Exhibition on Cook’s Voyages
James Cook and the Exploration of the Pacific / James Cook und die Entdeckung der Südsee
Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn, 28 August 2009 — 28 February 2010
Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Ethnology), Vienna, 10 May — 13 September 2010
Historisches Museum, Bern, 7 October 2010 — 13 February 2011
The British navigator and explorer James Cook (1728–1779) is famous for having led three expeditions into the vast and uncharted waters of the Pacific Ocean. He was the first to survey and map New Zealand, Australia and the South Pacific islands, completing our modern image of the world and refuting once and for all the existence of a mythical Southern Continent.
William Hodges, The War-Boats of the Island of Otaheite, Tahiti, 1777, © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Ministry of Defence Art Collection
An interdisciplinary presentation of the Age of Enlightenment
The exhibition focuses on the European perspective on the newly discovered worlds. In the spirit of the Age of Enlightenment, it seeks to bring together and crosslink for the first time research results from a wide range of disciplines, such as natural history, maritime history, art history and early ethnology. Cook’s expeditions into the South Seas brought about a fundamental change in the way Europe saw the world and ushered in the dawn of modern Europe under the auspices of the Enlightenment belief in the power of progress.
It is to Cook and the naturalists, scholars and draughtsmen who took part in his three expeditions that Europeans owe the first systematic, reliable maps and the earliest comprehensive surveys of the geological structures and the flora and fauna of the Pacific islands. Similarly, the encounters with the people ‘on the other side of the world’ were described and documented in a degree of detail never before attempted.
A breast ornament from the Society Islands. © The Cook/Forster Collection, University of Göttingen
Objects from all over the world recount Cook’s expeditions
A fascinating selection of some 550 objects and artefacts recount the pioneering voyages of James Cook and his international team of scientists. By the end of the 18th century the ethnographic and natural history objects collected from many different Pacific cultures during the three Cook voyages had been dispersed among collections all over Europe. The exhibition in Bonn brings them back together for the first time in over two hundred years. Another important first is the cooperation between the leading British ethnographic collections in Oxford, London and Cambridge and their counterparts on the Continent – above all the collections of Göttingen, Vienna and Bern – as well as other museums worldwide.
Many of the exquisite feather ornaments, wooden sculptures and other Oceanic artefacts are of incalculable value to art historians, since comparable objects have all but disappeared from the Pacific region. Made before the fateful encounter with the Europeans, these objects allow present-day Pacific cultures to assert or rediscover their own identity in today’s globalised world.
The ethnographic items are complemented by magnificent paintings and drawings by the artists accompanying Cook on his voyages. These works capture the unique mix of euphoria and inquisitiveness that characterised the explorers’ encounter with the exotic world of the South Seas. Ship models, original sea charts and navigation instruments bring to life James Cook’s daring voyages into the unknown. Alongside spectacular loans from the National Maritime Museum, the Natural History Museum and the British Library in London, the Art and Exhibition Hall is delighted to have secured the loan of items of Cook’s personal property from Australia. (more…)
Ship Models from the Permanent Collection of the AGO
Ship Models: Thomson Collection
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Two-decker Warship rigged with original sails Prisoner of War Model, 1794-1815 Great Britain, probably by French sailors Bone, brass, silk (9½ x 11 x 3½ ins)
British Two-decker 50/54-Gun Warship Navy Board Model, Great Britain, c. 1703 Wood, paper, paint, gilding, glass (32½ x 40½ x 15¼ ins)
The Thomson Collection at the AGO spans some 350 years and contains examples of exquisite workmanship and some of the masterpieces of the genre.
Foremost are rare late 17th- and 18th-century British dockyard models, made to scale for the Royal Navy and wealthy individuals. There is also a large number of models made by some of the 120,000 prisoners of the Napoleonic Wars. These models, made from wood and bone, with rigging of silk and human hair, were produced by teams of skilled craftsmen and sold to local British collectors who gathered at the prison gates. The shipbuilders’ models extend from the mid 19th century to the Second World War, representing a diversity of both model style and ship type ranging from tugs, dredgers and trawlers to cargo vessels, passenger steamers, private yachts, corvettes, battleships, cruisers, torpedo boats, destroyers and two aircraft carriers.
