Exhibition | Renaissance to Goya: Prints and Drawings in Spain
From The British Museum:
Renaissance to Goya: Prints and Drawings Made in Spain
The British Museum, London, 20 September 2012 — 5 January 2013
The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 31 August — 24 November 2013
New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, 14 December — 9 March 2014
Curated by Mark McDonald
Spanish prints and drawings is a subject that is little known outside Spain. It is generally assumed these were marginal arts practiced only by a few well-known artists, including José de Ribera, Bartolomé Murillo and Francisco de Goya. The aim of this project is to explore the largely unchartered territory of the origins, form and function of prints and drawings in Spain. It will present for the first time a coherent study, largely based on the collections of the British Museum, that looks at their history from around 1400 through to and including Goya (died 1828). It will also present new research on the subject of the graphic arts in Spain. The material will be published in a monograph to accompany an exhibition at the British Museum in late 2012.
It is the first time prints and drawings made in Spain have been studied together. A critical aspect of the project will be to consider the presence of foreign artists working in Spain and how they contributed to the artistic landscape. Particular attention will be given to the different types of prints and drawings and their many functions to convey the role they played in artistic practice and visual culture in Spain (architectural prints and drawings, reproductive prints, landscape, religious subjects, prints made for commemorative purposes, fans, playing cards and more).
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Due out in October from Ashgate:
Catalogue: Mark McDonald, Renaissance to Goya: Prints and Drawings Made in Spain (Aldershot: Lund Humphries, 2012), 320 pages, ISBN: 9781848221185.
The rich tradition of printmaking and drawing in Spain has rarely been examined, in part because of the misapprehension that Spanish artists did not draw and few turned their hand to printmaking. This spectacular study of prints and drawings will for the first time examine the history of graphic practice in Spain, providing an overview of more than 400 years of artistic production.
The story begins in the late 15th century with convergence of foreign artists in Spain who introduced new techniques and ideas. The most significant changes were brought about through the building of Philip II’s monastery of the Escorial near Madrid. Large numbers of foreign artists arrived to decorate the monastery. They included the Italians Pellegrino Tibaldi and Federico Zuccaro and the Flemish printmaker Pedro Perret, whose engravings of the Escorial are among the most remarkable architectural prints of the period. At the Escorial the international influences formed the basis of artistic practice and contributed to the distinctive appearance of art produced in Spain.
The ‘Golden Age’ — a dramatic flourishing of artistic and literary endeavour in Spain during the 17th century — is celebrated through discussion of key works by the most important visual artists of the period: Alonso Berruguete; the Carducho brothers; Murillo; Ribera; Zurbarán and the extraordinary drawings of Velázquez, about which very little is known. Each region of Spain is explored separately as independent centres of artistic activity during this time with prints and drawings examined together to demonstrate how their production was closely linked.
The book concludes with the Enlightenment and the 18th century, with a study of remarkable prints and drawings by Francisco de Goya. Goya’s important Spanish contemporaries are examined alongside the works of foreign artists who continued to come to Spain, such as the Tiepolo family who worked in Madrid.
Contents
Introduction
1. Prints and Drawings in Spain: Attitudes and Evidence
2. Drawings and Prints before 1500 and Early Collecting in Spain
3. Importing Graphic Practices: Castile 1550–1600
4. Madrid as Artistic Capital 1600–1700
5. Andalusia 1500–1700
6. Valencia 1500–1700 and Ribera in Naples
7. The Eighteenth-Century Reinvention of the Graphic Arts
8. Francisco de Goya
Appendix by Clara de la Peña McTigue, Spanish Paper and Papermaking
Bibliography
Mark McDonald is curator of Old Master prints and Spanish drawings at the British Museum. He has published widely on the subject of Old Master prints from the 15th to the 18th centuries, with special interest in the Renaissance period. He is the author of The Print Collection of Ferdinand Columbus (1488–1539): A Renaissance Collector in Seville (winner of the Mitchell Prize 2005).
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Note (added 1 September 2013) — The original posting did not include the Sydney venue; more information is available here»
Note (added 21 December 2013) — Earlier versions did not include Santa Fe venue; more information is available here».
