Art Eyewitness Review: Making the Met, 1870-2020

 

Making the Met, 1870-2020

   Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City   

August 29, 2020 - January 3, 2021

Reviewed by Ed Voves

After months of waiting, I am finally able to wish the Metropolitan Museum of Art a happy 150th birthday/anniversary. Back on February 24, I visited the Met for the opening of its newly-restored British Galleries. On that sunny, joyful day, I fully-expected to be sending the congratulations of Art Eyewitness to the Met in April when their festivities were scheduled to commence.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded on April 13,1870. To honor this historic event, staff members of the Metropolitan Museum were putting the final touches on "Met 150" when I visited in February. I could see them at work behind screens and partitions, readying the first of a sensational series of celebratory events and special exhibitions, notably Making the Met, 1870-2020.

Visitors viewing 'George Washington Crossing the Delaware' by Emanuel Leutze, 1910.  ©The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

A jaw-dropping logo/image for Making the Met, 1870-2020, a composite of the 1910 photo (above) and a 2020 gallery view, was already posted on the Met's website. I could hardly restrain myself. In anticipation, I pre-ordered a copy of the exhibit catalog, something I rarely do.

On March 13, 2020, Met 150 was cast into limbo by the Covid-19 Pandemic quarantine. Weeks turned into months. The Met seemed cheated of a well-deserved opportunity to observe and enjoy its sesquicentennial.

I am not, usually, a superstitious person. Yet, after thinking about the date when the decision to create the Met was made, I found myself wondering if April 13, 1870 had been a Friday. Had the Met been "jinxed" on the day it was born?

April 13, 1870, I am glad to relate, was a Wednesday. Bad luck is not going to stop the Metropolitan Museum of Art!

And now, the Met has reopened its doors. HAPPY 150th to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And many, many more!!

Gallery view of Making the Met, 1870-2020 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. ©The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Making the Met, 1870-2020 is now open to visitors - social distancing, please - with displays of approximately three hundred of the Met's most important paintings, sculptures, works-on-paper, exquisite pieces of jewelry, musical instruments and works from the decorative arts. These have been chosen, not only for their beauty or level of artistry, but also to document the timeline of the Met's development over the century and a half since April 13, 1870.

There are many old favorites on view in the exhibition, but one of the highlighted paintings has taken on a special significance, ironically so. This is Anthony van Dyck's Saint Rosalie Interceding for the Plague-stricken of Palermo. 

Anthony van Dyck, Saint Rosalie Interceding for the Plague-stricken of Palermo, 1624. ©The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

This early van Dyck was painted in 1624, when the young Flemish painter was visiting Palermo. The Sicilian city was suffering from an outbreak of the Plague. The discovery of the tomb of the medieval Saint Rosalie was credited with stopping the spread of disease and requests for paintings of the miracle-working saint were quick in coming. Van Dyck painted this evocative masterpiece for an appreciative Sicilian patron.

Van Dyck's Saint Rosalie was among the very first major works of art purchased for the Met. So important was this van Dyck that it was depicted in the charming painting (shown below) by Frank Waller, Interior View of the Metropolitan Museum of Art when in Fourteenth Street, 1881. 

When it was added to the Met's collection, with the accession number 71.41, van Dyck's Saint Rosalie was hailed as a Flemish painting. The early donors and museum staff of the Met were much in favor of acquiring works of art which recalled the Dutch founders of New York back in 1625. Little could they have envisioned the significance of this painting for New Yorkers in 2020.

Frank Waller, Interior View of the Metropolitan Museum of Art when in Fourteenth Street, 1881. ©The Metropolitan Museum of Art, N.Y.

It was over a decade before the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened the doors of its historic Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street main building. Initially, in 1872, the Met's fledgling collection was showcased in a leased townhouse, located at 681 Fifth Ave, between Fifty-Third and Fifty-Fourth streets.

Just over a year later, in March 1873, the Met shifted its operations to a more suitable site, the Douglas Mansion, Fourteenth Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. Then, on March 30, 1880, the Met moved uptown to its new, permanent home, designed by Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould.

Exterior View of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Flag Day, 1916. 

©The Metropolitan Museum of Art, N.Y.

There is no need to continue here with a breathless overview of the Met's first century and a half. The companion book to the Making the Met exhibition does an outstanding job presenting the story of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The team of Met writers, led by Andrea Bayer and Laura Corey, demonstrate a sure grasp of the timeline of the museum's history and the overarching social themes of each era of the Met's development.

A few salient events and protagonists in the Metropolitan Museum of Art saga do require very-honorable mention. As noted above, the early decades of collecting were marked by an enthusiasm for Dutch and Flemish art from the seventeenth century. When railroad magnate, Collis P. Huntingdon, donated Vermeer's Young Woman with a Lute (ca. 1662-1663) in 1900, the New York press applauded and museum goers were delighted.

