The Burlington Magazine, February 2022
The eighteenth century in February’s issue of The Burlington . . .
The Burlington Magazine 164 (February 2022) — Northern European Art
Nathaniel Dance Holland, Portrait of Christian VII, King of Denmark, 1768, oil on canvas, 77 × 63 cm (Royal Collection Trust).
A R T I C L E S
• Sara Ayres, “Christian VII of Denmark’s Lost British Portraits,” pp. 155–63. In 1768–69 the young Christian VII of Denmark visited London and Paris, where several portraits of him were painted. Three were by artists born or working in Britain—Angelica Kauffmann, Edward Cunningham, known as Calze, and Matthew Peters. All are now lost, but evidence about the comissions survives in copies and prints, contemporary descriptions and documents in the Danish State Archives.
• Lars Hendrikman, “The Finding of the Infant Bacchus,” pp. 180–83.
R E V I E W S
• Camilla Pietrabissa, Review of the exhibition Venetia 1600: Births and Rebirths (Venice: Palazza Ducale, 2021–22), pp. 190–92.
• Ivan Gaskell, Review of the new galleries of Dutch and Flemish art at the MFA Boston (open from November 2021), pp. 195–98.
• Richard Stemp, Review of the exhibition Hogarth and Europe (London: Tate Britain, 2021–22), pp. 198–200.
• Maryl Gensheimer, Review of Fabio Barry, Painting in Stone: Architecture and the Poetics of Marble from Antiquity to the Enlightenment (Yale UP, 2020), pp. 216–17.
• Clare Hornsby, Review of Ortwin Dally, Maria Gazzetti, and Arnold Nesselrath, eds., Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768): Ein Europ isches Rezeptionsph nomen / Fenomeno Europeo della Ricezione (Michael Imhof Verlag, 2021), pp. 217–18.
• Robert Skwirblies, Review of Lea Kuhn, Gemalte Kunstgeschichte: Bildgenealogien in der Malerei um 1800 (Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2020), pp. 218–19.
• Thomas Stammers, Review of Stacey Boldrick, Iconoclasm and the Museum (Routledge, 2020), p. 222.
O B I T U A R I E S
• Marjorie Trusted, “Christian Theuerkauff (1936–2021),” pp. 223–24. For many years Deputy Director of the sculpture collection at the Bode Museum, Berlin, and honorary professor at the city’s Free University, Christian Theuerkauff was a leading scholar of Baroque ivories, whose expert connosseurship and archival research definitively shaped our understanding of many of the outstanding sculptors in the medium.
Exhibition | Restoring Williamsburg
Arch Section and Pedestal Design on a Pine Board, Belle Farm, Gloucester County, Virginia. ca. 1775–80
(The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, AF-VA22560.1.1)
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Opening in April at Colonial Williamsburg:
Restoring Williamsburg
DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, Colonial Williamsburg, 20 April 2022 — December 2024
Since the 1930s, Colonial Williamsburg has been building its architectural collection. Now comprised of over 15,000 architectural fragments, it is an important and irreplaceable source of information on colonial American structures. The collection comes from existing structures and buildings lost to time. It includes everything from nails, bricks, framing and doors to wallpaper, plaster, and paint samples. These fragments play an important role in our understanding of 18th-century building materials and construction, and guide our everyday preservation of Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Area. Highlights of the exhibition include the contents of a rat’s nest found during restoration of Wetherburn’s Tavern, the original weathervane from the Magazine, and a split-screen video showing the town as it appeared in 1930 and in 2014.
From the press release (14 March) . . . .
Southwest dining room of the reconstructed King’s Arms Tavern, Colonial Williamsburg.
