Enfilade

The exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art closed last week; the catalogue is distributed by Yale UP:

Lisa Minardi, with an interview by Ann Percy, Drawn with Spirit: Pennsylvania German Fraktur from the Joan and Victor Johnson Collection (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 364 pages, ISBN: 978-0300210521, $65.

Among the most beloved forms of American folk art, fraktur is a Germanic tradition of decorated manuscripts and printed documents noted for its use of bold colors and whimsical motifs. This publication makes a landmark contribution to the study of Pennsylvania German fraktur, and offers the most comprehensive study of the topic in over 50 years. The featured objects, most of which have never been published, accompany significant new information about the artists who made these works and the people who owned them. An introductory essay sets the renowned Johnson Collection within the context of collecting and scholarship on Pennsylvania German folk art and then highlights major new discoveries, including connections between fraktur and related examples of furniture and prints. An interview with the collectors offers valuable insights into the formation of this special group of objects, which includes birth and baptismal certificates, bookplates, religious texts, writing samples, house blessings, cutworks, and printed broadsides. The splendid color illustrations reveal schools of artistic and regional influence, giving a nuanced understanding of how artists took inspiration from one another and how designs were transferred to new locations. Detailed catalogue entries include extensive information about each piece as well as complete translations.

Lisa Minardi is an assistant curator at Winterthur Museum and a specialist in Pennsylvania German art and culture.

From Napoleon.org and the Château de Fontainebleau:

Pie VII Face à Napoléon: La Tiare dans les Serres de l’Aigle
Château de Fontainebleau, 28 March — 29 June 2015

Curated by Christophe Beyeler and Jean Vittet

The Château of Fontainebleau hosted Pope Pius VII twice: first as a guest as he travelled to Napoleon’s coronation in 1804 and then as prisoner between 1812 and 1814. From 1796 until 1814, Rome and Paris were most notably embroiled in a bitter struggle over iconography. The exhibition at Fontainebleau looks at their diplomatic gifts, stolen artistic treasures, and the official French propaganda celebrating the Concordat of 1801 and defending the invasion of the Papal States in 1808 and the arrest of Pius VII in 1809. Napoleon I and Pius VII finally came head-to-head in 1812 at Fontainebleau. The exhibition contains nearly 130 items, some never displayed before, including loans from the Vatican museum and the papal sacristy.

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Le château de Fontainebleau a accueilli par deux fois le pape Pie VII, comme hôte sur le chemin du sacre en 1804, puis comme prisonnier entre 1812 et 1814. L’appartement des Reines-Mères, baptisé depuis lors « appartement du Pape », en conserve aujourd’hui le souvenir.

Fontainebleau est à cet égard l’un des lieux qui incarne le mieux les relations tumultueuses entre Rome et Paris, dont l’une des expressions est la « guerre d’image » que se livrent les deux puissances, de 1796 à 1814.

L’exposition évoque d’abord la mainmise des Français sur quelques-uns des trésors de la collection pontificale, la célébration du concordat de 1801 par l’imagerie officielle ou encore l’iconographie subtile des cadeaux diplomatiques lors du sacre de 1804. La guerre de propagande, qui atteint son paroxysme avec l’invasion des États pontificaux en 1808 et l’arrestation de Pie VII en 1809, est ensuite décryptée à travers l’image d’une Rome antique renaissant grâce au « César moderne ». Le Pape, retenu à Savone depuis 1809, est conduit à Fontainebleau en 1812, où les deux protagonistes s’affrontent. L’Empereur parvient à arracher en janvier 1813 un éphémère concordat au Pape qui, libéré en 1814, est accueilli à Rome par une imagerie triomphaliste.

Près de 130 œuvres, parmi lesquelles des acquisitions inédites, ainsi que des prêts exceptionnels des musées du Vatican ou de la Sacristie pontificale, illustrent un affrontement où se combinent enjeux religieux, politiques et artistiques. En écho, sur les lieux mêmes de sa détention, les éléments retrouvés et restaurés du mobilier qu’a connu Pie VII sont rassemblés pour la première fois depuis le Premier Empire.

The 13-page press package is available here»

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The catalogue is available from Dessin Original:

Christophe Beyeler, ed., Pie VII Face à Napoléon: La Tiare dans les Serres de l’Aigle (Paris: RMN, 2015), 248 pages, ISBN: 978-2711862474, 39€.