Johannes Vermeer, Young Woman with a Lute (ca. 1662-1663)

 ©The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The mid-nineteenth century discovery of Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) was linked to a renewed appreciation of Dutch artists other than Rembrandt. The French art critic, Theophile Thoré, led the way, extolling Vermeer and Frans Hals for their brilliant use of light and unconventional brush work. Young painters, soon to be called the Impressionists, embraced these Dutch masters. So too did the officials at the Louvre - while spurning the Impressionists.

The curators at the just-opened Metropolitan followed the lead of their French colleagues. Initially, they paid little heed to Renoir, Monet, Pissaro and Degas. It was the purchases by American art patrons which saved the Impressionists and their principal dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel, from ruin. And it was a pair of New York art lovers who insured that the Met's collection would eventually include some of the greatest works by the Impressionist painters. 

There are so many dedicated and generous art patrons who have contributed works of art and financial endowments, making the Met the great institution it is today. In a class by themselves, however, are Henry and Louisine Havemeyer.

According to the narrative of Making the Met, Henry Osborne Havemeyer (1847-1907) received a misdirected fund-raising letter from the Metropolitan's first director, Luigi Palma di Cesnola. Instead of being angered, H.O. Havemeyer sent a check for $1000, then a princely sum, and asked to be added to the donor list.

Havemeyer, who would go on to found the American Sugar Refinery Company in 1891, married Louisine Waldron Elder in 1883. A passionate art enthusiast, Louisine Havemeyer was a close friend of artist Mary Cassatt. With the sage advice of Cassatt, the Havemeyers began purchasing Impressionist paintings. These included a huge number of works by Cassatt's mentor, Edgar Degas, and Claude Monet's 1869 masterpiece, La Grenouillère. This work, along with Renoir's version of the same scene, can lay claim to being the first Impressionist painting, created five years before the name for the movement was proclaimed.

Claude Monet, La Grenouillère, 1869  

©The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

H.O. Havemeyer's taste was very eclectic and he was a more impulsive buyer than his wife. Perhaps surprisingly for a Gilded Age tycoon, he favored hand-blown glass vases by Louis Comfort Tiffany and Japanese prints, including the now iconic The Great Wave off Kanagawa. 

         Katsushika Hokusai, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, 

        ca. 1830 -1831 ©The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The Havemeyer collection is well represented in Making the Met. However, to get a real appreciation of the works which the Havemeyers bequeathed to the Met, a separate exhibition would be needed. In fact, the Met mounted such an exhibit in 1993, aptly titled A Splendid Legacy. An archival photo from the exhibit provides a sense of the quality and scale of the Havemeyer collection.

When Mrs. Havermeyer died in January 1929, the Met received a staggering bequest of 1,967 works of art, including two hundred masterpieces of French nineteenth century painting. Mr. Havermeyer's beloved Tiffany glass collection had already been bestowed upon the Met and the Havermeyer's children and grandchildren were to give further works of art. 

Gallery view of the Splendid Legacy exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

It's no exaggeration to compare the Havermeyer Collection at the Met to the treasures of Pharaoh Tutankhamun. Yet, Henry and Louisine Havemeyer did much more than amass a trove of world-class art. They set a moral tone in the American art world and in the United States at large. Their generous philanthropy stood in marked contrast to the "conspicuous consumption" of other Gilded Age aristocrats.

Writing to her children, later in life, Mrs. Havemeyer confided,"never forget how blessed you are and when an opportunity arises, try to equalize the sum of human happiness and share the sunshine you have inherited."

This socially-conscious attitude is reflected in the sense of mission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, both in its day-to-day operations and in the Met's proactive role as a New York City museum and as one of the greatest cultural institutions of the United States. And never is the Met's "mission" better served than in times of crisis.

When the United States joined the struggle against Hitler's Reich, a number of Metropolitan staff members served in the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section (MFAA). The "Monuments Men" searched and saved many of the art treasures looted by the Nazis. Met 150 highlights the contributions of James Rorimer, the curator of the Metropolitan's medieval art collection at the Cloisters, who played an especially important role in the MFAA. Rorimer later became the Metropolitan's director from 1955 to 1966. 

  

U.S. Signal Corps. photo of Lt. James J. Rorimer (left), May 1945 

Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

                                                              

The famed "Monuments Men" detachment included several "Monuments Women." One of these courageous curators, Rose Valland, provided crucial assistance to James Rorimer. An art historian at the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Valland remained in Paris during the Nazi occupation. Valland spoke German and was able, by listening to the conversation of Nazi officers, to keep a detailed record of the art works consigned for shipment to the Reich. When Rorimer reached Paris after D-Day, Valland passed this vital information to him. 

