Exit Through The Giftshop - Pictures At An Exhibition: 21 today

The 21st look at postcards from galleries and museums..

1) THE DANCERS (1911 - 1912) - Duncan Grant

I bought this all the way back in 1997 at the Barbican's Modern Art In Britain 1910-1914 exhibition,  I was struck by the tension between the five figures, frozen in a hypnotic dance that seems tribal.  In 1911, Duncan Grant had completed his first version of THE DANCERS which was much more precise and vividly coloured.  I prefer this version which seems more mysterious and grave.

This version is a more post-impressionist take on his original, his vivid brushstrokes using colours more subdued and muted.  In 1909, Grant had visited Matisse in the artist's studio in Paris which confirmed his interest in the direction Matisse and his fellow post-impressionists were exploring.  This was fully confirmed in 1910 when he visited Roger Fry's first exhibition of the post-impressionists at the Grafton Gallery in London.

2) LE TERRASSE DE MÉRIC (1897) - Frédéric Bazille

 

This was bought at the excellent Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris which, as the name suggests, holds a large collection of works by Monet as well as other Impressionist painters.  I have a soft spot for Bazille who has never really had the props owed to him, partly because of his wealthy background and more sadly, because his career lasted six years before his death in battle during the Franco-Prussian War, aged only 29.  Bazille had always had a love of painting but his family insisted he study medicine as well in Paris.  He failed his medical exams, so switched whole-heartedly to art, having already met Renoir and Sisley. 

 

Frédéric was well-known for being a staunch friend. supporting his artist friends with money, studio space and materials.  His best works feature his family - as seen here on the terrace of his parents' home - and I love the formality and exactness of his work, you can almost feel the sunshine in the terrace. For me there is something that suggests Henry James about it, the feeling of secrets held by the characters.  Bazille puts himself into the painting, he is the very tall man on the right.
 

3) PORTRAIT OF GIOVANNA TORNABUONI (1489-1490) - Domenico Ghirlandio

 

 

Another lovely painting in another lovely museum!  Mrs Tornabuoni is currently residing in the cool modern surroundings of Madrid's Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza.  I hope she has a good agent because her profile is all over the giftshop... what's that?  Oh that's sad.  I wonder if she ever wondered while she was alive if she would be famous?  Well I am talking about her 533 years after her death during childbirth.

 

Two years after her demise, her husband requested that Ghirlandaio paint her portrait; luckily he had already featured her in his frescoes in the Tornabuoni chapel within Santa Maria Novella in Florence.  This glorious portrait has the late Giovanni facing the source of light which illumnates her elongated neck and wistful expression while also accentuating the golden silk of her gown adorned in Florentine detailing and the rich brocaded tunic she wears beneath it.  Her blonde hair in a bun and ringlets is captured beautifully and on the shelves behind her are a bible and a string of coral beads to denote her piety.  A Renaissance masterpiece...

4) EL CABALLERO DE LA MANO EN EL PECHO (1578-1580) - El Greco

I bought this mournful chap in the Prado, across the road from where Giovanna lives at the Thyssen-Bornemisza.  Many years ago I used to think El Greco was the greatest of painters but - now that I have seen them - I find them a bit ghastly, all those elongated faces with watery eyes and over-done colours, but I was struck with the restrained elegance of The Nobleman With His Hand On His Chest.

 

He has the usual elongated El Greco face but the restrained palette of black, grey and white tones it down and the painting of the white lace gives it real detailing.  Although the subject has never been definitively identified, some think it might be Cervantes.

5) SKIFFS ON THE RIVER YERRES (1877) - Gustave Caillebotte

When I visited the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, I was thrilled to find an exhibition of one of my favourites, Gustave Caillebotte, an artist who was equally at home in town or country.  His paintings of Paris show a city embracing modernity and it's citizens finding their place in the wake of Hausemann's rebuilding.  But he also found much in the countryside to inspire him: his father moved the family 12 miles outside Paris to the town of Yerres when Gustave was a young teenager and he did this painting of canooists on the river that ran by the town, one of several with this subject.