Joseph Wright of Derby, Sir Brooke Boothby, 1781 (London: Tate)

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As noted at ArtDaily:

Landscapes of the Mind: British Landscapes from the Tate Collection, 1690–2007 / Paisajismo británico. Colección Tate, 1690–2007
Museo Nacional de Arte, Mexico City, 25 March — 21 June 2015

On March 25th Landscapes of the Mind: British Landscape Painting, Tate Collection, 1690–2007 was presented for the first time ever in Mexico City, an exhibition organized by Tate in association with Museo Nacional de Arte, as part of the celebrations of the Dual Year between Mexico and the United Kingdom. The exhibition presents 111 artworks by British and European artists, with a plurality of techniques (painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, sculpture/installation, etc.) which ponder the evolution of British landscape in art history. The term ‘Britain’ is understood as the geographical entity of the British Isles, i.e., the archipelago that includes England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, before the independence of the latter in 1921.

This genre was explored in Britain during the 16th century with the use of documents describing the topography, geology, history, and legends of the said land. It gained popularity throughout the 17th century, with the discoveries of explorers, naturalists, and merchants who helped expand the limits of the British nation to the four parts of the world. By the late 18th century, the landscape genre had become a dominant trend in Britain.

According to Nicholas Serota, Director of Tate, “the reasons for the predominance of landscape in British visual culture are many and varied: the extraordinary diversity of physical landscapes in such a relatively small geographic area; acute sense of loss of a pastoral and rural ideal world because of rapid industrialization during the 18th and 19th centuries; identification of the aristocracy of classical culture field; the immense impact of the natural sciences, and at the same time, the belief that close observation revealed both the moral and the hidden spiritual truth behind appearances”.

The nine topics developed by curator Richard Humphreys aim to introduce British culture through great classical painters of the 18th century such as Thomas Gainsborough; continuing with artworks of romantic and impressionist artists of the 19th century, like John Constable, J.M.W. Turner, John Martin, John Singer Sargent and James Tissot; and finally addressing modern and contemporary landscapes by artists such as David Inshaw, Sir Stanley Spencer, and Paul Nash.

Considering the importance of a current view on the history of landscape and the need for a continued dialogue between the ages; in addition to meeting the great interest of a younger generation in discovering the artistic production of its own time, Dr. Agustín Arteaga, Director of the Museo Nacional de Arte, managed the incorporation of David Hockney’s Bigger Trees Near Warter or /ou Peinture sur le Motif pour le Nouvel Age Post- Photographique. In 1984, Museo Tamayo presented the traveling exhibition Hockney Paints the Stage, an exhibit shown after the failed attempt to include a graphic series of nudes during the Cultural Olympiad in 1968, which were eventually censored. After visiting Mexico City in 1984, Hockney traveled to the state of Oaxaca, where he produced a series of paintings and graphics inspired by a hotel in Acatlán. Tate preserves in its collection some works from this series. Nearly 30 years after, Hockney returns to Mexico with his biggest artwork accomplished so far: a picture of monumental proportions, more than 4.5 by 12 meters, consisting of 50 paintings, done in six weeks in 2007 for the Summer Exhibition of the Royal Academy of London, and donated to Tate the following year, along with two digital reproductions. The image depicts a landscape of East Yorkshire, a region where the artist lived, shortly before the arrival of spring when the trees begin to sprout.

Alongside Landscapes of the Mind, a comparative exercise linking landscape tradition in Britain and Mexico is included, this latter is exhibited as a dialogue with the newly renovated galleries of the Museo Nacional de Arte in the permanent exhibit. The relationship was established through the canvas Mexico Valley (1837) of the London traveler artist Daniel Thomas Egerton. His work coexists with a selection of paintings by the Mexican artist José María Velasco.

The exhibition is accompanied by a bilingual catalog print run of 2,000 copies, consisting of 142 black/white and color images, with texts by curator Richard Humphreys and edited by Museo Nacional de Arte. As part of the show, Museo Nacional de Arte offers an Academic Program aimed at a wide audience, including a lecture every Thursday at 17:00 with varied presentations including one by the curator Richard Humphreys; a commented film series of the best of British cinematography; weekend and specialized workshops; interpretive materials downloadable via the website, as well as guided tours.

Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal), London: The Thames from Somerset House Terrace towards the City
(Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014)

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News of this exhibition appeared here at Enfilade in January, but the posting addressed only the Kendal venue (where it will have a slightly different title). Here’s the expanded version:

Press release from Compton Verney:

Canaletto: Celebrating Britain
Compton Verney, Warwickshire, 14 March — 7 June 2015
Holburne Museum, Bath, 27 June — 4 October 2015
Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, Cumbria, 22 October 2015 — 14 February 2016

This is the first time that these magnificent paintings and drawings by Canaletto have been brought together to provide an overview of Canaletto’s work created between 1746 and 1755, whilst he was visiting Britain. During his nine-year stay in Britain he documented not just traditional or established views and landmarks but also his (and his patrons’) latest achievements in architecture and engineering. The depictions of these new building works and projects, whether couched in Palladian, Baroque or Gothic styles, celebrate the new-found wealth and assurance of the British nation, reflecting contemporary developments in popular culture such as the rediscovery of Shakespeare; the success of Handel’s Messiah and the cult of King Alfred—which in turn spawned Arne’s immortal Rule Britannia.