Homecoming for Reynolds
From the City of Plymouth’s exhibition website:
Sir Joshua Reynolds: The Acquisition of Genius
Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, 21 November 2009 — 20 February 2010
Exhibition catalogue edited by Sam Smiles, ISBN: 9781906593407
Sir Joshua Reynolds: The Acquisition of Genius is a major art exhibition that celebrates the life and work of a man who was born in Plympton in 1723 and went on to become one of Britain’s finest and most fashionable portrait painters. This, the largest exhibition on Reynolds ever held outside London, showcases new research by the University of Plymouth as well as works of art from Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery’s own collections, major loan items from regional, national, public and private collections and fascinating personal objects.
Learn about Reynolds’s career from his earliest commissions in and around Plymouth to his pre-eminence in the London art world of the late 18th century. Re-discover his significance to Plymouth and the South West. Find out about his
achievements as both an artist and a collector.
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Hugh Belsey reviews the exhibition for Apollo Magazine (February 2010). Coverage can also be found at the BBC.
Bon Mardi Gras
From the website of the Réunion des musées nationaux (RMN):
Josephine’s Wine Cellar at Malmaison during the Empire
Châteaux de Malmaison and de Bois-Préau Museum, 18 November 2009 — 8 March 2010
Carafe with Josephine’s monogram, First Empire (1804-1814), crystal, Musée National des Châteaux de Malmaison et Bois-Préau © Rmn / André Martin
The idea for this exhibition came from the inventory drawn up after the death of the Empress Josephine which listed the contents of the cellar at Malmaison – over thirteen thousand bottles. The list of wines served to guests in the house is striking for the number of crus mentioned and the variety of the regions they came from. The best crus from Bordeaux and Burgundy stand alongside Mediterranean wine, in the sweet, syrupy taste of the eighteenth century, the most famous names in Champagne, wines from Languedoc-Roussillon, Côtes du Rhône and the Rhineland. Rum and liqueurs from the West Indies are a reminder of the Empress’ origins.
The exhibition attempts to show the evolution of wine production and marketing during the Empire. It was boosted by progress in the glassmaking industry, which was particularly noticeable in the shape of the bottles. Iconographic documents and account books kept by Josephine’s suppliers reveal the variety and quantity of the empress’ orders.
Elegant ice buckets, glass coolers, crystal and metal punch bowls illustrate the refinement and prestige of the tableware at Malmaison and stand alongside the most brilliant pieces of glassware, some bearing the monograms the sovereigns from Josephine to Louis-Philippe. The latter demonstrate the technical progress made in French glassmaking, which facilitated the search for new forms, and bear witness to the evolution of table manners in the years after the revolution. Objects made after the Consulate and the Empire complement this rich overview and show the changes in the production of glassmaking, bottling and labelling in the first half of the nineteenth century up until the beginning of the Second Empire.
With the classification of the grands vins of Bordeaux in 1855 and developments in transportation, this was a period of deep change. A final section is dedicated to the representation of wine in the Napoleonic legend.
The exhibition brings together more than two hundred objets d’art and iconographic documents not only from the Musée de Malmaison but from the collections of the museums of the Château de Fontainebleau, the Château de Compiègne, the Château d’Eu (Musée Louis-Philippe), the Musée Carnavalet, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, the Musée National de Céramique de Sèvres, the Archives Nationales, the Fondation Napoléon, the musée Napoléon Thurgovie, château et parc d’Arenenberg, (canton of Thurgovia, Switzerland) and the Museo Napoleonico, Rome. Other items are on loan from industrial or commercial firms such as Moët et Chandon, or from private collections. Taking an artistic and historical angle, the exhibition shows that Josephine’s cellar is a precious testimony to the gracious entertaining which long made the charm and reputation of Malmaison. (more…)
Amber Exhibition in Scotland
As noted at Artdaily.org:
Amber: Treasures from Poland
Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow, 5 February — 17 April 2010
Amber cabinet of King Stanisław August Poniatowski (the last king of Poland). Made in Gdańsk after 1771. Donated by Lady Barbara Carmont of Edinburgh to the Malbork Castle Museum collections in 1979. © Malbork Castle Museum.
From the earliest times, the southern shores of the Baltic Sea have been associated with the gathering, trading and working of amber – a natural substance which has been long valued by man. Featuring some of the finest items from the Polish national collection, this new exhibition, Amber: Treasures from Poland offers a unique chance to see some fascinating and beautiful artefacts which represent both natural history and northern European craftsmanship. This is the first time that these items have been exhibited in the UK.
