-1732) and Famous Britons (1731-1738). Borrowing from the fame of his father throughout Europe, Jacques-Antoine, a former pupil of the École de Rome, threw himself into the creation of a new series dedicated to worthies in England, including savants, writers and politicians. At the peak of his career, he had the privilege of producing a portrait of Montesquieu, a work that is a milestone in the history of art (1753). This European reputation ensured that he was invited as engraver to the court of Russia, where he produced his last masterpiece, The founding of the University of Moscow (1754), decorated with an extremely bold portrait of the Empress Elizabeth. The death of Jacques-Antoine in 1759 and of his father four years later marked the end of a glorious artistic and commercial enterprise after 60 years of activity. This publication offers a summary and updating of the catalogue raisonné, The Dassiers of Geneva: 18th-century European medalists (Lausanne and Geneva, 2002-2005), the scientific point of reference for the subject. The new bilingual publication aims to offer direct access for a wider public of enthusiasts, historians and researchers.
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Werner Busch, Englishness: Beiträge zur englischen Kunst des 18. Jahrhunderts von Hogarth bis Romney (Munich: Beuscher Kunstverlag, 2010), ISBN: 9783422069565, $92.50.
Ten essays on British art in the 18th century offer precise observations and historic as well as art-theoretic roots.
Werner Busch hat sich als einer der wenigen deutschen Kunsthistoriker immer wieder mit der britischen Malerei und Graphik beschäftigt. Der Band, der anlässlich seines 65. Geburtstages erscheint, versammelt zehn Aufsätze Buschs zur englischen Kunst und spannt einen Bogen vom Beginn bis zum Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts. Neben Hogarth werden mit Joshua Reynolds, Joseph Wright of Derby, Thomas Gainsborough und George Romney die prominentesten englischen Künstler des 18. Jahrhunderts in den Blick genommen.
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Marcello Fantoni, George Gorse, and Maclolm Smuts, eds., The Politics of Space: European Courts ca. 1500-1750 (Rome: Bulzoni, 2009), ISBN: 9788878704190, $55.
Contents: Malcolm Smuts and George Gorse, “Introduction”; Marcello Fantoni, “The City of the Prince: Space and Power”; Jeroen Duindam, “Palace, City, Dominions: The Spatial Dimension of Habsburg Rule”; John Robert Christianson, “Terrestrial and Celestial Spaces of the Danish Court, 1550-1650”; Jesús Escobar, “A Forum for the Court of Philip IV: Architecture and Space in Seventeenth-Century Madrid”; John Beldon Scott, “Fashioning a Capital: The Politics of Urban Space in Early Modern Turin”; Linda A. Curcio-Nagy, “Commemorating the Conquest: Local Politics and Festival Statecraft in Early Colonial Mexico City”; Monique Chatenet, “The King’s Space: The Etiquette of Interviews at the French Court in the Sixteenth Century”; Patricia Waddy, “”Many Courts, Many Spaces”; Tracy Ehrlich, “Otium cum negotium: Villa Life at the Court of Paul V Borghese”; Nicola Courtright, “A New Place for Queens in Early Modern France”; Simon Thurley, “The Politics of Court Space in Early Stuart London”; Caroline M. Hibbard, “The Somerset House Chapel and the Topography of London Catholicism”; Anna Keay, “Charles II: Buildings, Politics and Power”; Magdalena S. Sánchez, “Privacy, Family, and Devotion at the Court of Philip II”. (“Europa delle Corti” Centro studi sulle società di antico regime, Biblioteca del Cinquecento, 142)
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Isabelle Michel-Evrard and Pierre Wachenheim, eds., La gravure: quelles problématiques pour les Temps modernes? (Bordeaux: William Blake & Co, 2009), ISBN: 9782911059261, $60.
Annales du Centre Ledoux,Universite Paris-I, Pantheon-Sorbonne, VII
Essays include: Anne Nadeau, “Charles Simmoneau : un graveur de l’entre-deux siècles. Un aperçu de la gravure d’interprétation de 1667 à 1727”; Jean-Gérald Castex, “Un seul graveur peut-il « interpréter » tous les peintres ? Etienne Fessard ou les paradoxes de la gravure d’interprétation dans la seconde moitié du XVIIIe siècle”; Antonia Nessi, “Fabriquer Venise. La production de vedute gravées au XVIIIe siècle”; Isabelle Michel-Evrard, “Les échos visuels et philosophiques de la gravure dans la peinture des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles”; etc.
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Linda Borean and Stefania Mason, eds., Il collezionismo d’arte a Venezia: Il Settecento (Venezia: Marsilio, Fondazione di Venezia, 2010), ISBN: 9788831799263, $65.