In his vividly painted composition, we observe three canooists - and one who has just glided out of our field of vision - as they paddle along the fast-flowing river on a sunny day.  The sunny day is wonderfully realised by the shiny surface of the river and the blaze of green trees overhanging the water; Caillebotte's excellent rendering of the reflections in the water really gives you an immediate sense of the reality.  I also like how the diamond-shaped paddles carry your gaze further back along the river to the lone canooist taking his time.  Like Bazille mentioned above, his independant wealth meant he never had to struggle to survive as an artist and in the last 11 years of his life he stopped exhibiting while becoming a keen garden and boatwright.  Like Bazille too, Gustave died far too young aged 45.

Exit Through The Giftshop - Pictures At An Exhibition #19

 Memories of treasures past...

1) CLOISTER OF SAINT ANTONINUS, SAN MARCO, FLORENCE (1436-1446) - Michelozzo

A favourite place in Florence, this is the cloister you enter into when you visit the San Marco convent.  From the busy square of the same name, you suddenly find yourself in the tranquil cloister with a large fresco of Saint Dominic with the crucified Christ by Fra Angelico facing you at the end of the first corridor. To your right is the entrance to the former pilgrim's hospice which houses many works by Fra Angelico in a single large room.  

The site of a monastery since the 12th Century, in 1437 the occupant order of monks were ordered to leave, making room for the Dominicans from the nearby village of Fiesole.  Finding the buildings in a bad state of disrepair, the monks requested help from Cosimo Medici The Elder who commissioned the architect Michelozzo to rebuild San Marco.  It's a must-see when visiting Florence.

2) AMERICAN GOTHIC (1930) - Grant Wood

An icon of 20th Century American painting, Grant Wood's AMERICAN GOTHIC has had a life of it's own from being used for endless parodies and instant cultural references.  I saw this at the Royal Academy's 2017 exhibition AMERICA AFTER THE FALL which looked at American art from the 1930s. Wood was born in Iowa in 1891 and started painting at an early age, drawing on the midwest landscape and people that surrounded him and he would later teach painting at the University of Iowa.  He died the day before his 51st birthday of pancreatic cancer.  

He lives on in his work and of course with AMERICAN GOTHIC, a painting of his sister Nan and his dentist Dr McKeeby!  The American Gothic alludes to the tall window in the farmhouse behind the couple.  Wood rejected all the reviewers who thought it must be a satire of mid-western people and said he meant it to be an honest representation, it is certainly hard to view without all the parodies coming to mind.

3) MAN OF SORROWS (1441) - Fra Angelico

One of the many stunning frescoes on the first floor of the San Marco convent (after you have past through the lovely cloister as seen above).  This is in cell 26 and the cell paintings were never meant to be seen by anyone but the Dominican monks who occupied the cells.  That is why the cell frescoes have a distilled quality to them, these are for meditation on the subject - here the suffering of Christ. 

Christ stands in his tomb presenting his wounds to a sorrowful Mary and the kneeling Saint Thomas.  What I love about it is the startling background: the cross, spear and sponge are physical objects of the crucifixion while - almost in filmic cut-aways - Christ is seen being kissed by Judas, St Peter being identified as an apostle, Christ is spat at and beaten with sticks while 30 pieces of silver are passed from hand to hand.  It's wonderful...

4) DUNCAN GRANT IN FRONT OF A MIRROR (1915-17) - Vanessa Bell

This was bought at the Dulwich Picture Gallery's fine exhibition of paintings by Vanessa Bell in 2017.  No doubt painted at Charleston, the painting gives an immediate sense of intimacy as Duncan poses with a coloured towel draped over his head, staring at himself and Vanessa in the mirror.

Duncan and his lover David Garnett had declared themselves concientious objectors during World War I which led to Vanessa finding Charleston Farmhouse in Firle to move into so the couple could stay there too while working as fruit farmers.  Friends since 1909, Vanessa and Duncan would briefly become lovers during this period which resulted in the birth of their daughter Angelica in 1918 - a fact that was kept from her until she was 18.

5) MADONNA OF HUMILITY (1440) - Fra Angelico

I bought this at Amsterdam's Rijks Museum where one of Fra Angelico's paintings of the Madonna of Humility is on permanent display.  Fra Angelico had a particular talent for this style of Madonna and child interpretation, representing not so much a static religious image but more of a tender moment caught between mother and child.