Decades ago a simple wooden board in use as a shelf was discovered in Belle Farm, an 18th-century house in Gloucester County, Virginia. It turned out to be much more than an untrained eye would notice at first glance: etched into the surface was the original design for two arches that are still to be seen in the house today. This extraordinary artifact provided Colonial Williamsburg’s architectural historians with valuable information on design development and layout in the last half of the 1700s. The design was later used as the model for the arches in the southwest dining room of the reconstructed King’s Arms Tavern on Colonial Williamsburg’s Duke of Gloucester Street. This etched board is one of approximately 80 objects that will be on view in Restoring Williamsburg, a new exhibition in the James Boswell and Christopher Caracci Gallery at the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, one of the recently expanded Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg. Opening on 30 April 2022, the exhibition will reveal how architectural historians and preservationists know what they know and do what they do. Through extremely rare objects and artifacts from the Colonial Williamsburg architectural collection, visitors will gain insights into the restoration and preservation work undertaken since the 1920s at the largest living history museum in the world and offer valuable clues to enhance their exploration of the Historic Area. Restoring Williamsburg will remain on view through December 2024.
Belle Farm with interior arches, ca. 1775–80.
“The art and science of accurately restoring original 18th-century buildings and meticulously recreating lost structures had their geneses at Colonial Williamsburg in the 1920s,” said Ronald L. Hurst, the Foundation’s vice president for museums, preservation, and historic resources. “As we enter the institutions 96th year, this is an exciting opportunity to reflect on the astonishing accomplishments of generations of Foundation scholars and tradespeople.”
Among the earliest and rarest surviving architectural elements from Williamsburg to be seen in Restoring Williamsburg is a ca.1695 scuttle door from the Nelson-Galt House on Francis Street (shown at left top), which served as an access hatch for the attic space. Its detailing includes foliated hinges and molded battens, typical of Williamsburg-area buildings in the 17th and early 18th centuries. Another extremely rare object appearing in the exhibition is a well-preserved 17th-century leaded casement window from Massachusetts (shown at bottom left). Such early windows were still to be found in Williamsburg as late as the 1760s. Archaeological excavations are the source of most information about the use of casement windows in Williamsburg. For example, the turned leads excavated at the site of Charlton’s Coffeehouse were used to guide the design of the casement windows now seen in the building’s cellar. The discovery of an iron staple in the foundations proved the location of what was by then a very old-fashioned window form.
“The architectural elements in the exhibition offer a snapshot of our collection, which forms the basis for the restoration and preservation work undertaken here at Colonial Williamsburg. They not only provide us actual 18th-century profiles, colors, and materials, but help further our understanding of Williamsburg’s 18th-century built environment,” said Dani Jaworski, Colonial Williamsburg’s manager of architectural collections.
Colonial Williamsburg’s ongoing restoration process frequently causes the architectural preservation team to reevaluate their understanding of individual buildings. One of the best examples of this process is illustrated by an overmantel painting of a landscape scene, originally installed in the 18th-century George Reid House. In order to try to date the painting, the team decided to restudy the building itself. Surprisingly, they discovered that the earliest section likely dates to the 1710s, making it the oldest surviving domestic structure on Duke of Gloucester Street. The new exhibition will show not only a rare paint-decorated panel, but explain how paint analysis, conservation, documentary research and architectural investigation combined to update both the historical record and the physical appearance of an original Historic Area building.
Restoring Williamsburg is generously funded by Thomas L. and Nancy S. Baker.
New Book | Lover’s Eyes
This is an updated and expanded version of the 2012 exhibition catalogue. From Giles:
Elle Shushan, ed., with additional contributions by Graham Boettcher and Stephen Lloyd, Lover’s Eyes: Eye Miniatures from the Skier Collection (London: Giles, 2022), 280 pages, ISBN: 978-1911282938, £40 / $50.
Until the early 2000s, little had been written about eye miniatures, or ‘Lover’s Eyes’, and their short-lived popularity at the end of the 18th and early 19th centuries, when hand-painted portraits of single human eyes were set in jewellery, or created to memorialize a deceased loved one. This new expanded and updated edition of the 2012 volume The Look of Love examines their role in the broader context of Georgian and early Victorian portrait miniatures; and looks in detail at the creation, and appeal, of these extraordinary objects.