Display | The King’s Artists: George III’s Academy
Now on view at the Royal Academy, as noted at British Art Research:
The King’s Artists: George III’s Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts, London, 25 May — 21 October 2012
Joshua Reynolds, Portrait of King George III, 1779. Oil on canvas, 2774 x 1855 mm. Photo: John Hammond. © Royal Academy of Arts, London
Part of a series of displays to celebrate The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, The King’s Artists explores the influence that George III had on the early shaping and history of the Royal Academy of Arts and how his support contributed to its success.
Dominating the exhibition are the imposing portraits of George III and Queen Charlotte, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds to hang in the Academy’s council chamber. These served as physical reminders of the Academy’s great patrons, presiding over the institution in its resplendent, purpose-built, new apartments in Somerset House.
A newly attributed chalk study by Reynolds for his grand portrait of the monarch, on loan from a private collection, will be shown for the first time alongside the finished oil painting. Hurriedly taken in the brief sittings that the King allowed, this drawing is a poignant reminder of how George and Joshua were obliged to put aside mutual antipathy for the sake of their Academy as it was about to move to Somerset House. Sculpture, drawings, prints and archival materials exploring the Academy’s royal connections are also on view.
Display | The Atlantic World at Tate Britain
From Tate Britain:
Atlantic Britain
Tate Britain, London, 5 December 2011 – 4 November 2012
Curated by Martin Myrone
James Barry, William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, Etching, line-engraving and aquatint on paper (London: Tate Britain)
The history of British art has often been told as an ‘island story’, as if the visual arts were directly shaped by the immediate social and physical environment. The modesty and naturalism of British art has been explained with reference to a mythic ‘national character’. However, all the paintings displayed here illuminate a different history – that of the ‘Atlantic world’ which connected Africa, Europe and the Americas.
British investments and colonial settlement in North America and the West Indies expanded enormously in the eighteenth century. Military successes during the Seven Years War (1756-63) resulted in Britain becoming the dominant European force in the American colonies. Even after the declaration of political independence by the North Americans in 1776, Britain remained tied to an Atlantic economy. The circulation around the Atlantic of money, goods, ideas and people (not least in the form of enslaved Africans) underpinned economic and cultural development well into the
nineteenth century.
Britain’s imperial and economic relationships were rarely addressed directly by artists in the period. But underlying these apparently unrelated works are stories which reveal how even the most parochial-looking of British paintings may be connected to a larger history of trade, war and imperial exploitation.
An illustrated checklist of all works included in the display is available here»
Exhibition | The Horse: From Arabia to Royal Ascot
While you probably wouldn’t know it from the description provided below, the eighteenth century is a major theme for this exhibition on horses at The British Museum — with a good showing of Stubbs, including Letitia, Lady Lade from the Royal Collection, but other treats, too. I found it immensely instructive, one of the most interestingly layered exhibitions I recall seeing in a long time. There’s something for everyone — antiquity and the role of the horses in early civilizations and empires of Mesopotamia and Egypt, extraordinary Persian and Mughal miniatures, textiles, equestrian rock art (photographed in stunning detail), paintings, books, portraiture, agrarian history, and sport. The challenge, however, is not simply putting together a varied exhibition but imparting coherence, and given just how much is covered in this relatively modest sized show, it succeeds brilliantly, appropriately acknowledging both the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics without being obsequious to either one. It also offers, I think, an example of how projected photographs and video can be used effectively in an exhibition without taking over or supplanting the objects on display. For better or worse, I’m guessing we’ll see lots more moving images in the exhibitions of the future. Integrating that technology thoughtfully into the larger intellectual program of a show is a tall order. The Horse: From Arabia to Royal Ascot offers a start and plenty else besides.
-Craig Hanson
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From The British Museum:
The Horse: From Arabia to Royal Ascot
The British Museum, London, 24 May — 30 September 2012
Curated by John Curtis and Nigel Tallis
The history of the horse is the history of civilisation itself. The horse has had a revolutionary impact on ancient civilisations and this major exhibition explores the influence of horses in Middle Eastern history, from their domestication around 3,500 BC to the present day. Britain’s long equestrian tradition is examined from the introduction of the Arabian breed in the 18th century to present day sporting events such as Royal Ascot and the Olympic Games.