Includes: L. Borean “Dalla galleria al ‘museo’: un viaggio attraverso pitture, disegni e stampe nel collezionismo veneziano del Settecento,” C. Whistler “Venezia e l’Inghilterra: Artisti, collezionisti e mercato dell’arte 1700-1750,” E. Manikowska “I polacchi e la pittura veneziana,” S. Mason “Il caso Mocenigo di San Samuele,” etc.
Spanish Enlightenment: The Collection of Carlos IV
From Artdaily.org (7 March 2010)
Royal Splendor in the Enlightenment: Charles IV of Spain, Patron and Collector
Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, 7 March — 18 July 2010
Francisco de Goya, "Carlos IV," 1789 (Madrid: Royal Academy of History), Inv. No. 76
The Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University will present “Royal Splendor in the Enlightenment: Charles IV of Spain, Patron and Collector”, the first major exhibition to showcase the exceptional art collection and refined taste of King Charles IV of Spain (1748-1819), from March 7 through July 18, 2010.
The Meadows Museum will be the only venue outside of Spain for the exhibition, the result of a unique collaboration between the museum and Patrimonio Nacional, the Spanish government institution that manages the artistic holdings created through the patronage and sponsorship of the Spanish monarchs. The exhibition is curated by Patrimonio Nacional curators Dr. Javier Jordán de Urríes y de la Colina and Dr. José Luis Sancho.
Charles IV and his wife, Queen María Luisa, reigned from 1788 to 1808 (when they were forced into exile by Napoleon), at the end of the Enlightenment period. They had a special passion for the arts and collected avidly throughout their lives.
Royal Workshops, "Sedan Chair of Queen María Luisa of Parma," 1795 (Madrid: Royal Palace, National Heritage), Inv. No. 10008050
“During his reign, Charles IV created a highly sophisticated, refined and cosmopolitan court for which the arts played a major role,” said Dr. Mark Roglán, museum director. “The combination of collecting works from the past as well as investing in those of the present, especially in the field of decorative arts, became part of the daily life of this king, whose artistic taste was among the finest in his time and in the history of the Spanish monarchy. The exhibition also shows the development of Charles’ artistic interests; he was not only influenced by the Spanish tradition, but had a special fondness for Italian art because of his childhood origins in Naples, and for French art, due to the dense network of dynastic relations that linked the Bourbons of Versailles to those of Madrid in the 18th century.”
The exhibition includes more than 80 examples of furniture, textiles, clocks, porcelains, paintings and sculptures selected from the casas de campo (country estates) and royal palaces of Madrid, Aranjuez, El Escorial and El Pardo. The majority of works are from Patrimonio Nacional (the Spanish National Heritage), and most of them have never before traveled to the U.S. The collection includes some of the finest examples of art styles of the day, from Rococo paintings to a stunning Neoclassical dessert centerpiece of semi-precious stones, lapis lazuli, gilded bronze and enamel. Other highlights include the queen’s ceremonial throne with its 18-foot-tall canopy, an elaborate sedan chair in which she was carried by footmen, a gilded bronze, porcelain and enamel bird cage clock, and a shotgun of wood, steel, gold and silver belonging to the king, an avid hunter. Also included are works by Francisco de Goya, the first court painter under Charles IV; his 1789 portrait of the king is making its only appearance outside of Madrid in 200 years. A painting by Diego Velázquez, Portrait (miniature) of the Count-Duke of Olivares, c. 1638, collected by Charles, will also be featured, as well as paintings by Luis Meléndez, Juan de Flandes, Anton Mengs and Giovanni Panini, among others.
The exhibition, which will be shown in the Jake and Nancy Hamon Galleries, will be accompanied by a scholarly, fully illustrated catalogue in English produced by the Meadows Museum. Also included will be a documentary that will feature, in HD video, the rooms and gardens of the palaces highlighted in the exhibition, bringing to life the splendid residences of the King. (more…)
More on the ‘Art and Theatre’ Exhibition in Toronto
Artdaily.org (11 March 2010) includes more information on the ‘Art and Theatre’ show as it will appear at the AGO, starting in June (interesting to see how it will be presented in Toronto, complete with “a life-size 18th-century set”).
De la scène au tableau / Drama and Desire: Artists and the Theatre
Musée Cantini, Marseille, 6 October 2009 — 3 January 2010
Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rovereto, 6 February — 23 May 2010
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 19 June — 26 September 2010
Lust. Passion. Murder. Many of the greatest artists of the 19th century shared a profound fascination with the theatre and its themes of triumph and destruction, love and despair. This summer, the Art Gallery of Ontario gives centre stage to key artworks by these artists in a major international exhibition titled Drama and Desire: Artists and the Theatre, opening June 19 and continuing through September 26.