Dr. and Mrs. David A. Skier’s collection of eye miniatures is one of the most complete such collections of this genre of miniature painting anywhere in existence. This volume features over 130 pieces from the Skier Collection, with 36 extraordinary newly acquired pieces, including two of the three known existing ‘lovers’ lips’, and six examples of a delightful sub-category known as ‘Flower Eyes’. There are four new illustrated essays: on forgeries and fakes of lovers’ eyes, on ‘Flower Eyes’, on the persistence of the eye image which continues the tradition of lovers’ eyes, and an essay on the eye miniatures created by Richard Cosway.
Elle Shushan is a specialist dealer, author, lecturer, and museum consultant. She is a member of the Antiques Dealers’ Association of America, the British Antique Dealers’ Association, CINOA, the Private Art Dealers Association, and the Association of Historians of American Art.
Stephen Lloyd is curator of the Derby Collection at Knowsley Hall, Merseyside. From 1993 to 2009 he was Assistant Keeper and then Senior Curator at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, where he co-curated the exhibition The Intimate Portrait: Drawings, Miniatures, and Pastels from Ramsay to Lawrence.
Graham Corray Boettcher is the director of the Birmingham Museum of Art in Birmingham, Alabama.
C O N T E N T S
Collectors’ Preface
Acknowledgements
The Artist’s Eye by Elle Shushan
Eye Miniatures by Richard Cosway by Stephen Lloyd
Symbol & Sentiment: Lover’s Eyes and the Language of Gemstones by Graham Boettcher
Floriography by Elle Shushan
Fake of Fashion by Elle Shushan
Love Never Dies by Graham Boettcher
Catalogue of the Exhibition by Graham Boettcher, Nan Skier, and Elle Shushan, with the assistance of Laura Wallace and Maggie Keenan
Index
Author biographies
Exhibition | Flora Yukhnovich: Thirst Trap
Flora Yukhnovich, I’ll Have What She’s Having, 2020, oil on linen, 170 × 220 cm. Estimated to sell for £60,000–£80,000, the painting sold for £2,253,500 (Sotheby’s London, 14 October 2021).
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After only a handful of solo exhibitions, beginning in 2017, the British artist Flora Yukhnovich (b. Norwich 1990) has recently emerged as a leading contemporary painter, receiving coverage in both visual arts media and the popular press. The New York Times recently included her in a piece about speculators hoping to to ‘flip’ art at auction (in October, her painting I’ll Have What She’s Having sold at Sotheby’s for $3.1million).
I note Yukhnovich here at Enfilade because of her engagement with eighteenth-century painting, an engagement she attributes to Mary Sheriff. In a 2020 interivew with Immediations, published by The Courtauld, Yukhnovich references both Fragonard: Art and Eroticism (University of Chicago Press, 1990) and Enchanted Islands: Picturing the Allure of Conquest in Eighteenth-Century France (University of Chicago Press, 2018).
As Yukhnovich describes her artistic development during the interview:
“I then began looking at decorative design. At first it was about the very flatness of it, which I really enjoyed. Then it became about the ways in which paint itself can do things, like create drop shadows, or the different ways in which paint can be used to construct space. It became apparent to me that I was gravitating toward these things because they were related to femininity in a way, but they also all happened to be derived from a Rococo aesthetic. When I found [Sheriff’s] book on Fragonard, I realised that a lot of the Rococo seemed to tap into all these different elements that I had been looking at. The aesthetic of the Rococo feels very familiar to me, and there are lots of things that I, as a woman and also as a girl growing up, interacted with which seem to have a Rococo sensibility to them. I do not feel like that about many other art historical movements. That is why I landed on it. It was about a lot of different interests coming together.”
–CH
Flora Yukhnovich, Siren Song, 2022.