Important loans from the British Library, the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Royal Armouries, as well as rare material from Saudi Arabia, will be seen alongside objects from the British Museum’s exceptional collection, including famous pieces such as the Standard of Ur and Achaemenid Persian reliefs. Supported by the Board of Trustees of the Saudi Equestrian Fund, the Layan Cultural Foundation and Juddmonte Farms. In association with the Saudi Commission for Tourism & Antiquities. (more…)
Reviewed | Wax Exhibition in Venice
Notice of this exhibition appeared here at Enfilade back in March, but it’s nice to include a portion of Allison Goudie’s review from The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. It also serves as a reminder of the rich offerings at the BSECS site. Links to other relevant reviews are included toward the bottom of this posting.
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From BSECS:
Avere una Bella Cera: Le Figure in Cera a Venezia e in Italia, Exhibition at the Fortuny Museum, Venice (10 March – 25 June 2012)
Reviewed by Allison Goudie, University of Oxford; posted 16 May 2012
. . .The current exhibition was conceived by its curator, Andrea Daninos, as a tribute to Schlosser’s pioneering efforts. Daninos recently published an Italian translation of Schlosser’s History (Officina Libraria, 2011), accompanied by an augmented catalogue of works, complementing the 2008 English translation that was incorporated into the outstanding Getty Research Institute publication ‘Ephemeral Bodies: Wax Sculpture and the Human Figure‘. Certainly, as such publications demonstrate, recent scholarly interest in the medium of wax has already very quickly made up for lost time and made significant inroads towards writing the medium back into the history of art. The Italian title of the exhibition translates in English as ‘in the pink’ – an apposite assessment of the current scholarly enthusiasm for the medium.
All the while however, what has been lacking, rather conspicuously – and of particular urgency given the investment in the materiality of wax by contemporary scholarship – is a cohesive exhibition in which the physical objects of this hitherto lost chapter in the history of portraiture may be viewed quite literally in the flesh. The exhibition at Palazzo Fortuny does exactly this. While its scope may be limited to the Italian context, its treatment of it is comprehensive, surveying almost all the life-size wax portraits extant today in Italian collections, public and private, and broaching private and commemorative, religious and quasi-scientific applications of wax portraiture. A notable absence in this survey of Italian wax portraiture would be the work of Medardo Rosso, however Schlosser, too, chose not to extend his exploration of the topic into the modern age. It was the eighteenth century that witnessed an expansion of wax portraiture on a scale incomparable in other periods, and the majority of portraits on display are eighteenth-century works. . .
The full review is available here»
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Additional reviews available at the BSECS site
Nicholas Hawksmoor: Architect of the Imagination
Location: Royal Academy of Arts, London
Event Date: June 2012
Reviewed By: David Frazer Lewis, University of Oxford
An homage to Hawksmoor to mark the 350th anniversary of his birth.
Location: Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art (INHA), Galerie Colbert, Paris
Event Date: June 2012
Reviewed By: Valérie Kobi, University of Neuchâtel
This perfectly formed exhibition captures the essence of how knowledge was visualised in the age of the encyclopaedia.
Johan Zoffany RA: Society Observed
Location: Royal Academy of Arts, London
Event Date: June 2012
Reviewed By: Allison Goudie, New College, Oxford
An impressive exhibition of the RA’s very own master of the conversation piece, Johan Zoffany.
Turner Inspired: in the Light of Claude
Location: National Gallery, London
Event Date: June 2012
Reviewed By: Clare Pettitt, King’s College, London
The new National Gallery show emphasises links between Turner and Claude, to the detriment of both.
Taking Time: Paintings by Chardin
Location: Waddeston Manor, Aylesbury
Event Date: May 2012
Reviewed By: Hannah Williams, University of Oxford
An enlightening exhibition of the four versions of Chardin’s Boy Building a House of Cards.
Location: Museo di Roma
Event Date: May 2012
Reviewed By: Hannah Malone
A subtle exhibition showing Rome and its many faces, as city and myth.
Location: The Foundling Museum, London
Event Date: May 2012
Reviewed By: Olive Baldwin and Thelma Wilson
Explore the world of Vauxhall Gardens at the Foundling Museum.