  

 Capt. Edith Standen (right) at the Central Collecting Point Wiesbaden

 Courtesy of the Archives of American Art

Also of note, Edith A. Standen, later curator of European tapestries at the Met, served as the temporary commanding officer of the Central Collecting Point in Wiesbaden, Germany. There, tens of thousands of works of art were sorted and cataloged prior to being restored to their owners. When the U.S. Army determined to send 202 German-owned paintings to the U.S. for "storage," Standen and thirty-six other MFAA officers signed the Wiesbaden Manifesto. They protested against "the removal for any reason of a part of the heritage of any nation even if that heritage may be interpreted as a prize of war."  

In 1948, the paintings were returned to Germany. This display of moral courage by Standen and the other Monuments "Men" is a rare event in history. It is, however, a deed in keeping with the Met's high standards as the caretaker of "5000 years of history." 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2014) 

Gallery view of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

 I have been visiting The Metropolitan Museum of Art regularly since the late 1970's. From a fairly circumscribed interest in nineteenth century art, my awareness and appreciation of the totality of human achievement has expanded through the tremendous efforts of the Met's curators and the talented, dedicated staff who support them.

The Met has become a second home for me. It has been the site of so many happy, enlightening moments in my life, I can hardly begin to count!

 

 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1983. ©The Metropolitan Museum

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a place for nurturing the heart, as well as enjoying great art. What a blessing this incomparable institution is, for me and for art lovers from around the world!

Happy 150th to the Met!

***

Text: Copyright of Ed Voves. Original Photos: Anne Lloyd. All rights reserved  Images courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

Introductory Image: Exhibition logo/image for Making the Met, 1870-2020. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Visitors viewing 'George Washington Crossing the Delaware' by Emanuel Leutze, 1910.  ©The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Gallery view of Making the Met, 1870-2020 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. ©The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Anthony van Dyck (Flemish, 1599-1641)Saint Rosalie Interceding for the Plague-stricken of Palermo, 1624. Oil on Canvas: 39 1/4 x29 in. (99.7 x 73.7 cm): Metropolitan Museum of Art. Purchase, 1871. #71.41. ©The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Frank Waller, Interior View of the Metropolitan Museum of Art when in Fourteenth Street, 1881. Oil on Canvas: 24 x 20 in. (61 x 50.8 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art. Purchase, 1895. #95.29 © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Unknown Photographer. Exterior View of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Flag Day, 1916. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Johannes Vermeer, Young Woman with a Lute (ca.1662-1663) Oil on canvas: 20 1/4 x 18 in. (51.4 x 45.7 cm) Metropolitan Museum of Art. Bequest of Collis P. Huntington, 1900 #25.110.24  © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926) La Grenouillère, 1869. Oil on canvas:29 3/8 x 39 1/4 in. (74.6 x 99.7 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art. H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929. #29.100.112  © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Katsushika Hokusai (Japanese, 1760–1849) Under the Wave off Kanagawa, also known as The Great Wave, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, ca. 1830–32. Woodblock print; ink and color on paper: 10 1/8 x 14 15/16 in. (25.7 x 37.9 cm) Metropolitan Museum of Art. H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929. #JP1847 ©The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Gallery view of Splendid Legacy: the Havemeyer Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, March 27 - June 20, 1993© The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 

Unknown photographer. First Lieutenant James J. Rorimer (left) and Sergeant Antonio T. Valin examine recovered objects. Neuschwanstein, Germany, May 1945. Photograph by U.S. Signal Corps, James Rorimer papers, National Gallery of Art. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Unknown photographer. Capt. Standen (NSA) & Lt. R. Lemaire (Belg.) holding a Rubens portrait; Wiesbaden, 1946. Photographic print : b&w,12 x 8 cm. Thomas Carr Howe papers, 1932-1984. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Digital ID: 16223

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2014) Gallery view of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

View of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1983. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Art Eyewitness Book Review: A New Way of Seeing by Kelly Grovier

A New Way of Seeing: The History of Art in 57 Works 

by Kelly Grovier

 Thames & Hudson/$50/256 pages

Reviewed by Ed Voves

Book titles proclaiming the word "new" make me a bit apprehensive. "A New History." "A New Biography." "A New Vision." A new this, a new that.

Most of the time, these "new" books have very little that is trail-blazing, novel or inventive about them. Most are like the leftovers from yesterday's dinner, warmed-up with a dash or pepper or curry to make them taste differently.

Kelly Grovier's  A New Way of Seeing: the History of Art in 57 Works is NOT a rehash of museum favorites. Many of the masterpieces under discussion are indeed works you've seen a hundred times before. Grovier, however, approaches each from an unusual, almost subversive vantage point.  A "new" view is what is promised in this book and that is what is delivered.

Grovier's fresh insights come by way of what he calls "eye-hooks."

These eye-hooks are not the metallic kind that you screw into window frames in order to hang Christmas lights. For Grovier, an eye-hook is a "single detail, quality or feature" of an art work which engages the perception of the viewer. Once "hooked," we are enabled to understand the artist's meaning and to come to terms with the "strangeness" of art.