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From the press release for the the exhibition now on view in London at Victoria Miro:
Flora Yukhnovich: Thirst Trap
Victoria Miro, London, 1–26 March 2022
Flora Yukhnovich is acclaimed for paintings that, fluctuating between abstraction and figuration, transcend painterly traditions to fuse high art with popular culture and intellect with intuition. While in the past she has adopted the language of Rococo, dynamically reimagining aspects of works by eighteenth-century artists such as Tiepolo, Boucher, Lancret, and Watteau, new paintings draw upon various depictions of the Roman goddess Venus in mythology, art history, and contemporary culture. Rather than focus on individual points of reference, each work synthesises a multitude of influences that convey the shifting representations and significations of Venus herself. Here the Venus who embodies idealised female form and is goddess of love, maternal care, sexual reproduction, and erotic desire, meets the Venus of violent origin and hybrid gender—promiscuous and vengeful.
In Greco-Roman mythology, Venus emerges fully formed when Cronus throws Uranus’s dismembered testicles into the sea; she is carried to land from the boiling spume in a shell. The artist says, “I was immediately drawn to the idea of her body being made of water… this fluidity of form feels like a very painterly concept to me, a bit like creating seemingly solid figures out of wet paint. There is a tendency for water and the sea to be spoken about as female—fluid and soft but also capricious and destructive. I like the potential for strength or force in that association and it’s something I try and bring to these paintings.”
Travelling back and forth through art, mythology and philosophy, and echoing Venus’s storied representations through time, Yukhnovich’s references are revealed to be equally as fluid. One influence is Rubens’s The Feast of Venus, 1636–37, in the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, which depicts the festivities of Veneralia—the ancient Roman festival celebrated on 1 April to honour Venus Verticordia, an epithet that alludes to the goddess’s ability to change hearts from lustful to chaste. Venus as an embodiment of propriety contrasts with her promiscuity in another source painting, Boucher’s Mars and Venus Surprised by Vulcan, c.1754, in the Wallace Collection, which captures the moment when Vulcan, on hearing of his wife’s infidelity with Mars, ensnares the adulterous couple in a golden net, inviting other gods to enjoy their humiliation.
Such divergent attributes are enfolded with allusions in contemporary culture, from Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita to Doja Cat, which demonstrate the enduring potency of Venus as symbol and spirit. In Yukhnovich’s paintings these references are never revealed explicitly. Rather, they are conveyed compositionally or chromatically: variation is a driving force, her virtuosic mark-making—ranging from delicate flourishes to dramatic and muscular brushstrokes—heightens a sense of rhythmic sensuality. Bubbles—by definition one substance contained by another—are a recurring motif in these works; effervescent, capricious, unstable, or transformative, they denote changing states that mirror Venus’s turbulent arrival in mythology and her ever-shifting presence in culture thereafter. Paint, in Yukhnovich’s hands, becomes the perfect vehicle to conjure the multiplicity of a subject which, characterised by flux and transformation, is as elusive as it is seductive.
Born in 1990, Flora Yukhnovich completed her MA at the City & Guilds of London Art School in 2017. She had her first solo exhibition at Brocket, London, in December 2017 and has recently exhibited at Parafin, London, GASK, the Gallery of the Central Bohemian Region, Czech Republic, the Jerwood Gallery Hastings, and at Blenheim Walk Gallery, Leeds Arts University, UK. Previous solo exhibitions with Victoria Miro include The Venice Paintings and Barcarole, both held in 2020. Collections include Government Art Collection and The David Roberts Art Foundation. In 2018 she completed The Great Women Artists Residency at Palazzo Monti, Brescia. Work by the artist will feature in the survey exhibition Impressionism: A World View; Yukhnovich’s painting will be exhibited in galleries dedicated to ‘Contemporary Neo-Impressionists’, on view at The Nassau County Museum of Art, NY, from 19 March to 10 July 2022. In 2023 Yukhnovich will be the first artist to take part in a new series of solo exhibitions responding to the collections of The Ashmolean, Oxford, titled Ashmolean NOW.
Print Quarterly, March 2022
The long eighteenth century in the latest issue of Print Quarterly:
Print Quarterly 39.1 (March 2022) . .