The glorious colour is lost in the postcard reproduction but Mary's blue cloak drapes and folds around her, the delicate gold edging coming and going among the folds.  This blue is offset by the rich gold of the emroided cloth that serves as a backdrop as well as the pattened golden cushion that she sits on.  A heartwarming rendition of a over-familiar image.

Exit Through The Giftshop - Postcards at an exhibition....

More adventures in museum and exhibition gift shops...

1) NAKED MAN STANDING (1505-6?) - Michelangelo

Although this postcard is published by the Louvre I have an idea I bought it at the British Museum in 2010 for their Italian Renaissance Drawings exhibition.

Michelangelo's pen and ink sketch wonderfully conjures solidity and muscle out of thin air; even The Louvre are unsure of exact dates for the drawing or what it might have been a sketch for.

2) THE ARTIST'S GARDEN AT GIVERNY (1900) - Claude Monet

I bought this at the Royal Academy's 1999 exhibition MONET IN THE 20TH CENTURY which made me appreciate Impressionist painting for the first time as I was exposed to room after room of Monet's remarkable works.

A bed of vibrantly painted Irises lead you away from the painter to the seclusion of the tree-lined path by his house; another painting I just want to jump into!

3) LILY POND TABLE (1913) - Duncan Grant

The table design is attributed to Duncan Grant and I bought the postcard at The Courtauld Gallery's 2009 exhibition "Beyond Bloomsbury: Designs of The Omega Workshops".  It was a poor excuse for the actual table itself but I would have had difficulty hiding it under my coat.

This lustrous design really stood out against all the other exhibits and suggested the dark cool water beneath the lovely greens and oranges of the lily pads.  Roger Fry set up the Omega Workshop in Bloomsbury to give younger artists the opportunity to make art (and money) by designing and making objects for the home, surrounding yourself with beautiful furniture as well as paintings on the wall.  Along with Grant, artists who worked on and off for Omega in it's six years of trading were Vanessa Bell, Carrington, Paul Nash and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska.

4) DAVID TRIBUNE (1501-4) - Michelangelo

Another postcard from the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence where Michelangelo's epic David stands in solitary majesty.  As you can see I do love a Michelangelo bloke in the nip.

DAVID was originally placed in the Piazza della Signoria beside the Palazzo Vecchio.  It stayed there for 369 years until it was moved to the Galleria in 1873.  One of the most famous bums in art.

5) PORTRAIT OF JEANNE KÉFER (1885) - Fernand Khnopff

I bought this a while ago at the Royal Academy's exhibition IMPRESSIONISM TO SYMBOLISM: THE BELGIAN AVANT-GARDE 1880-1900.  I love the charming delicacy of the painting of little Jeanne Kefér, dressed in her best to go out. The subdued colours of Khnopff's palette gives the picture an oddly luminous quality.

Five year-old Jeanne was the daughter of Khnopff's pianist friend Gustave; his positioning her in front of the large front door, along with her pensive expression, emphasizes her hesitancy in facing the outside world.

Exit Through The Giftshop - Postcards at an exhibition....

More postcards from exhibitions and galleries that have caught my eye...

1) TWO BATHERS (1921) - Duncan Grant

Not the best scan but the resolution on the card isn't the best either. I think I bought this at Tate Britain, possibly as part of the exhibition on art critic Kenneth Clark.

Two young male bathers relax after a swim, one is still drying himself while his friend sprawls on the grass gazing into the mid-distance, his languid fleshiness the central focus of the painting.  I like how Grant has fitted his frame into... the frame!

2) SANTA MARIA SOPRA MINERVA, ROME

Bought in the very place, Santa Maria Sopra Minerva is a basilica for the Dominican order in Rome, a stone's throw from the Pantheon.  Built over an ancient Roman temple, the church was completed and consecrated in 1370.

Yes that is an elephant obelisk in front of the church, the oblisk itself dates from the 1st Century and was found in 1665 in near-by excavations and certainly makes the church easy to spot!  The base was designed by the sculptor Bernini.  The church - which was hidden under scaffolding when we visited - is home to Michelangelo's magnificent marble statue of Christ The Redeemer (1521) and the grave of the Early Renaissance painter Fra Angelico.