Set into context, by 1750 the first generation of Palladian architects and patrons (Burlington, Campbell and Kent) were dead, and the nation was ready for a more liberal attitude to architectural design. Britain itself was a more stable and confident place than it had been even thirty years before. During the recent War of the Austrian Succession, the nation had held onto its new colonial gains and had succeeded in forcing Spain to open up South America to its traders. The economy was booming and the Jacobite threat had evaporated. Accordingly, a new, more confident generation, profiting from the ‘Georgian Revolution’ and increasingly assured by Britain’s status as a major world power, was prepared to be less regimented by Palladian rules and more eclectic in its architectural patronage seeking cultural inspiration not just from the Mediterranean but also from their own history.

This new found confidence signalled through the architecture of Baroque masters such as Wren (at St Paul’s and St Mary’s, Warwick), Hawksmoor (at Westminster Abbey’s west towers) and the Gothic revival marks Britain out as the new Venice, which was the real subject of Canaletto’s great canvases on display in this exhibition.

Information regarding programming at Compton Verney is included in the press release.

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From Paul Holberton:

Steven Parissien, Pat Hardy, Jacqueline Riding and Oliver Cox, Celebrating Britain: Canaletto, Hogarth, and Patriotism (London: Paul Holberton Publishing, 2015), 128 pages, ISBN: 978-1907372780, £25.

By 1750 Britain was—as Jacqueline Riding shows—at peace with her traditional enemy, France, and had finally extinguished the threat from the Catholic Jacobites. The art of William Hogarth—particularly his great canvas O The Roast Beef of Old England of 1749—duly reflected this new sense of security and pride in being British. The economy was booming. Trade was expanding. And newly-confident Britons were no longer looking to Italy or France for their cultural exemplars, particularly in the field of architectural design.

It was the ferment of activity, the eclectic building boom which underlines Britain’s wealth and optimism and which marks the nation out as the new Venice, which is the real subject of Canaletto’s great canvases. Almost all of Canaletto’s views focused on a new architectural commission or a recent urban development, and were specifically designed to celebrate the latest achievements of British architecture and engineering. The Italian master was not alone. The vigorous and infectious patriotism of his works mirrored emerging nationalistic trends in popular culture during the 1740s, a decade which witnessed the canonization of William Shakespeare as a British hero, the creation of Handel’s Messiah and Arne’s immortal Rule Britannia, and, as Oliver Cox shows, the propagation of the nationalistic cult of King Alfred—and, more bizarrely, of the ‘flying king’ Bladud in Bath.

As Pat Hardy explains, the presence of a significant group of artists working in London prior to Canaletto’s arrival, led by Samuel Scott, along with the strength of existing artistic practices and traditions and the vibrant print market for maps and surveys of London, suggests that the impact of the arrival of Canaletto was more complicated than may have previously been perceived. At the same time, Canaletto’s legacy survived throughout the eighteenth century, in the hands of native artists such as William Marlow.

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Press release (November 2014) from Abbot Hall:

Abbot Hall was built in the Palladian style just three years after Canaletto left England for the last time. In 1746, by then in his late 40s, he first arrived for a prolonged stay in London. He was to remain for most of the following 10 years.

Already a well established artist, his work had proved very popular with aristocratic Englishmen doing their Grand Tour of Europe. In the 1720s, having started his career as a theatrical scene painter, Canaletto started painting his distinctive views of Venice, frequently featuring the many major churches designed for it by Palladio. One of his clients was Joseph Smith, an English merchant banker who lived in Venice for 70 years, for 16 of which he was the British consul there. Smith bought many Canaletto works for himself, and also helped arrange commissions from wealthy English collectors—by the late 1720s his works were already in the collections of Goodwood, Chatsworth, Woburn and of the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole. Smith himself owned by far the largest collection of works, including 52 oil paintings and over 140 drawings, which he eventually sold to George III in 1762 for £10,000—half the sum the latter paid the previous year for Buckingham Palace.

Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal), Portrait of Canaletto with St Paul’s in the Background at Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire (National Trust Images/Hamilton Kerr Inst/Chris Titmus)

Canaletto came to London as an indirect result of the War of the Austrian Succession, which started in 1741. This had made continental travelling difficult for his wealthy English patrons, severely reducing his income. He therefore decided to move himself to London, setting up his studio near Golden Square. He arrived a month after Culloden, the last pitched battle fought on British soil, and at the beginning of a period of unprecedented domestic peace and prosperity, which saw London turning into the world’s richest and largest city.

