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.