3) COSTUME FOR MLLE BRIAND IN "LE ROSSIGNOL" (1914) - Aleksandr Benois

A lovely and delicate watercolour drawing of a costume design by the artist and scenic designer Benois for Stravinsky's opera LE ROSSIGNOL (The Nightingale).  This was part of a Barbican Gallery exhibition on Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes in 1996.

Benois is famous for his designs for the Ballets Russes but was also the Scenic Designer for Marinsky Theatre, home of the Imperial Ballet.  I find it utterly charming and transcends it's practical theatrical function.

4) VIRGIN AND CHILD (1450) - Fra Angelico

I bought this in Paris at the lovely Musée Jacquemart-Andre in 2011 when they had an exhibition called FRA ANGELICO AND THE MASTERS OF LIGHT which showcased the Early renaissance painter and contemporaries.  It is a nice memory of seeing Owen overjoyed to be finally able to stand in a gallery surrounded by paintings of his favourite artist.

As Owen said at the time, the power and intensity of his paintings comes from the belief he has in his subjects; as formal and fixed as his figures are, there resides in them a lovely tenderness of gaze and humanity.  Mary's watchful gaze is fixed on her son who stares at the viewer with an unsettling directness and, as usual when faced with his works themselves, ages can be spent marvelling at the glorious colours and detailed drapery of the curtains and robes.

5) SOLARISED PORTRAIT OF LEE MILLER (1929) - Man Ray

I bought this at the thrilling Man Ray exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in 2013. Both Man Ray and Miller had a growing interest in the process of solarisation, which excited the Surrealist photographer.

In the 1920s, Lee Miller had been one of the most sought-after fashion models in New York but in 1929 she moved to Paris to seek an apprenticeship with the photographer and artist Man Ray who, despite initial resistance, soon gave in and she became his muse, lover and more-than capable assistant - and all at the age of 22.  This personal daring and directness shines out of Man Ray's photograph.

"That will be our address forever and ever"

After my emotional visit to the National Portrait Gallery for their exhibition  VIRGINIA WOOLF: ART, LIFE, VISION, the next day was given over to something I had been planning for a long time - going to Virginia Woolf's country home Monk's House in the small Sussex village of Rodmell.

We got the train from Victoria, changing at Lewes for the one-an-hour train to the unmanned station of Southease.  It is a mile walk from there to Rodmell and, for a city mouse like myself, it was an oddly disconcerting feeling for us to be the only ones on the road for as far as you could see!

We walked for a while until we saw a signpost saying 'Rodmell 1/2 Mile' which led us to a country path that wandered up a hill, down a hill, down some roughly constructed stairs and along a field's edge, all the time being fluttered around by butterflies and at one point a rather large Dragonfly that sat quite happily on a flower as I stroked it's wing but flew away sharpish when I opened my Pepsi Max bottle.  Maybe it preferred Diet Coke?

 

Then just as I was beginning to tire of walking, there we were in the village and turning down the quiet road which eventually leads to Monk's House.  The garage was been converted to a shop/visitor centre and, very excited, I opened the gate and walked up the side of the house to the entrance at it's back.  Virginia and Leonard bought the house in 1919 and were able to make much-needed renovations and additions as Virginia's books became more and more successful during the 1920s and 1930s. 

At once I felt happy to be there.  There are very friendly volunteers in each of the four public-access rooms, very happy to tell you about the history of the items on display and the Woolf's life in their home.  The living room is the first you enter and what strikes you first is the low ceiling and the cool, green colour-scheme that makes it a wonderfully calm area.  The colour was one of Virginia's favourites and it adds to the ambiance of the room, the easy chairs facing each other by the fire giving the impression of the Woolf's companionship, Leonard's writing desk open and waiting for him to tear off another letter railing at the injustices of the world...

On all the walls are paintings by those close to the couple, Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant are of course represented highly, but there are also paintings contributed by Trekkie Parsons, who shared the house with Leonard after Virginia's death, up until Leonard's own death in 1969.  I was very taken with the low tables in the living room and bedroom, covered with gleaming tiles painted by Grant.

The dining room and kitchen are also on display as is Virginia's small, neat bedroom which was built onto the side of the house in 1929, originally as a writing room but she found it to be an ideal bedroom, it's windows letting in lots of sunlight and surrounded by the garden.