Although the bulk of the works with English subjects were of London scenes, with the Thames a frequent presence, he was also a regular visitor to the countryside, often at the invitation of his rich patrons, and painted several views of Warwick Castle, as well as of Alnwick, Badminton, Eton and Walton.

The rapid change of London’s architecture during his time here is also documented. In The Old Horse Guards from St James’ Park of 1749, he caught the Horse Guards Parade ground, complete with parading soldiers, as well as men peeing against the wall of Downing Street, and dozens of people promenading, showing the artist’s interest in depicting scenes of daily life. Within a couple of years, from almost exactly the same spot, he was back painting the new Horse Guards parade, the one that is still there today—it can be dated very precisely to 1752–53, as the clock tower still has scaffolding on it, while the south wing had yet to be constructed.

Canaletto is often accused of depicting London whilst using bright Venetian lighting. However, in both his pictures of the Horse Guards, the light is soft and diffused. In A View of Walton Bridge the sky is even more typically ‘English’—and un-Venetian—with the sun competing with storm clouds brewing overhead. The picture also includes a portrait of Thomas Hollis, who commissioned 5 works from Canaletto, as well as a rare self-portrait of the artist, shown painting the scene. The bridge was regarded at the time as an advanced feat of engineering. The contrasting stately bulk of Westminster Bridge and the views from it was evidently something that fascinated Canaletto, who clearly would have agreed with Wordsworth’s later opinion that “earth hath not anything to show more fair.” The bridge was under construction during his time here, and he painted and sketched it repeatedly. In one of the pictures from the Royal Collection, he frames a view of the Thames, St Paul’s and the City as if he had drawn the scene from under one of the new arches of the bridge, while others show it still under construction.

It is easy to forget that Canaletto continued to paint Venetian scenes throughout his time in London. Worked up from his sketches, or done from memory, these provided him with a significant proportion of his income whilst in London, as his more conservative patrons demanded work that they were familiar with, rather than venturing into the new views that the artist was confronting. For example, his Bucintoro at the Molo on Ascension Day, showing the state barge after the annual ‘marriage’ of Venice with the sea—which, when it sold for $20,000,000 in 2005, was briefly his most expensive painting sold at auction—was painted in London in 1754.

Ruskin had a particular down on Canaletto. It is, however, unclear quite how familiar the ascerbic critic was with genuine works by the Venetian. As a hugely popular artist, his work was widely forged and copied both during his lifetime and afterwards. It is possible that Ruskin was sometimes writing about Canaletto pupils and assistants, when he thought he was writing about Canaletto himself. In “Notes on the Louvre”, writing about a picture of the Salute and the entrance to the Grand Canal, he said that it is “cold and utterly lifeless—truth is made contemptible” and that “boats and water he could not paint at all.” The picture has since been re-attributed to Canaletto’s pupil Michele Marieschi. Similarly the “bad landscape” he saw in Turin is almost certainly a work by Bernardo Bellotto, Canaletto’s nephew. Writing about Canaletto’s “vacancy and falsehood” in Modern Painters, he refers to a painting in the Palazzo Manfrin—Augustus Hare, who visited it at about the same time, noted that the palazzo “has a picture gallery which is open daily, but contains nothing worth seeing, all the good pictures having been sold.” It is unclear which work Ruskin was referring to when he said that Canaletto’s depiction of architecture was “less to be trusted in its renderings of details than the rudest and most ignorant painter of the 13th century.” Certainly that is not the view of most modern critics of most properly authenticated works by Canaletto, but Ruskin was never one to allow the facts to affect his pet prejudices.

Now on view at Amiens:

Sur la route d’Italie: Peindre la nature d’Hubert Robert à Corot
Musée d’Art et d’Archéologie d’Évreux, 26 April — 21 September 2014
Musée de Picardie, Amiens 13 February — 31 May 2015

Pour la première fois, la collection de paysages français de l’éditeur Michael Pächt est présentée au public dans une exposition événement organisée en partenariat avec l’Institut national du patrimoine et le musée d’Art et d’Archéologie d’Evreux. Fasciné par le paysage français de la fin du XVIIIe siècle et de la première moitié du XIXe siècle, grand admirateur de Corot, dont il a rassemblé quelques-unes des plus belles pages peintes sur le motif, Michael Pächt a retracé, au gré d’achats guidés par la passion de l’amateur, une chaîne iconographique, stylistique et humaine, dont les relations maître-élève et les amitiés constituent les maillons. Les affinités électives entre artistes, les parentés, les héritages et les ruptures reprennent vie, introduisant le visiteur dans l’intimité qui se crée entre le peintre et la Nature.