Charles Elie, T[alma] donnant une leçon de grâce et de dignité impériale (T[alma] giving a lesson in grace and imperial dignity), 1814, hand-coloured etching, 244 x 142 mm (London: British Museum).
A R T I C L E S
Antony Griffiths, “The Publication of Caricatures in Paris in 1814 and 1815, Part I: The Established Printsellers, Genty and Martinet,” pp. 31ff.
Two articles by Antony Griffiths on ‘The Publication of Caricatures in Paris in 1814 and 1815’—Part 1 in the March 2022 issue and Part 2 forthcoming—discuss the publication of caricatures in Paris during two years in which there were four regimes in power, and two occupations by foreign armies—a period which led to an unprecedented outpouring of social and political satire. Many works of great quality were produced, but most have only a title and do not reveal the names of the producers. The articles discuss how publishers and artists dealt with the political upheavals and identify some of the many participants who entered the field in these years. Part 1 deals with the caricatures published by members of the established print trade in Paris, and in particular Aaron Martinet and the newcomer Genty, who has previously been misidentified.
R E V I E W S
• Mark McDonald, Review of Juan Agustín Ceán Bermúdez, El Churriguerismo: discurso inédito (Alicante: Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, 2019), p. 79.
• Diana Greenwald, Review of Madeleine Viljoen, Nina Dubin and Meredith Martin, Meltdown! Picturing the World’s First Bubble Economy (Turnhout: Harvey Miller, 2020), p. 80.
• Ann V. Gunn, Review of John Bonehill, Anne Dulau Beveridge, and Nigel Leask, eds., Old Ways New Roads: Travels in Scotland 1720–1832 (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2021), p. 81.
• Marcia Reed, Review of Troy Bickham, Eating the Empire: Food and Society in Eighteenth-Century Britain (London: Reaktion, 2020), p. 84.
• Nigel Tattersfield, Review of Graham Williams, Thomas Bewick Engraver & the Performance of Woodblocks (Kent: Florin Press, 2021), p. 86.
• Janis A. Tomlinson, Review of Mark McDonald et al., Goya’s Graphic Imagination (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2021), p. 102.
Exhibition | A Shared Passion for Drawing
From:
Le partage d’une passion pour le dessin
Palais des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 22 March — 30 April 2022
Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Head of a Frightened Child, red chalk on beige paper (Beaux-Arts de Paris, acquired in 2013).
L’exposition dévoile un ensemble de 90 dessins, entrés dans les collections de l’École grâce à la générosité de l’association « Le Cabinet des amateurs de dessins des Beaux-Arts de Paris ». Le parcours, organisé à l’occasion des 15 ans de l’association, est présenté par écoles (italienne, nordique et française) à travers les siècles. Des œuvres d’Eugène Delacroix, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Gerrit Van Honthorst, Giuseppe Penone ou encore Simone Peterzano sont ainsi à découvrir.
Les Beaux-Arts de Paris conservent la plus belle collection de dessins de France, après celle du musée du Louvre. Cette collection continue aujourd’hui encore de s’enrichir grâce à une politique d’acquisitions conçue à des fins pédagogiques ; ainsi que par des dons de professeurs, de jeunes artistes, et de l’association « Le Cabinet des amateurs de dessins des Beaux-Arts de Paris ».
Le partage d’une passion pour le dessin (ENSBA, 2017), 282 pages, ISBN: 978-2840565093, 39€.
Exhibition | Piranesi: A Dream of Stone and and Ink
Now on view at the Mazarin Library:
Piranèse et son empreinte : un rêve de pierre et d’encre
Bibliothèque Mazarine, Paris, 1 March — 14 May 2022
Curated by Yoann Brault with Olivier Thomas and Érik Desmazières
Figure emblématique de cette « Académie de l’Europe » qu’est Rome au 18e siècle, Piranèse (1720–1778) occupe une place singulière dans notre héritage artistique et notre culture visuelle. Certes, il n’est pas seul à avoir fait accéder l’architecture figurée, réelle ou fictive, à un genre de plein droit. Mais cet artiste au génie impétueux et tourmenté, par la souplesse de sa technique, par ses effets dramatiques dans l’arrangement des lumières, ses disproportions et perspectives inattendues, a produit un univers visuel d’une puissance poétique inégalée.