It was humbling to be there and see her personally hand-covered collection of Shakespeare plays and Vanessa's delightful tiled fireplace, painted by her for Virginia to mark the success of TO THE LIGHTHOUSE.

There is also Virginia's writing lodge in the gardens, a short walk away from the house across the lawn, it's doors opening up onto an unspoiled view of the Downs.  We were told that we were lucky that they had a full compliment of volunteers so the lodge was actually open to visitors and it was wonderful to stand there by her writing desk, her glasses and cigarettes still there waiting to be used.  The volunteer said sadly all we could do in there was look and breathe in the air.  That was fine for me.

There is also the very large garden to explore which, like the house, was made bigger as the Woolf's fortunes grew, allowing them to buy up adjacent plots of land.  We were blessed with sunny, warm weather which made it a delight to wander around it's terraces, hidden nooks and allotments.

For a Friday lunchtime it was nicely busy but not excessively so it was easy to wander around at your own pace, doubling back on yourself and exploring all the turnings.  On our wander we discovered the shell of Leonard's greenhouse which they are hoping to renovate and nearby was the side-gate out onto the adjacent lane.  It slowly dawned on me that this was the gate that Virginia used to slip away on that March day in 1941, physically and metaphorically turning her back on her life and writing to walk to the River Ouse.

Sadly the two elm trees - which the couple named 'Virginia' and 'Leonard' - that their ashes were buried under are no longer there.  One died through Dutch Elm disease while the other was blown down in a gale and one of the volunteers told me they would love to replant them if they could find an elm resistant to the disease.

After the necessary purchases from the garage shop, it was time to reflect and have lunch in the nearby village pub then to do the walk back though the fields to the station and return to London.  Virginia loved London life with it's teeming vibrancy and cultural whirl but when it all got too much for her, there was Monk's House to regain her equilibrium and to sink into the quiet she so desperately needed.

I am already looking forward to visiting again...

Moments of Being

When I heard that the National Portrait Gallery were staging an exhibition about Virginia Woolf I was excited but worried too - she is my favourite writer and the concern is how do you do an exhibition of her which would include her writing as well as her personality.

 

Although I loved walking around the exhibition, the curator Frances Spalding (whose books on Bloomsbury I have enjoyed) has not really addressed that central problem of balancing the woman and her art.  That would not stop me however recommending it to anyone who admires Woolf and her work.

As you enter the exhibition you are confronted by a close-up of that extraordinary face along with a photograph of her bomb-shattered house in Tavistock Square in 1940, setting up the premise of the fragility of life.  After that it is a fairly chronological exhibition which only takes up four rooms.  This was also a bit disappointing, it gave the exhibition the air of skimming the surface.

Through the exhibition it was interesting to see the constant representations of Virginia through photographs, paintings and even sculpture.  The now-iconic Beresford photographs of the 20 year-old Miss Virginia Stephen share space with snapshots from family and friends - Bloomsbury loved to photograph itself! - and with professional photographers such as Giséle Freund and Man Ray.

Paintings of Virginia by her sister Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and Roger Fry share space with portraits of fellow Bloomsbury figures such as the artists named, Lytton Strachey, Desmond McCarthy, Saxon Sidney Turner, Dora Carrington and of course Leonard Woolf.  Also included is Stephen Tomlin's haunting life-size bust of her, eyes wide with mouth open as if about to speak.

There were of course her publications: from her first novel THE VOYAGE OUT to the first Hogarth Press publications, hand-bound and printed by Virginia and Leonard, hand-written proofs as well as her great works where she wrestled the novel form into something new, something closer to life in all it's complexity.

The final room is called "Thinking Is My Fighting" and covers the growing threat of Fascism in the 1930s.  There is a drawing by Picasso called "Weeping Woman" which he donated to a fundraising event for Basque children which Virginia, Leonard, Vanessa and her youngest son Quentin had supported.  The title proved sadly prophetic when three weeks later, Vanessa's oldest son Julian was killed driving an ambulance for the Republicans in Spain, leaving Vanessa inconsolable.  Also on display is the Nazi 'black book', of intellectuals and writers who were to be arrested after a Nazi invasion, with Leonard and Virginia's names printed within.