D’Hubert Robert à Corot en passant par Michallon, Bidault, Granet et Rousseau, la collection Pächt nous plonge dans la grande aventure de la peinture de plein air à travers les oeuvres de ceux qui firent le voyage en Italie avant de trouver une terre d’élection dans la forêt de Fontainebleau, en Picardie ou dans le Sud de la France. Une centaine d’oeuvres, peintures, dessins, estampes, ainsi que quelques rares clichés-verre de Corot et de Rousseau, viennent animer la Galerie Puvis de Chavannes le temps d’un partage entre un amateur et un public auquel il livre un peu de sa passion.

Paysages français des collections du Musée de Picardie

L’exposition se prolonge avec une sélection de peintures choisies dans les réserves parmi les plus grands chefs-d’oeuvre du musée. Cet accrochage met également à l’honneur les esquisses inédites de Charles Larivière et d’Albert Maignan qui laissèrent de leur séjour en Italie, aux deux extrémités du XIXe siècle, des toiles imprégnées de la lumière du Sud.

Commissariat général
Olivia Voisin, conservateur du patrimoine, chargée du département Beaux-Arts
Florence Calame-Levert, directrice du musée d’Évreux
François Bridey, directeur adjoint du musée d’Évreux

Commissariat scientifique
Gennaro Toscano, directeur du département des conservateurs, Institut national du patrimoine, Paris

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Published by Gourcuff Gradenico and available from Artbooks.com:

Gennaro Toscano, Sur la route d’Italie: Peindre la nature d’Hubert Robert à Corot (Montreuil, Gourcuff Gradenico, 2014), 180 pages, ISBN: 978-2353401789, 29€.

Cet ouvrage présente un ensemble extraordinaire de paysages d’artistes français ayant effectué le voyage en Italie (fin XVIIIe et xixe siècle). Les quelque 26 artistes renommés (Hubert Robert, Granet, Constantin d’Aix, Bertin, Michallon, Corot, Coignet, Rousseau Harpignies…) présents dans la collection ont la caractéristique commune d’avoir peint la nature en plein air en France et en Italie. Montée en partenariat avec l’Institut national du patrimoine (Inp), une exposition se déroulera du 26 avril au 14 septembre 2014 au musée d’Art, Histoire et Archéologie d’Évreux, puis au printemps 2015 au musée de Picardie à Amiens. Cet ensemble de paysages peints en France et en Italie est pour la première fois présenté au public et permet de s’interroger sur la constitution d’une collection particulièrement riche.

En marge de l’exposition, les services de la direction de la culture et de la ville d’Evreux et d’Amiens métropole s’associent pour programmer une «saison italienne». Plusieurs événements verront donc le jour au musée et dans d’autres institutions italiennes, permettant d’explorer la thématique du voyage en Italie ou d’éclairer les relations artistiques entre la France et l’Italie (littérature, Beaux-Arts, musique). Richement illustrée cette publication, solide du point de vue scientifique, s’adresse aussi à un public large et constitue une réflexion sur la peinture de paysage du XVIIIe au xixe siècle.

Johann Nepomuk Höchle, Redoute paré during the Congress of Vienna, ca. 1815
(Vienna: Österreichische Nationalbibliothek)

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Press release for the exhibition:

Europe in Vienna: The Congress of Vienna 1814/15
Europa in Wien: Der Wiener Kongress 1814/15
Lower Belvedere and the Orangery, Vienna, 20 February — 21 June 2015

Curated by Sabine Grabner and Werner Telesko

The Congress of Vienna is one of the most important international mega events in European history. Two hundred years ago, Vienna became Europe’s political, cultural, and social hub for a period of several months. The Congress was hosted by Emperor Francis I of Austria. All of the major European powers sent their delegates in order to confer together about how to reorganise the continent, which had lost its stability during the Napoleonic Wars. Austria was represented by the Prince of Metternich, who also functioned as the president of the Congress. Its declared goal was to achieve peace in Europe and secure order on a long-term basis. The diplomatic negotiations were accompanied by a number of social events and various entertainments, the enormous splendour of which has been captured in numerous written and pictorial documents. Vienna was flourishing as a centre of cultural life, with many artists coming to the imperial capital and inspiring all genres of domestic art production.

Exhibition view Europe in Vienna: The Congress of Vienna 1814/15. Photo by Eva Würdinger.

Europe in Vienna: The Congress of Vienna 1814/15 will highlight both the political and social aspects of this extraordinary event, which kept all Europe on tenterhooks over several months. There is hardly another political, diplomatic and social event of the nineteenth century that was documented by such a great diversity of materials like the Congress of Vienna, which turned the metropolis on the River Danube into the hotspot of Europe for a brief period of time. When preparing the objects for the exhibition, the curators Sabine Grabner and Werner Telesko were confronted with the challenge of how to vividly present a diplomatic and historical process that was mainly perceived as a social event. The exhibits, which come from numerous different countries, range from reportage prints and caricatures to history paintings and portraits in various dimensions and media—from miniature to sculpture and life-sized oil paintings. The scope of the Congress of Vienna as a phenomenon of social and artistic ramifications will primarily be displayed in the form of artistic masterpieces from all genres. The thematic spectrum will take into account both the exciting chronology of events—from the European Wars of Liberation and the occupation of Vienna in 1805 and 1809 to the Battle of Leipzig of 1813—and an adequate representation of their protagonists, who came from the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie alike.