Piranèse a nourri la veine française du néoclassicisme, et les efforts redoublés de ses fils ont permis de diffuser son oeuvre et d’étendre son influence depuis Rome ou Paris. Mais, après un demi-siècle de fascination, les productions de son génie n’ont pas échappé à l’usure de la curiosité et du goût. Dès la Restauration, les artistes du nouveau siècle se détournent de son empreinte. Bien qu’ici ou là tel amateur célèbre encore la « vigueur » de sa manière, on brocarde bientôt un oeuvre « improvisé avec facilité par l’imagination plutôt que produit par l’étude et par le temps » (Alfred Maury).
Cette déprise n’est pourtant pas totale. La poésie de ses planches, qui a tant et si précocement influencé l’art et la littérature préromantique, fait de Piranèse un passeur inopiné et, de ses Prisons, un motif obsédant que l’on retrouve en Angleterre puis en France, de Thomas De Quincey à Théophile Gautier. Il faut attendre l’entre-deux-guerres pour que le graveur recouvre la faveur des spécialistes, du public et des artistes qui y puisent à nouveau. Peut-être parce que son exploration inquiète du passé, son attrait pour le sublime et la démesure, pour la perte et la détresse, rejoignent les obsessions de notre temps.
Exposition organisée par les bibliothèques Mazarine et de l’Institut de France
Commissariat : Yoann Brault, avec la collaboration d’Olivier Thomas (bibl. de l’Institut)
Conseiller artistique et scientifique : Érik Desmazières (Académie des Beaux-Arts)
Exhibition | Antoine Coypel and the Theater of Troy
Now on view at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours:
Le Théâtre de Troie: Antoine Coypel, d’Homère à Virgile
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours, 22 January — 17 April 2022
L’exposition, présentée au musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours, en partenariat avec la Bibliothèque nationale de France, est une invitation à redécouvrir Antoine Coypel (1661–1722), peintre du roi Louis XIV et du régent Philippe d’Orléans. Aucune exposition monographique concernant Coypel n’a vu le jour jusqu’à présent, mais la connaissance de l’artiste a été récemment enrichie grâce à l’apparition sur le marché de l’art d’oeuvres inédites, à la redécouverte de tableaux que l’on croyait perdus et à la restauration de décors monumentaux, tel le plafond de l’hôtel d’Argenson, sur le point d’être révélé au public aux Archives Nationales. Sans prétendre à l’exhaustivité, l’exposition est une invitation à redécouvrir la personnalité attachante et la carrière prolifique d’Antoine Coypel, ainsi que les grands textes de l’Antiquité, d’Homère et de Virgile, ayant nourri son inspiration.
Autour de La Colère d’Achille et des Adieux d’Hector et Andromaque de Tours, une cinquantaine d’oeuvres des XVIIIᵉ et XIXᵉ siècles (tableaux, estampes, dessins, sculptures, objets d’art et planches gravées) sont réunies, grâce au prêt exceptionnel de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, du château de Versailles, des musées du Louvre, de Rennes, d’Angers, d’Arles, du Mobilier national et de l’École des Beaux-Arts de Paris.
Point d’orgue de l’exposition, la galerie d’Énée du Palais-Royal, chef-d’oeuvre d’Antoine Coypel aujourd’hui disparu, renaît au travers d’estampes spectaculaires de la Bibliothèque nationale de France. Les recherches approfondies menées pour reconstituer ce grand décor ont également permis de concevoir une maquette numérique de la galerie, en partenariat avec le musée Fabre de Montpellier, qui offre pour la première fois une proposition de reconstitution virtuelle en 3D très aboutie.