Exhibition | Drawings of Natoire and the Roots of Artistic Creation
Thanks to Hélène Bremer for noting this exhibition at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Nîmes. It brings together more than 90 drawings from private and public collections, including loans from the Louvre and the Atger Museum (an English description is available here).
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Charles-Joseph Natoire (1700-77): Le dessin à l’origine de la création artistique
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nîmes, 8 June — 16 September 2012
A l’occasion de la parution de la monographie de Natoire aux éditions Arthena, rédigée par Susanna Caviglia-Brunel, le Musée des Beaux-Arts propose une exposition sur Charles-Joseph Natoire dessinateur (Nîmes, 1700 – Castel Gandolfo, 1777). Après les célébrations du bicentenaire de la mort de Natoire en 1977 et le tricentenaire de sa naissance en 2000, le Musée des Beaux-Arts rend hommage, par l’exposition inédite de sa production graphique, à cet artiste d’origine nîmoise, considéré comme l’un des grands représentants de la peinture française du XVIIIe siècle.
Né à Nîmes en 1700, Charles-Joseph Natoire illustre sans doute le mieux, avec François Boucher, un certain esprit de la peinture française sous le règne de Louis XV. Peintre subtil, dessinateur inspiré et virtuose, sa réputation s’établit rapidement après son entrée à l’Académie Royale de peinture et de sculpture en 1734 et les nombreuses commandes royales qu’il exécute avec brio (Fontainebleau, Versailles…). A partir de 1756, Natoire réduit sa production peinte au profit du dessin.
Au cœur des peintures de grands formats dont font partie les quatre cartons de tapisseries du Cycle de l’Histoire de Marc-Antoine que conserve le musée (L’entrée de Marc-Antoine à Ephèse, L’Arrivée de Cléopâtre à Tarse et Le Repas de Cléopâtre et Marc-Antoine, La Paix de Tarente), près de 90 dessins sortent exceptionnellement des réserves de collections privées et publiques (dont le musée du Louvre et le Musée Atger de Montpellier) pour le plus grand plaisir du public. Les sanguines, pierres noires et lavis permettent d’aborder les différentes fonctions du dessin dans les étapes de la création chez Charles-Joseph Natoire. Copie d’après l’Antique, étude des grands maitres, dessin sur le motif, moyen d’exercice, étude préparatoire de l’œuvre d’art ou œuvre d’art… le dessin chez Natoire révèle un charme des contours, une harmonieuse association des matériaux, le goût de l’élégance, la recherche de la beauté.
Exposition organisée avec la participation du musée du Louvre et l’aide de la DRac Languedoc-Roussillon et de l’AAMAC.
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From Dossier de l’Art:
Dossier de l’Art: Natoire. N° 196 (May 2012), 9€.
C’est l’un des plus illustres enfants de Nîmes que célèbre aujourd’hui le musée des Beaux-Arts en consacrant une exposition à l’abondante production graphique de Charles-Joseph Natoire. Près de quatre-vingt-dix feuilles sorties exceptionnellement des réserves de collections privées et publiques offrent un large panorama de l’usage qu’il fit du dessin tout au long de sa carrière, des bancs de l’Académie de peinture et de sculpture de Paris à la direction de l’Académie de France à Rome. Sanguines, pierres noires, lavis, études rehaussées à la craie ou à l’aquarelle illustrent les différentes étapes du processus de création, de la copie de motifs d’après les maîtres au premier tracé, de l’étude de variantes à l’esquisse minutieuse et jusqu’au dessin comme œuvre autonome.