François Pascal Simon Gérard, The Imperial Count Moritz Christian Fries with His Wife Maria Theresia Josepha von Fries (née Princess of Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfurst) and Their Son Moritz, ca. 1805 (Vienna: Belvedere)

“For the Belvedere it was particularly important to illustrate the epochal event of the Congress of Vienna as comprehensively as possible, both as to its historical and political and its social and cultural implications,” says Agnes Husslein-Arco, Director of the Belvedere and 21er Haus. “It was seemed essential to us to vividly capture the cultural impact of the Congress and the atmosphere that prevailed in those days through private loans, which we mostly found in the surroundings of direct descendants of the diplomats and aristocrats involved. Besides such personal souvenirs as medals and snuffboxes, we will also present the portrait of Princess Dorothea of Courland, the Duchess of Dino, Talleyrand-Périgord and Sagan, by François Gérard and the portrait of Prince Charles Philip of Schwarzenberg I by Johann Peter Krafft. I am particularly delighted that we succeeded in receiving Ludwig van Beethoven’s score for his Eroica symphony from the archives of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien, as well as the elaborately designed final act of the Congress of Vienna, which will naturally be the exhibition’s centrepiece,” Agnes Husslein-Arco adds.

Among the exhibition’s further highlights will be the portrait of Prince Clement Wenceslas Lothar von Metternich, then foreign minister of the Austrian Empire and its future chancellor, by the period’s leading English painter Sir Thomas Lawrence, as well as the more-than-lifesized portrait of Emperor Alexander I of Russia by François Gérard from the Château de Malmaison near Paris, which is hardly ever allowed to travel abroad.

The Congress of Vienna as a Junction of Politics and Culture

Johann Nepomuk Schaller, Bust of Empress Maria Ludovica Beatrix, 3rd wife of Emperor Franz I of Austria, 1814 (Vienna: Belvedere)

The Congress of Vienna as a historic diplomatic event whose consequences affected Europe as a whole was generally perceived by the public as a social spectacle. Yet those in charge and the organisers at the Viennese court were well aware from the very outset that there was a close connection between its political and diplomatic dimension on the one hand and its abundance of diverse court festivities (fireworks, dances, masked balls, carousels, tournaments, ethnic festivals, hunts, sleigh rides, theatre performances, etc.) and private fêtes on the other, which boils down to the fact that it was easier to arrive at relevant political results with the protagonists discussing unsettled or delicate issues in a relaxed atmosphere behind the scenes.

“The special challenge about the Congress of Vienna as a theme lies in the interdependence between history and event culture. What makes it even more difficult is that then there was no sense of documentation as it exists today, which means that many events have come done to us in the form of narrative but cannot be visualised in the form of images,” says curator Sabine Grabner.

As to the pictorial representation of the event it is characteristic that the image or images of the Congress of Vienna do not exist—except for the famous engraving based on a work by Jean-Baptiste Isabey (1819), which in our textbooks at school was still used as the illustration of the Congress of Vienna, although it actually visualises a fictitious conference of diplomats.

The Congress of Vienna as a Major Society Event

Exhibition view Europe in Vienna: The Congress of Vienna 1814/15. Photo by Eva Würdinger.

Initially the official entertainment programme of the Congress of Vienna comprised primarily military festivities. Various military parades, military church parades, and manoeuvres were intended to demonstrate to the high-ranking guests the strength and splendour of the imperial army. In addition, however, numerous court festivities were held, including balls and concerts that took place at the imperial palace or in the residences of influential members of the higher aristocracy, such as Rasumofsky or Metternich. The programme also included hunts, fireworks, and sleigh rides. For the huge balls at the Hofburg, which were attended by as many as 10,000 guests, the Winter Riding School was transformed into a gigantic dance floor and connected to the Hofburg’s two ballrooms by an outside staircase. ‘In order to do justice to the essential qualities of the Congress as a historic and diplomatic event on the one hand and as a point of attraction for European society on the other, the exhibition deliberately concentrates on the numerous intersections between art and cultural history,’ guest curator Werner Telesko, Director of the Department of Studies in Art and Music History at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, points out.

The Congress of Vienna as an Epochal Political Event

Exhibition view Europe in Vienna: The Congress of Vienna 1814/15. Photo by Eva Würdinger.