Une riche programmation culturelle (cycle de conférences, visites, spectacles de danse, musique, théâtre, cycle de péplums à la cinémathèque de Tours, cours d’histoire de l’art tout public, etc.) accompagnera toute la durée de cette exposition.
Le théâtre de Troie: Antoine Coypel, d’Homère à Virgile (Paris: Lienart éditions, 2022), 192 pages, ISBN: 978-2359063547, 23€.
Exhibition | La Fabrique des passions
Now on view at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours:
La Fabrique des passions
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours, 17 December 2021 — 28 March 2022
À partir du Serpent d’Airain (anonyme, 17ᵉ siècle) d’après Charles Le Brun, l’exposition La Fabrique des passions propose d’appréhender ce thème dans les arts du 17ᵉ au 19ᵉ siècle. Conformément à la pensée de René Descartes (Traité des passions, 1649), dont Charles Le Brun s’est inspiré, la passion—aujourd’hui synonyme d’émotion—se traduit comme l’expression incontrôlable d’un état affectif qui soumet l’âme et le corps. En 1668, Charles Le Brun, peintre du roi Louis XIV, donne une conférence à l’Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture dans laquelle il définit des modèles types d’expression des différentes passions.
Le parcours de l’exposition construit à partir d’oeuvres issues des réserves comporte trois entrées thématiques :
• les origines des passions dans les sources bibliques et mythologiques
• le théâtre comme nouvelle source d’inspiration des passions héroïques
• l’individualité des passions à travers les portraits et les études de têtes.
Origines des passions
Les origines des passions, observées à la fois d’un point de vue théorique, esthétique, religieux et historique, sont illustrées par trois oeuvres. Le Serpent d’Airain d’après Charles Le Brun, oeuvre maîtresse de l’exposition, présente les prémisses de la codification des passions. Les émotions—telles que l’admiration, l’effroi ou le ravissement—sont mises au service de la narration pour toucher le spectateur. Outre le travail sur l’expressivité des visages et des corps, l’intensité des couleurs participe à cette exaltation des émotions. Les origines des passions sont explorées à travers les thèmes fondateurs de la Bible. Aussi, pour mieux émouvoir, les artistes puisent-ils dans la culture du spectateur. Caïn et Abel (anonyme, 19ᵉ siècle), qui décrit le premier meurtre de l’histoire de l’humanité dans l’Ancien Testament, montre la brutalité de la passion débordante assimilée à la jalousie. La mythologie fournit d’autres sujets iconographiques propices à la mise en scène des passions à l’instar d’histoires légendaires de la Rome antique. L’Enlèvement d’une Sabine (anonyme, 19ᵉ siècle) d’après le chef-d’oeuvre du maniériste Jean de Bologne (16ᵉ siècle), sert ainsi de support plastique à la fabrique moderne d’une nouvelle esthétique des passions. Ici, la peur et la violence charnelle sont évoquées avec force.
Passions héroïques
Le théâtre, qui revisite la culture littéraire classique et savante aux 17ᵉ et 18ᵉ siècles, s’impose comme une nouvelle source d’inspiration de la figuration des passions héroïques. Les scènes de groupe, comme Les Funérailles de Pallas d’après Antoine Coypel (Louis Desplaces, 17ᵉ siècle), présentent une multitude de personnages qui incarnent le deuil, la tristesse et la désolation. Avec sa composition du dessin Briséis enlevée à Achille (18ᵉ siècle), Gaudar de Laverdine sublime les passions par un jeu de théâtralité des corps et des mouvements. Cléopâtre (huile sur toile, anonyme, 17ᵉ siècle) représente quant à elle la passion héroïque des femmes fortes, tout comme Polyxène (gouache, Guillaume Goudin, 18e siècle), princesse troyenne qui se sacrifie à la suite de la disparition de son bien-aimé.
