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

Another selection of postcards that have grabbed my eye at exhibitions and galleries...

1) THE RISEN CHRIST (1521) - Michelangelo

This was bought in the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva where Michelangelo's glorious statue stands between the main altar and the grave of artist Fra Angelo.  It is remarkable to be able to get so close to such a life-size wonder.

This is the second version of the statue that Michelangelo carved.  He had started the private commission in 1515 and had nearly finished it when he noticed the white marble had a black streak in it so stopped work on it and started afresh.  He created it in Florence and it was then moved to Rome.  The bronze loincloth was added later on, the bloody prudes!  The first version can still be seen in a Monastery near Viterbo in Italy although it was shown at the National Gallery in 2017.

2) SUNFLOWERS IN THE GARDEN AT PETIT GENNEVILLIERS (1885) - Gustave Caillebotte

 

This was bought at Madrid's Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza when I visited their lovely exhibition of paintings by the impressionist Gustave Caillebotte.  He is still under-appreciated, his best known works are evocative paintings of La Belle Epoque Paris.  He was not only a member of the original group of impressionists but also a patron of them.  Possibly his most famous painting is "The Floor Scrapers" showing three working men stripping the parquet off a Parisian apartment floor.

But Caillebotte also loved painting gardens and the outdoor locations around Petit-Grenevilliers, a suburb outside Paris where he had a house.  He moved there permanently three years after painting this rapturous painting of sunflowers crowding the foreground of his garden, you can almost feel the sun and the buzzing of bees.  Gustave came from a wealthy family and his painting slowed towards the end of his life as he found other interests to pursue.  Sadly he died of pulmonary congestion while working in his beloved garden, he was 45.

3) STROZZI CHAPEL, SANTA MARIA NOVELLA (1502) - Fillipino Lippi

Santa Maria Novella is the huge church which faces the main station in Florence and it was consecrated in 1420, 144 years after building started on it!  It's glorious marble frontage conceals many treasures within.

One being the Strozzi chapel that is beside the main altar which featues frescoes by Fillippino Lippi of scenes from the lives of the Apostles Philip and James.  Filippo Strozzi was a rich Florentine banker and statesman who commisioned this chapel and the Strozzi Palace near the Duomo but didn't live to see either completed but he is buried in the chapel. The paintings are very colourful and very Florentine!

4) GILBERT CANNAN AND HIS MILL (1916) - Mark Gertler

 

I bought this at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford to remember Gertler's wonderful painting of his friend, the writer Gilbert Cannan. The painting has the similar colours of orange, blue and whites that featured in his anti-war MERRY-GO-ROUND from the same year. Cannan had met Gertler through Lady Ottoline Morrell and, through him, also knew painters Dora Carrington and CRW Nevinson; Cannan later wrote a novel of the artists' complex love triangle. Cannan was living in the mill in Buckinghamshire at the time with his wife and two Newfoundland dogs Sammy and Luath.  

 

Think Luath looks familiar?  Cannan had been JM Barrie's secretary and in 1909 started a relationship with Barrie's wife Mary who felt neglected by him.  After a highly-publicized divorce case Gilbert and Mary married in 1910 - and Luath came along too.  Luath's claim to fame is she was the inspiration for Nana in PETER PAN.  In the same year, Cannan suffered a mental breakdown brought on by the stress of WWI and his marriage ended in 1918.  He suffered another breakdown in 1923 and spent the rest of his life in sanatoriums.  Gertler tragically killed himself in 1939.

5) THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON (1812) - Francisco de Goya

I bought this at the National Gallery's exhibition of Goya portraits.  I find Goya a bit tricky: overly florid and over-emphatic but I was taken with this simple chalk drawing of the Duke, possibly done as a run-up to his more detailed portrait in oils.  Wellington sat for Goya after he liberated Madrid through winning the Battle of Salamanca.

The drawing presents a Wellington different to the usual pomp and circumstance portraits of him, here he looks a bit more human, a bit more unprepared and natural, he was 43 at the time.  This is now in the collection of the British Museum while the oil painting is in the National Gallery collection.