As to the significance of the Congress for posterity, one must not neglect the dramatic political developments of the year 1815. For Napoleon’s flight from the island of Elba and the subsequent declaration against him, which was signed by all of the European states on 13 March 1815, seem to have contributed considerably to the pressure of the Congress to succeed. As of this day, the political fate of Napoleon was sealed in the form of this hitherto unprecedented closing of ranks of the major European nations and eventually turned out to be final in the legendary and decisive Battle of Waterloo in June 1815 All in all, the Congress proved a remarkable political success. The borderlines between the individual European powers were redefined on a long-term basis. Especially the power equilibrium that had been achieved in Vienna had a far-reaching impact on the entire continent. The negotiations helped settle a number of conflicting interests and tensions. For almost forty years, no further martial conflicts occurred on a European level, due to the stability that had been brought about. Initially, Russia, Austria, Prussia, and Great Britain had decided that France, Spain, and the lesser powers should not have a voice in the decision processes. Yet the experienced French diplomat Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand eventually succeeded in getting France to participate in the deliberations of the major powers, so that he was able to secure the political influence of the ‘Grande Nation’.

On the Conception of the Exhibition and Catalogue

The Belvedere’s exhibition intends to confront visitors with the epochal event of the Congress of Vienna within a comprehensive historical review spanning the period from Napoleon’s appearance on the European stage to the Battle of Waterloo. Works of art serve to present an important historical episode as a narrative marked by a high degree of drama and fascinating personalities. The exhibition concept refrains from treating the individual genres and themes separately but seeks to offer exciting multimedia crossovers. It is only on such a basis that the interdependencies between social life and cultural boom as central aspects of the Congress can be properly experienced and understood. The catalogue and the exhibition complement each other and should therefore be seen as a conceptual unity. The contributions to this opulently designed publication offer essential information about the most important historical and art historical facts and their connections, some of which are difficult or even impossible to convey in the exhibition. The exhibition, on the other hand, is meant as a guide through historical developments alongside which it visualises the highlights of social life and cultural accomplishments. With its thematic approach, Europe in Vienna is the only exhibition that recognises this complex event in its entirety on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the Congress of Vienna in 2014/15.

“You have come in time to see great things happen. Europe is in Vienna.” This is how the French nobleman Charles Joseph de Ligne welcomed Count Auguste de La Garde, one of the famous chroniclers of the Congress. De Ligne’s assessment is not an invention or justification conjured up in retrospect but is confirmed by many contemporary sources. Because of its uniquely telling combination of Europe and Vienna, his wording has given the Belvedere’s exhibition its title.

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Published by Hirmer, the catalogue is distributed by The University of Chicago Press:

Agnes Husslein-Arco, ed., Europe in Vienna: The Congress of Vienna 1814/15 (Munich: Hirmer Publishers, 2015), 448 pages, ISBN: 978-3777423241, $65.

From September 1814 to June 1815, Vienna was the undisputed center of Europe. As the Congress of Vienna convened, the city saw an unprecedented gathering of crowned heads and their ambassadors. Among them were a tsar, an emperor, and no fewer than five kings as the leaders of Europe attempted to remake the continent in the wake of the Napoleonic wars. In total, two hundred European countries came together to discuss the future of the European continent. And while the diplomats worked during the day, in the evening, Viennese society blossomed: there were balls, parties, sleigh rides, receptions, theatrical performances, musical events, and much more. Vienna was suddenly the heart not just of European diplomacy, but of European social life as well.

This book draws on an astonishing trove of documents, including historical photographs and paintings, to re-create the atmosphere of the Congress of Vienna. The incredible images and documents are supported by essays that shed light on the political, cultural, and social aspects of the gathering. The resulting volume not only takes readers to an unforgettable moment in the past, but also highlights the continuing effects of this historic gathering for Europe and the entire world.

Agnes Husslein-Arco is an art historian and director of the Belvedere Gallery in Vienna.

Press release (January 2015) for The British Museum exhibition:

Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation
The British Museum, London, 23 April – 2 August 2015
National Museum of Australia, Canberra, Fall 2015

Kunmanara Hogan, Tjaruwa Woods, Yarangka Thomas, Estelle Hogan, Ngalpingka Simms and Myrtle Pennington, Kungkarangkalpa, acrylic on canvas, 2013. © The artists, courtesy Spinifex Arts Project.

In April 2015 the British Museum will open a major exhibition presenting a history of Indigenous Australia, the first exhibition in the UK devoted to the history and culture of Indigenous Australians: both Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders. Drawing on objects from the British Museum’s collection, accompanied by important loans from British and Australian collections, the show will present Indigenous Australia as a living culture, with a continuous history dating back over 60,000 years. The objects in the exhibition will range from a shield believed to have been collected at Botany Bay in 1770 by Captain Cook or one of his men, a protest placard from the Aboriginal Tent Embassy established in 1972, contemporary paintings, and specially commissioned artworks from leading Indigenous artists. Many of the objects have never been on public display before.