Conceived by Guy Cogeval, president of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the exhibition includes over 100 paintings, drawings and theatrical maquettes, by masters such as Edgar Degas, Eugène Delacroix, Jacques-Louis David, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, William Blake, Aubrey Beardsley, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Édouard Vuillard. The works were selected from the collections of some of the world’s greatest museums, including the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Musée d’Orsay, the British Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The AGO has commissioned Gerard Gauci, set designer for Toronto’s Opera Atelier, to make Drama and Desire an experience like no other. Visitors will enter the exhibition by walking ‘onstage’ through a life-size 18th-century set; the works will be displayed using enhanced lighting, sound and video components as well as innovative theatrical devices; and a full-scale re-creation of an early 20th-century theatre maquette will mark the finale of the exhibition. (more…)
Catalogue of French Porcelain
From the March 2010 issue of Apollo Magazine:
Geoffrey de Bellaigue, French Porcelain in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, 3 volumes (London: The Royal Collection, 2009), 1291 pages, 2400 illustrations, ISBN 9781905686100, £500.
Reviewed by Selma Schwartz; Curator of Porcelain and Special Projects, Waddesdon Manor, The Rothschild Collection, Buckinghamshire, posting added 21 February 2010.
In the preface to his catalogue for the exhibition ‘Sèvres Porcelain from the Royal Collection,’ held at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, in 1979- 1980, Sir Geoffrey de Bellaigue wrote that “eventually a catalogue raisonné will be published” and that the catalogue “represents, in a sense, an interim report on a selection of pieces.”
Now, 30 years later, and over 100 years after the publication of Sir Guy Francis Laking’s ‘Sèvres Porcelain of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle,’ we finally have the monumental three-volume work (1,291 pages, with 2,400 illustrations – nearly all in colour) that scholars, collectors and amateurs of Vincennes/Sèvres porcelain have been anticipating eagerly for such a long time and the likes of which will probably never be seen again. Expectation and curiosity about the publication have been heightened principally for two reasons. The first being that although Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace are open for public visits, a large quantity of the porcelain is not on display in public areas. The second is the renown that the author (or compiler, as he refers to himself in the text) rightly enjoys for meticulous and profound scholarly research.
The catalogue covers all the French porcelain in the Royal Collection, including that from Paris factories made in the 18th and 19th centuries, which, however, makes up only 37 of the 368 entries. Sèvres porcelain, as it was known after the manufactory moved to the town in 1756 from the château of Vincennes, is the star of the catalogue. The Royal Collection holds what is probably the finest and certainly the largest collection of this porcelain in the world, most of it acquired by that voracious collector George IV . . .
For the full review, click here»
Theater and Painting
From the website of the Musée d’Orsay:
De la scène au tableau / From Stage to Painting
Musée Cantini, Marseille, 6 October 2009 — 3 January 2010
Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rovereto, 6 February — 23 May 2010
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 19 June — 26 September 2010
"De la scène au tableau" (Flammarion, 2009) ISBN: 9782081236912
David, Delacroix, Hayez, Degas, Gustave Moreau, Toulouse-Lautrec, Vuillard . . . all these painters shared a passion for the performing arts. What role did the theatre and the opera play in the artistic production of these great masters and in developing the composition of their paintings? To what extent did their art influence future developments in stage design?
Ranging from the Neoclassicism of David to the experimental work of the scenographer and stage director Adolphe Appia, this exhibition highlights the direct influence of the theatre, or the more subtle effect of theatricality, on painting. Conversely, it also demonstrates how the great movements in the history of art influenced the theatre and opened it up to the 20th century.
However, there is another story, that of the movement towards the dematerialisation of the image (a specific feature of Modernism) which is presented in Marseille through almost two hundred works from prestigious institutions and collections around the world, including a collection of drawings and paintings by Daumier, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec and Cabanel, on special loan from the Musée d’Orsay.
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The description perhaps downplays the role of the eighteenth-century for the exhibition, though the following review by Didier Rykner posted at The Art Tribune suggests there may be a bit more here for dix-huitièmistes.
The goal of the exhibition organized at the Musée Cantini is to understand the relationship between theatre and painting from the second half of the 18th century to the early 20th . . . Two paintings by Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée . . . prove very early on – halfway through the 18th century – the progressive change towards Neoclassicism, particularly Horace after Slapping his Sister from the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rouen. While David is represented by well-known canvases (his copy of Girodet’s The Oath of the Horaces, recently seen at the Louvre, and his reception piece for the Ecole des Beaux-Arts), the two works from Bordeaux by Pierre-Narcisse Guérin and the very beautiful Marcus Curtius Dentatus Refusing the Gifts from the Samnites by Pierre Peyron, held at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Marseille, are admirable. As is often the case in this type of exhibition, the most pleasant surprises come from the lesser-known paintings, discovered a new thanks to excellent restorations.
For the full review, click here»
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