Articles
Entretien avec Pierre Rosenberg, de l’Académie française
Le dessin à l’origine de la création
Arrêt sur une oeuvre : la copie de motif
Arrêt sur une oeuvre : la première pensée
Arrêt sur une oeuvre : les reprises et les variantes
Arrêt sur une oeuvre : les dessins de paysage
Les techniques graphiques au XVIIIe siècle
Le songe d’une Académie idéale
Le cas Greuze
L’invention à l’œuvre
Actualités
Le musée Atger, une collection exceptionnelle de dessins anciens
Le musée des Beaux-Arts de Nîmes
Les dessins du XVIIIe siècle du musée Fabre
Les collectionneurs de dessins au XVIIIe siècle
Les dessins de la collection Adrien au musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes
Exhibition | Canaletto: The Venetian Notebook
Thanks to Stacey Sloboda for noting this one that almost slipped by me (a brief English description is available here). From the Palazzo Grimani:
Canaletto: Il Quaderno Veneziano
Palazzo Grimani, Venice, 1 April — 1 July 2012
Curated by Annalisa Perissa Torrini
Apre a Venezia il 1 aprile, nella cornice straordinaria delle sale di Palazzo Grimani, la mostra Canaletto. Il Quaderno veneziano dedicata al celebre Quaderno di schizzi di Canaletto, un unicum nella storia dell’arte del Settecento, codice mai visibile al pubblico, ora presentato assieme a ventiquattro disegni di antica provenienza veneziana, appartenenti a collezioni pubbliche e private, per la prima volta insieme.
Il progetto espositivo è a cura del Direttore del Gabinetto dei Disegni delle Gallerie dell’Accademia, Annalisa Perissa Torrini, programmato nell’ambito della valorizzazione del fondo grafico, promosso dalla Soprintendenza Speciale per il Patrimonio storico, artistico ed etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale della città di Venezia e dei comuni della Gronda lagunare e prodotto da Venezia Accademia con il contributo di Save Venice Inc.
La mostra indaga il modus operandi dell’artista, definendone la concreta operatività nella fase di costruzione grafica e stabilisce il ruolo svolto dalla camera ottica nell’ideazione e realizzazione delle vedute di Venezia.
Il Quaderno di Canaletto è un prezioso piccolo volume (mm 175×235) formato da 7 fascicoli, rilegati nell’Ottocento, ma in origine sciolti, ricolmo di schizzi realizzati probabilmente in un breve arco di tempo, poi riutilizzato dal pittore veneziano negli anni. Ogni fascicolo racconta il processo creativo del suo lavoro: le tipiche annotazioni sui colori, sui materiali e sui luoghi ritratti, le correzioni e abrasioni, i cambi di inchiostro e di penna, lo sporadico uso del righello e l’impiego della punta metallica, la cui presenza è stata osservata nel corso degli studi e delle analisi delle tecniche e della carta.
Insieme al Quaderno, vengono esposti otto fogli, tra cui il cosiddetto “scarabotto” con il Canal Grande di fronte alla Salute e il Traghetto di San Moisé, della raccolta delle Gallerie, sette fogli della Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica di Trieste, sette fogli poco noti di collezione privata italiana di provenienza Corniani-Algarotti, il foglio della Fondazione Cini e quello del Museo Correr di Venezia. Importanti dipinti di collezioni pubbliche e private mostreranno poi la realizzazione pittorica di alcuni disegni esposti in mostra: capolavori delle Gallerie dell’Accademia, di Ca’ Rezzonico, degli Uffizi, di Castello Sforzesco e di importanti collezioni private italiane, mentre alcune incisioni, di Visentini e Smith, documentano l’importanza delle stampe sia nell’iter creativo dell’artista, che nella diffusione della sua opera.
In occasione della mostra verrà pubblicato un fac-simile del Quaderno di Canaletto, edito da Marsilio Editori, accompagnato da un saggio storico interpretativo di Annalisa Perissa Torrini e seguito da uno studio sulla fascicolazione e rilegatura condotto da Barbara Biciocchi, da un testo sulla camera ottica a cura di Dario Maran, e documenti sulla vita di Canaletto trovati da Alessandra Schiavon all’Archivio di Stato di Venezia.
Il progetto di allestimento, curato da Annunziata Genchi, comprende supporti audiovisivi e multimediali didattici, fra i quali una riproduzione digitale del Quaderno, realizzata da Mauro Tarantino, che permetterà al visitatore di sfogliare virtualmente tutte le pagine del prezioso codice, mentre diversi filmati illustreranno l’utilizzo e le finalità della camera ottica, i modi di fascicolazione del volume e le tecniche grafiche di esecuzione, un filmato in 3D con il confronto tra i disegni e i dipinti ed un altro sul funzionamento della camera ottica. Un modello funzionante di camera ottica, inoltre, è stato realizzato in collaborazione con il Musée Maillol di Parigi, dove il visitatore potrà guardare le “vedute” come faceva lo stesso Canaletto.