Portraits et passions
Les portraits favorisent la focalisation progressive sur l’individualisation des émotions. À la suite du concours de têtes ouvert à l’initiative du Comte de Caylus (membre de l’Académie né en 1692 et mort en 1765), les études se consacrent désormais à la seule expressivité du visage. Jean-Baptiste Greuze apparaît comme l’archétype de l’artiste traitant de la tête d’expression (Tête de jeune femme, 18ᵉ siècle, copie), thème qui eut un grand succès à Paris et qui trouva également un écho à Tours comme en témoigne l’oeuvre d’Auguste Vinchon (Étude de femme, épisode de l’histoire de Venise, 19ᵉ siècle). L’exposition se conclut par un dessin d’Étienne-Pierre-Adrien Gois (plume et encre, 2ᵉ moitié du 17e siècle). L’autoportrait central, affichant une profonde expression méditative et introspective, est entouré de douze visages féminins et masculins, montrant la diversité des passions humaines. Les caricatures associées aux citations apportent un caractère comique et moralisateur à la lecture de l’image.
Entre théorie académique, théâtralisation et interprétation plus personnelle de la palette des émotions, ces oeuvres illustrent donc la manière dont les artistes se sont confrontés à la difficile codification des passions.
Commissariat
Andy Bodin, Alice Brozzoni, Emeline Chassine, Zoé Machado-Formiga, Marine Nabon, Elodie Poinha, Jurgen Poirier, Clara Roig, étudiant.e.s en Master 2 histoire de l’art, séminaire Pratique de l’exposition, à l’Université de Tours.
Lucie Gaugain, Maître de conférences en Histoire de l’art médiéval à l’Université de Tours, membre du CeTHiS, EA 6298
Delphine Rabier, ATER en Histoire de l’art moderne à l’Université de Tours, chercheur associé au CESR, UMR 7323
Coordination
Hélène Jagot, directrice des Musées-Château de Tours
Virginie Dansault, médiatrice, chargée des publics
Jessica Degain, conservatrice du patrimoine en charge des collections XVIIᵉ–XIXᵉ siècles
Catherine Pimbert, régisseuse des collections
Exhibition | Arte Sacra: Roman Catholic Art from Portuguese India
Now on view at NOMA:
Arte Sacra: Roman Catholic Art from Portuguese India
New Orleans Museum of Art, 13 March 2020 — 15 May 2022
Curated by Robert J. Del Bontà
Our Lady of the Rosary, 18th century, wood, with polychrome and gilt, 36 inches high (Collection Dr. Siddharth K. Bhansali).
In the centuries following the arrival of Francis Xavier, a Catholic missionary, in 1542, the state of Goa in western India became the administrative and economic center of a Portuguese empire that extended west to Africa and east to Malaysia, China, and Japan. The vast trade networks established by the Portuguese and Spanish allowed not only for the spread of Christianity, but also an unprecedented artistic exchange within these colonial empires. Works of art and valuable materials traveled between Spain, Portugal, and their colonies, leading to the development of new visual traditions informed by European imagery and local idioms.
European missionaries brought with them paintings, sculpture, and devotional objects for use in their evangelization efforts. Sculptures of saints and apostles, the Virgin Mary, Christ, and angels, made of wood and ivory, such as those seen in Arte Sacra, were created by Goan artists from Hindu and convert families. Initially based upon European prototypes, over time many works came to marry Christian imagery and symbols with local traditions. These works not only graced the interiors of European-style churches in Goa, but were also exported to Europe for use in religious establishments and for private devotion.
This exhibition, from the collection of Dr. Siddharth Bhansali, a New Orleans-based physician, reveals both the global influence of European seventeenth- and eighteenth-century styles, as well as the transformation of these styles in the hands of local artists creating a new visual tradition.
Robert J. Del Bontà, guest curator of Arte Sacra: Roman Catholic Art from Portuguese India, is an independent scholar of Indian art, who received his PhD from the University of Michigan in 1978. He has published numerous articles, contributed to scholarly publications, and curated exhibitions for the Berkeley Art Museum, the Portland Art Museum, and the University of Michigan Museum of Art. He provides a video tour of the exhibition here.
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