Most are from the famous Malbork Castle collection in Poland which has an important national collection of Baltic amber artefacts. Also included is the famous Gierłowska lizard from the Gdańsk Amber Museum, as well as a collection of insects trapped in amber and some historical amber artefacts from the Hunterian collection.
Amber is found in many varieties of colours and forms and amber from the Baltic region of Europe is one of the most abundant in the world. It is used around the world for medical or spiritual wellbeing, for adornment or decoration, and for scientific reasons.
This exhibition introduces amber from prehistory to natural history; it looks at how people related to amber from the Stone Age onwards and at the incredible techniques and skill of the amber craftsmen who created some of the finest examples of amber art ever seen.
The launch of a new book Amber: Tears of the Gods (Dunedin Academic Press) will coincide with the opening of the exhibition. It has been written by Dr Neil DL Clark, Curator of Palaeontology at the Hunterian.
European Romanticism on Paper
Varieties of Romantic Experience: Drawings from the Collection of Charles Ryskamp
New Haven, Yale Center for British Art, 4 February — 25 April 2010
ISBN: 0300152922 (Yale University Press), $75
In 1824, the Scottish painter David Wilkie wrote to the director of the French Royal Museums, “It is time to show that the arts are cosmopolitan and that all national prejudice is foreign to them.” In spite of Wilkie’s fine sentiment, drawings by British artists from the Romantic period have rarely been considered alongside those produced across the Channel. In response, this remarkable exhibition will take up the challenge of treating Romanticism as an international phenomenon by bringing together nearly two hundred British, French, German, Danish, and Dutch drawings from the outstanding collection of Charles Ryskamp (MA ’51, PhD ’56), Professor Emeritus, Princeton University, and Director Emeritus of the Pierpont Morgan Library and The Frick Collection in New York. The first exhibition of this scope dedicated to northern European drawings, it will consider the place of British art in a European milieu.
Varieties of Romantic Experience: Drawings from the Collection of Charles Ryskamp will explore the direct relationship between British and Continental artists during the Romantic period (here defined as the period between the French Revolution in 1789 and the revolutions of 1848). Despite the very different circumstances in which artists across Europe were working, and the diverse modes of representation they employed, they shared common concerns and frequently explored similar themes. The exhibition and accompanying book will focus on Romanticism’s novel exploration of two worlds in particular: nature and the imagination. (more…)
One More Thing for the Chicago Itinerary
Sites to Behold: Travels in Eighteenth-Century Rome
Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, 3 November 2009 — 11 April 2010
Curated by Anne Leonard
Jean-Baptiste Lallemand, "View of Rome: The Tiber River with the Castel Sant’Angelo and St. Peter’s Basilica in the Distance," n.d., Gouache on paper. Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, Gift of Lucia Woods Lindley, 2006.96.
Rome has long been a leading tourist destination. Many of the “must-see” sites were codified centuries ago as part of the Grand Tour, a journey undertaken by young aristocrats to complete their education and give them experience of the world. But by the late eighteenth century, the once-exclusive Grand Tour was giving way to more modern, democratic notions of travel. No longer the preserve of a privileged elite, travel to Italy and other places came within the reach of a wider public, who were eager for tangible souvenirs of what they saw and experienced. This exhibition presents etchings by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, gouache drawings by Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Lallemand, and other works depicting Rome and nearby Tivoli. These eighteenth-century artists, with their different temperaments, techniques, and styles, produced a breathtaking variety of art. A far cry from the monotony of the picture-postcard aesthetic, the works on view appealed to a wide array of tastes and allowed travelers of the period to marvel at the splendor and ruin of an ancient world long after they returned home.
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Right about now, those of you attending CAA in Chicago are probably beginning to cringe at just how tight your schedule already looks. But in the event you can find a few hours to get away from the conference hotel, I would whole-heartedly recommend a morning or afternoon in Hyde Park. In addition to this exhibition at the Smart Museum, the campus of the University of Chicago offers the Oriental Institute Museum, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House, and the Renaissance Society (for ancient, modern, and contemporary aesthetic experiences). The Renaissance Society is currently showing the photographs of Anna Shteynshleyger. No visit is complete without a stop at the Seminary Co-Op Bookstore (one of the best academic bookstores in the world), and La petite folie makes for a lovely quiet lunch or dinner. Hyde Park is easily reached via the Metra commuter train system, available just a few blocks from the Hyatt at Millennium Station. –C.H.