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From Marsilio:
Annalisa Perissa Torrini, ed., Canaletto. Il Quaderno veneziano (Marsilio, 2012), 236 pages, ISBN: 9788831713009, €33.
In occasione della mostra Canaletto. Il Quaderno veneziano, in programma a Venezia nella splendida cornice di Palazzo Grimani dall’1 aprile all’1 luglio, verrà pubblicato un fac-simile dell’affascinante manufatto, un unicum nella storia dell’arte del Settecento, solitamente non visibile al pubblico. Il prezioso volume formato da sette fascicoli, rilegati nell’Ottocento ma in origine sciolti, ricolmo di schizzi realizzati probabilmente in un breve arco di tempo, venne riutilizzato negli anni da Canaletto come strumento di lavoro. Ogni fascicolo racconta l’operare del maestro veneziano: racchiude le tipiche annotazioni sui colori, sui materiali e sui luoghi raffigurati, le correzioni e le abrasioni, i cambi di inchiostro e di penna, tutte quelle tracce che rappresentano la sua memoria grafica, la registrazione di dati veri, oggettivi, esatti da interpretare e rielaborare nella fase creativa della composizione della veduta. In apparato al fac-simile saranno inseriti, oltre agli interessanti risultati delle recenti analisi sulle cosiddette informazioni “nascoste” – non visibili a occhio nudo – e su fascicolazione e rilegatura dell’opera, anche un saggio storico interpretativo di Annalisa Perissa e un testo di Dario Maran che stabilisce il ruolo svolto dalla camera ottica nell’ideazione e realizzazione delle vedute di Venezia.
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Exhibition | Expanding Horizons: Lusieri and the Panoramic Landscape
From the National Galleries of Scotland, as noted by Hélène Bremer:
Expanding Horizons: Giovanni Battista Lusieri and the Panoramic Landscape
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, 30 June — 28 October 2012
Curated by Aidan Weston-Lewis
Giovanni Battista Lusieri, The Monument to Philopappos, Athens, ca. 1805-07
Giovanni Battista Lusieri (1754–1821) was hailed during his lifetime as one of the most gifted of all living landscape artists and his exquisitely crafted works were eagerly sought by collectors. But within a few years of his death his reputation descended into an obscurity from which it has only recently begun to re-emerge. His name will still be unfamiliar to all but a few specialists, a neglect which this exhibition, the first ever devoted to the artist, aims to redress.
Lusieri was one of very few Italian artists to have adopted watercolour as their favoured medium. From the outset his work exhibits the meticulous detail, precision and faultless perspective that remained the hallmarks of his style throughout his career, combined with a panoramic breadth of vision and an astonishing ability to render brilliant effects of light. The latter part of Lusieri’s career was spent mainly in Athens as Lord Elgin’s resident artist and agent. In that capacity he was closely involved in supervising the removal and shipping of the celebrated marbles from the Acropolis, now in the British Museum.
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Catalogue: Aidan Weston-Lewis with Fabrizia Spirito, Kim Sloan, and Dyfri Williams, Giovanni Battista Lusieri and the Panoramic Landscape: Expanding Horizons (Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland, 2012), 236 pages, ISBN: 9781906270469, £25 / $63 — available from Artbooks.com in August
This is the first publication in English devoted to the extraordinary work of the Italian landscape watercolourist Giovanni Battista Lusieri (1754-1821). His career took him from his native Rome to Naples, then to Sicily and finally to the eastern Mediterranean, where he spent twenty years in the service of the 7th Earl of Elgin as his resident artist and agent in Athens. In that capacity he was closely involved in the removal of the celebrated marbles from the Parthenon and other monuments in Greece. Lusieri’s watercolours combine a broad, panoramic vision, an uncanny ability to capture brilliant Mediterranean light and a meticulous, almost photographic attention to detail. He was widely acclaimed as one of the most accomplished landscape artists of his day, and his works were eagerly sought by British Grand Tourists, but after his death he was soon forgotten, and only recently have his exceptional gifts begun to be recognised once again.
Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Aidan Weston-Lewis — ‘The most exact and eloquent transcriptions of nature I ever saw’: Giovanni Battista Lusieri, Life, and Work
Fabrizia Spirito — Lusieri and his Contemporaries | Drawing on the Spot around Rome and Naples
Aidan Weston-Lewis — Rome | An Early Patron: Philip Yorke; entries 1-13
Kim Sloan — Naples | ‘Naples, where the landscape painter is most truly in his element’; entries 14-59
Fabrizia Spirito — Sicily | Lusieri in Sicily; entries 60-66
Dyfri Williams — Greece | Lusieri in the Eastern Mediterranean, 1800-1821; entries 67-92
Bibliography
Notes and References
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Aidan Weston-Lewis is Chief Curator at the Scottish National Gallery with responsibility for the Italian and Spanish collections. He has organised numerous exhibitions at the Gallery and been closely involved with many major acquisitions. He has a particular interest in north Italian painting and drawing of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and has published widely in this area.
Exhibition | Napoleon: Revolution to Empire
Press release from the NGV:
Napoleon: Revolution to Empire
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2 June — 7 October 2012
On 2 June 2012 the National Gallery of Victoria will opened this year’s spectacular Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibition, Napoleon: Revolution to Empire, examining French art, culture, and life from the 1770s to the 1820s. Its story runs from the first French voyages of discovery to Australia during the reign of Louis XV to the end of Napoleon’s transforming leadership as first Emperor of France.
Premier and Minister for the Arts Ted Baillieu said, “Now a well-established highlight of our major events calendar, the Melbourne Winter Masterpieces series has set the benchmark for blockbuster exhibitions in this country. I’m pleased to welcome the latest installment, Napoleon: Revolution to Empire. Through hundreds of priceless treasures, never before seen in Australia, this exhibition brings to life the legend one of history’s most extraordinary and complex figures. It’s another great Melbourne exclusive, another tourism drawcard for Victoria and another stunning exhibition for the NGV.”
This panoramic exhibition features nearly 300 works, dating from the 1770s to the 1820s, objects of breathtaking opulence and luxury – from paintings, drawings, engravings, sculpture, furniture, militaria, textiles, porcelain, gold and silver, fashion and jewellery.
Dr Gerard Vaughan, Director NGV, said, “Napoleon: Revolution to Empire continues the tradition of spectacular NGV exhibitions which have become a winter highlight in Victoria’s cultural calendar. This year visitors will be intrigued by the life of Napoleon, a man who held the world captive to his ambition. He had a vision of a united Europe, but a Europe controlled by France and united through conquest. Napoleon is well known as a master military strategist; this exhibition reveals that he was also a passionate lover and dedicated patron of the arts, sciences and literature.”
Napoleon: Revolution to Empire explores, amongst other themes, the stormy period of social change forced upon France through the outbreak of the French Revolution, the execution of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, and the rise to power of the young Napoleon Bonaparte and his new wife Josephine, as the couple worked to cement their place as France’s new political and social leaders.
Ted Gott, Senior Curator International Art, NGV said, “World leaders in the Age of Exploration, Napoleon and Josephine were a true power couple- famous and stylish. The stunning artworks and objects in this exhibition illustrate their belief that the advancement of knowledge was integral to social order; they welcomed scientists and artists to receptions and dinners where world affairs were reshaped under their rule.”
Personal items will give visitors a glimpse into an extravagant private world of the couple. Jewels owned by Josephine, Napoleon’s personal weapons, lavish furniture from private residences and a lock of Napoleon’s hair feature alongside spectacular decorative objects, bejewelled gifts given to dignitaries, military uniforms and a beautiful court dress- the only surviving garment worn at Napoleon’s coronation ceremony in 1804.
Napoleon: Revolution to Empire also considers the enormous cultural and scientific contact between Australia and France from the 1770s to the 1820s. This is a story that is not often told. Both Napoleon and Josephine were captivated by Australia, which had newly entered the world’s imagination following the publication of Captain Cook’s travels. The exhibition tells the story of how this fascination spurred Napoleon to fund a voyage in 1805 that collected information about the continent and produced the first map of the southern Australian coastline with the land we now know as Victoria, but which was at the time first named Terre Napoléon (Napoleon Land). French voyages to Australia returned with collection’s of Australian flora and fauna, much specifically earmarked for the hothouses and enclosures of Napoleon and Josephine’s country residence Malmaison. Captivating works in the exhibition show kangaroos, black swans and a range of native Australian plants in the grounds of this quintessentially French estate.