All the way around the exhibition I felt Virginia eluding one's grasp, slipping around the far corner of the room, but here in the final room she was suddenly very close by.  Displayed in the same case as Virginia's taut, nervy letter to Hogarth Press editor John Lehmann on March 20th 1941 stating she felt her recent novel BETWEEN THE ACTS was unpublishable, was her walking stick that was found eight days later lying on the bank of the nearby River Ouse.

Facing this, framed together, were Virginia's last two letters, one to Vanessa, one to Leonard.  Although I have read these letters transcribed in countless biographies of her, to actually see them was incredibly moving and I cried as I looked at them.  Virginia the novelist, writing now for the last time to her sister and husband, the people who she loved the most.  Not writing to stretch the form or to test boundaries, just to express her love to those who would miss her the most and her apology that now she was losing herself to another of her terrible depressions she knew she could not find her way back this time.

And I thought of the last words of MRS DALLOWAY “...For there she was.”  For, finally in the exhibition, there she was.

For Art's Sake 2: "...the God-given genius of certain individuals..."

There have been quite a few visits to galleries this year, some more memorable than others.

We went to the Dulwich Picture Gallery to see their exhibition titled DAVID HOCKEY: PRINTMAKER and while not making me any more of a fan, it certainly showed the breadth of his ever-roaming interest in creating art - the show even ended with artworks he has created on a photocopier. The colours were particularly vibrant and lush...

We also saw the exhibition at the National Gallery, STRANGE BEAUTY: MASTERS OF THE GERMAN RENAISSANCE.  Again it didn't exactly rock my world - once you have seen one North European wizened, monkey-like face you have seen them all.  But there were some that I really liked... Jan Van Eyck's famous "Arnolfini Portrait" of the named couple looking very stately yet mysterious, Lucas Cranach the Elder's enigmatic "Portrait of A Woman" and Hans Holbein was well represented by a cameo of Anne of Cleves as well as "A Lady With A Squirrel And A Starling" - the squirrel was particularly lovely!

At Tate Britain, there was a very interesting exhibition called KENNETH CLARKE: LOOKING FOR CIVILISATION which was an overview of the wide-ranging art collection which belonged to the art historian and broadcaster, whose 1969 BBC series CIVILISATION was one of the first 'personal view' arts series.

Across the exhibition you follow Clark's life, from his privileged upbringing to his remarkable ascension to being, at 30, the youngest ever director of the National Gallery.  He used his influence - and private wealth - to help artists on their way (particularly during WWII).  Also during WWII, he saved the National Gallery's finest works from the London bombings by hiding them in Welsh caves while keeping the building open for free lunch-time recitals. 

 
The show has been criticised for showing his traditionalist interests - he was famously dismissive of the 1950s explosion in Modern Art - but there was plenty to enjoy.  It is unsurprising however that Clark himself remained an elusive, anonymous subject - can you understand anyone simply by their interest in art?

Clark was a particular fan of Bloomsbury and in one of the rooms Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell's self-portraits are close to each other, as well as Vanessa's portrait of daughter Angelica as a Russian princess and home furnishings designed by them too for Roger Fry's Omega Workshop.

 I was particularly excited to see two paintings by Seurat which I had never seen before: the mysterious and hazy "The Forest at Pontaubert" from 1881 and the glorious "Le Bec du Hoc, Grandcamp" from 1885.  The reproduction really does not do it justice - his remarkable use of colour in his pointillist style was hypnotic and I stood for a long time in front of it, lost in it's rhythm.

I was hugely engaged walking around the exhibition and among other fine works were a glowing Samuel Palmer painting from around 1830, some moody works by Victor Pasmore and John Piper and Paul Nash's epic BATTLE OF BRITAIN from 1941.

Sharing the space with this huge canvas were smaller, more painful works based on the human experience of conflict.  Henry Moore's cramped and gloomy sketches of people huddled together in the tube stations during the Blitz and the evocative and haunting works of Mary Kessell, a WWII accredited war artist who was based in Europe at the end of the conflict and was well-placed to document the refugees and the revealed horrors of the concentration camps.

I particularly liked her 1945 work "Refugees: '... pray ye that your fight be not in the winter...' Matthew XXIV, 20" of refugees trudging through an impenetrable winter.

This hugely enjoyable exhibition is on until 10th August.