Courtly Frames in Munich
From The Art Newspaper:
The Art of the Frame: Exploring the Holdings of the Alte Pinakothek
Alte Pinakothek, Munich, 28 January — 18 April 2010
Johann Christian Sperling, "Markgraf Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Brandenburg-Ansbach as a 13-year-old Boy," 1726, frame by Cuvilliés, 1755
The Alte Pinakothek was a pioneer in exhibitions devoted to picture frames and framing when it showed Italian Frames from the 14th to the 18th Centuries in 1976. Now the museum resumes its investigations with this more closely focused exhibition that presents ‘court’ frames dating from between 1600 and 1850. In the baroque period, frames were made by cabinetmakers rather than woodcarvers or sculptors as was the case elsewhere.
The majority of frames were made of ebony or ebonised wood with wave and ripple ornaments referred to as flammleisten—flame moulding—alluding to the effect caused by the flickerings of candlelight on the broad, black surfaces. The most significant change came with the return of the Elector Maximilian II Emanuel from exile in the Netherlands and France in 1715, with his architect Joseph Effner. Vast, three-dimensional sculptural frames with a range of gold leaf were used for the display of ceremonial scenes, portraits and old masters.
Effner was succeeded as court architect by François de Cuvilliés, the central figure in Munich of the pan-German enthusiasm for the rococo, the taste for which lasted up to 1780 (shown here, Johann Christian Sperling, Markgraf Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Brandenburg-Ansbach as a 13-year-old Boy, 1726; frame by Cuvilliés, 1755).
In 1779 Carl Albert von Lespilliez was commissioned to frame the Electoral picture collection in the Hofgarten Galerie which he did using the up-to-date neo-classical frame, with leaf, frieze, beading and scotia. The Napoleonic wars spelled the end of the craftsman-made frame along with other luxury items, and the Industrial Revolution ushered in the period of mass-produced products. . .
For the full article click here»
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As noted in a press release for the exhibition, there is an accompanying catalogue, edited by the show’s curator, Helge Siefert, Rahmenkunst: Auf Spurensuche in der Alten Pinakothek (Munich: Prestel, 2010), ISBN: 9783775726061
Seven Years’ War at the Huntington
From the Huntington’s website:
A Clash of Empires: The Seven Years’ War and British America
Huntington Library (West Hall), San Marino, CA, 13 February — 28 June 2010
Some 20 years before the shot “heard ‘round the world” initiated the War of Independence, other shots, fired in what is now southwestern Pennsylvania, literally set the world on fire. On May 28, 1754, a detachment of Virginia militia commanded by a young George Washington ambushed a party of French soldiers in the territory claimed by both France and England. Less than two months later, French reinforcements surrounded the stockade hastily built by Washington’s men and forced their surrender. This skirmish triggered a chain of events that erupted in a conflict known as the French and Indian War or the Seven Years’ War and drew into its vortex all the European powers and engulfed the entire globe. A Clash of Empires examines the causes, course, and consequences of the conflict through the eyes of its many participants, publicly displaying for the first time materials from the Huntington Library’s vast collections documenting this turning point in modern history.
Built by Numbers
This exhibition was on view at Oxford’s Museum of the History of Science last summer; it opens at the YCBA in February. The following description comes from the latter’s website:
Compass & Rule: Architecture as Mathematical Practice in England, 1500-1750
Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, 16 June — 6 September 2009
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 18 February — 30 May 2010
Catalogue edited by Anthony Gerbino and Stephen Johnston (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009)
The spread of Renaissance culture in England coincided with the birth of architecture as a profession. Identified as a branch of practical mathematics, architecture became the most artistic of the sciences and the most scientific of the arts. During this time, new concepts of design based on geometry changed how architects worked and what they built, as well as the intellectual status and social standing of their discipline.
Compass & Rule examines the role of mathematics in architectural design and building technology, highlighting the dramatic transformation of English architecture between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. The exhibition brings together some of the finest architectural and scientific material from the early modern period, including drawings of St. Paul’s Cathedral, an astrolabe commissioned for Queen Elizabeth I, and architectural drawings by King George III. Also on view will be nearly one hundred drawings, paintings, printed books and manuscripts, maps, and other unique mathematical instruments that illustrate the changing role of both the architect and the profession 1500 to 1750.
An illustrated catalogue edited by exhibition curators Anthony Gerbino, architectural historian and Senior Research Fellow of Worcester College, University of Oxford, and Stephen Johnston, Assistant Keeper at the Museum of the History of Science, University of Oxford, will accompany the exhibition.
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