Organised in partnership with the Fondation Napoléon in Paris, who are lending many of their greatest works, the exhibition also features incomparable treasures drawn from Europe’s most important Revolutionary and Napoleonic collections, including the Château de Malmaison, Château de Versailles, Musée Carnavalet and Musée de l’Armée in France, the Napoleonmuseum Thurgau in Switzerland, and the Museo Napoleonico in Rome.
More information is available at the exhibition website.
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From the NGV:
Catalogue: Ted Gott and Karine Huguenaud with contributing authors, Napoleon: Revolution to Empire (Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 2012), 336 pages, ISBN: 9780724103560 (hardback) /978072410355-3 (paperback).
This panoramic volume tells the story of French art, culture and life from the 1770s to the 1820s: the first French voyages of discovery to Australia, the stormy period of social change with the outbreak of the French Revolution, and the rise to power of the young Napoleon Bonaparte and his wife Josephine. Together the couple defined taste for a new century, and in the age of exploration developed a particular fascination for Australia. As well as telling the remarkable story of France’s close involvement with Australia in the early 1800s, Napoleon: Revolution to Empire showcases hundreds of works of breathtaking opulence and luxury. Featuring insightful writing by world-renowned historians of Napoleonic art and design, this authoritative publication celebrates the vital contributions to the visual arts made by Napoleon as first Emperor of France.
New Title | ‘Don’t Ask for the Mona Lisa’
This small book looks useful not only for those new to working on exhibitions but also as a model for how a conference session with real-world application could be shaped into a publication and made available to a larger audience through print-on-demand (POD) services like Lulu.com. –CH
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From the AAH:
Heather Birchall and Amelia Yeates, Don’t Ask for the Mona Lisa: Guidelines for Academics on How to Propose, Prepare, and Organise an Exhibition (London: Association of Art Historians, 2012), 36 pages, ISBN: 9780957147706, £5 (hardcopy) / £3 (PDF download), available at Lulu.com.
36 pages, ISBN: 9780957147706
The writing and publication of these guidelines was prompted by an event held by the Committee of the Museums & Exhibition Members Group of the Association of Art Historians (AAH), at the AAH Annual Conference at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2009. The session, entitled Curators Don’t Bite, attracted a large crowd of academics and museum professionals eager to hear about the experiences, both positive and negative, of other academics and curators who had organised exhibitions. Following the event, it was clear that there was a demand for some advice on how to propose exhibitions and, once a show had been agreed, the practicalities of working with curators and other museum staff. This publication therefore aims to provide an introduction to key aspects of exhibition curation, from the early planning stages to the design and opening of the show.
Of course, every exhibition is different and, whilst this document cannot cover every aspect of exhibition planning, it does provide assistance to those organising both small-scale and large exhibitions, as well as offering guidance on working with paintings, sculptures, and contemporary installations. Whether your exhibition is to be held at a large venue, such as Tate Britain, with a team of curators, conservators, and technicians, or a smaller institution with only one or two members of staff, the intention of the authors has been to outline the possible eventualities and responsibilities associated with exhibition planning.
The first part of this publication gives guidance on why and how to propose an exhibition, and offers general advice on exhibition planning and installation. It describes the roles performed by certain staff members in galleries and museums, and the responsibilities they carry when an exhibition is being put together. Some technical terms are highlighted in bold in the main text, and defined in the
margin.
The second part comprises case studies by academics who have worked on exhibitions for both large organisations, such as Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, and small venues, including the Henry Moore Institute. This section also includes an interview with an exhibition designer that sets out some of the demands of fitting the design around the show’s theme, and sheds light on how to create a space that doesn’t overwhelm the exhibits.
At a time when museums and galleries are constantly tightening their budgets, a page at the end of this publication includes a list of funders to be approached if the museum’s budget cannot cover all the costs associated with the show, such as producing a catalogue or organising an associated study day or conference. Although the publication is primarily aimed at academics, and also freelances and students who may be considering putting together an exhibition proposal, we hope that it will also be useful for curators in the early stages of their careers working in a museum or gallery.
Information on ordering a copy is available here»
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