Shield collected at Botany Bay during Captain Cook’s visit, 1770 (London: The British Museum).

The objects displayed in this exhibition are immensely important. The British Museum’s collection contains some of the earliest objects collected from Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders through early naval voyages, colonists, and missionaries dating as far back as 1770. Many were collected at a time before museums were established in Australia and they represent tangible evidence of some of the earliest moments of contact between Aboriginal people, Torres Strait Islanders and the British. Many of these encounters occurred in or near places that are now major cities such as Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth. As a result of collecting made in the early 1800s, many objects originate from coastal locations
rather than the arid inland areas often associated with
Indigenous Australia in the popular imagination.

Vincent Namatjira, James Cook—with the Declaration, 2014. © Vincent Namatjira

The exhibition will present not only Indigenous ways of understanding the land and sea but also the significant challenges faced by Indigenous Australians from the colonial period until to the present day. In 1770 Captain Cook landed on the east coast of Australia, a continent larger than Europe. In this land there were hundreds of different Aboriginal groups, each inhabiting a particular area, and each having its own languages, laws and traditions. This land became a part of the British Empire and remained so until the various colonies joined together in 1901 to become the nation of Australia we know today. In this respect, the social history of 19th-century Australia and the place of Indigenous people within this is very much a British story. This history continues into the twenty first century. With changing policies towards Indigenous Australians and their struggle for recognition of civil rights, this exhibition shows why issues about Indigenous Australians are still often so highly debated in Australia today.

The exhibition brings together loans of special works from institutions in the United Kingdom, including the British Library, the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. A number of works from the collection of the National Museum of Australia will be shown, including the masterpiece ‘Yumari’ by Uta Uta Tjangala. Tjangala was one of the artists who initiated the translation of traditions of sand sculptures and body painting onto canvas in 1971 at Papunya, a government settlement 240km northwest of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. Tjangala was also an inspirational leader who developed a plan for the Pintupi community to return to their homelands after decades of living at Papunya. A design from ‘Yumari’ forms a watermark on current Australian passports.

This exhibition has been developed in consultation with many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individuals, Indigenous art and cultural centres across Australia, and has been organised with the National Museum of Australia. The broader project is a collaboration with the National Museum of Australia. It draws on a joint research project, funded by the Australian Research Council, undertaken by the British Museum, the National Museum of Australia and the Australian National University. Titled Engaging Objects: Indigenous communities, museum collections and the representation of Indigenous histories, the research project began in 2011 and involved staff from the National Museum of Australia and the British Museum visiting communities to discuss objects from the British Museum’s collections. The research undertaken revealed information about the circumstances of collecting and significance of the objects, many of which previously lacked good documentation. The project also brought contemporary Indigenous artists to London to view and respond to the Australian collections at the British Museum.

Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum said, “The history of Australia and its people is an incredible, continuous story that spans over 60,000 years. This story is also an important part of more recent British history and so it is of great significance that audiences in London will see these unique and powerful objects exploring this narrative. Temporary exhibitions of this nature are only possible thanks to external support so I am hugely grateful to BP for their longstanding and on-going commitment to the British Museum. I would also like to express my gratitude to our logistics partner IAG Cargo and the Australian High Commission who are supporting the exhibition’s public programme.”

Peter J. Mather, Group Regional Vice President, Europe and Head of Country, UK, BP: “BP is extremely pleased to support The BP Exhibition Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation, part of our five year commitment to the museum’s special exhibitions programme. BP has had a presence in Australia for almost 100 years and our support for this exhibition is part of BP’s wider contribution to the societies where we operate, enabling audiences to connect with a variety of different cultures. We are delighted to continue our long-standing relationship with the British Museum by supporting this exhibition which we hope will inspire interest in Australia’s indigenous people and culture for many thousands of visitors.”

Dr Mathew Trinca, National Museum of Australia Director, welcomed the British Museum exhibition: “We are delighted to support this major exhibition in London with the loan of some key objects from our collection. We look forward to continuing our work together to realise our ambition for an exhibition of these artefacts in Canberra in late 2015.”

Patron: HRH The Prince of Wales
Supported by BP
Organised with the National Museum of Australia
Logistics partner IAG Cargo
Public programme supported by the Australian High Commission

Gaye Sculthorpe, John Carty, Howard Morphy, Maria Nugent, Ian Coates, Lissant Bolton, and Jonathan Jones, Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation (London: The British Museum Press, 2015), 272 pages, ISBN: 978-0714126944, £30.

This ground-breaking publication explores the unique and ongoing relationship that Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders have to place and country. It also explores the profound impact and legacy of colonialism, the nature of collecting and the changing meaning of objects now in the collection of The British Museum.