Grovier emphasizes the "strangeness" of art, quoting the late Robert Hughes in his classic book, The Shock of the New. The word is well-chosen. Art really is strange when you come to think of it, splashes of pigment bound by linseed oil on a piece of canvas or wood. Yet, these marks on a flat surface can move us to tears (of joy or sadness) and propel our thoughts to higher realities. And it is the eye-hook which snags us and reels us in for a journey of heart, soul and mind.

This theory is verified by fifty-seven examples of eye-hooks in action. Some are obvious, some obscure. Let's test Grovier's "new" way of seeing by focusing on the eye-hooks of two masterpieces from the seventeenth century.
  
In Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring, the lustrous ornament practically reaches out from the picture to grab our attention. It is a really big pearl, bigger in fact than first appears. Initially, we see only the glint of light on its surface. Our eyes have to adjust to appreciate its size. It's a whopper.
    

Johannes Vermeer, Detail of the earring in Girl with a Pearl Earring, 1665

The pearl earring is so big that there should be at least a hint of a thread visible, showing how it dangles from the girl's ear lobe.  Yet, there is none to be seen. In Grovier's view, the earring "levitates," becoming a magical token or talisman of life's enduring mystery.

Put simply, Vermeer didn't paint a pearl. He told our brains to go and fetch one for ourselves. That kind of visual dictation has the effect of transforming the canvas into a kind of stenography where generic gestures and simple markings no longer aspire to mimic the way the physical world actually looks, but rather to tease the imagination into creating in the mind's eye a more vibrant image than any brush can forge.

If Vermeer's pearl earring is an obvious eye-hook, its counterpart in Las Meninas is almost impossible to guess. Put to the test, I would have picked a different eye-hook, the mirror which reflects the faces of the parents of the princess, King Phillip IV of Spain and Queen Mariana. The princess or infanta is being groomed in the image of royalty.

That may be a plausible theory, but the crafty Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) placed a different eye-hook smack in the center of his masterpiece. Hidden in plain sight is a red earthenware jug being offered to the five-year old Infanta, Margaret Theresa, by one of the maids-of-honor. The small jug was called a búcaro. Fragrant spices were mixed with the clay before the jug was placed in the kiln to be fired. Later, these spices would flavor the water poured into it.

Diego Velázquez, Detail of Las Meninas, 1656.

How can we be sure that the búcaro is indeed the "eye-hook" in Las Meninas? Grovier's sharp eye noticed that the tip of Velázquez' paintbrush bears a dab of the same reddish brown color as the jug. That leads us to a second question. Why all the fuss over a little earthenware jug?

In a brilliant piece of detective work, Grovier discovered that the búcaro figured in a bizarre social custom. Instead of merely sipping the scented water from the jug, Spanish women nibbled the rim of the fired clay. This act of geophagy or "earth eating" was said to lighten the complexion. Grovier takes a different tack, quoting the poet, Lope de Vega, as evidence that chewing on the búcaro and ingesting the clay produced a hallucinogenic, "floaty" feeling. 

Was Velázquez trying to replicate this mind-altering state with the composition of Las Meninas? Grovier thinks so:

Like a bottle containing a genie, the búcaro is the locus around which the hazy hubbub of Las Meninas spins - a woozying scene of making and unmaking, of reality and reflections, comings and goings, whispers and shadows.

From these quotes, Grovier's writing skill is evident. He is an accomplished poet, as well as an art historian and editor of a literary journal devoted to nineteenth century Romanticism. Grovier's survey of contemporary art, Art since 1989, for the Thames and Hudson's World of Art series, was very impressive, leading me to have high expectations for this new book. I was not disappointed.

As noted, Grovier selected art works for consideration which are familiar for the most part, occasionally a bit too familiar. Over-all, this was a sensible selection criteria, providing new insights on works of art we mistakenly assumed had been analysed to the point of redundancy. 

Detail from the relief, Ashurbanipal Hunting Lions, 645-635 BC

I was delighted to see how Grovier skewered the blood-thirsty lion killing of the Assyrians, c. 645 BC. His eye-hook is a bas relief which shows a servant opening a cage to release a lion to be slaughtered in safety. No need to risk the hazards of actually hunting lions in the desert when you can kill them in comfort! Thus, the pretensions of the high and mighty Assyrians were punctured by the artist, who was likely a slave or hostage, and the irony escaped them! 

The other eye-hooks are well-chosen, too, and Grovier generally proves his conclusions.

Georges Seurat, Bathers at Asnières,1884

In the case of Georges Seurat's Bathers at Asnières,1884, by focusing on the factory smokestacks in the background, Grovier makes a very valid point about Impressionism. The more you study the paintings of the Impressionists or post-Impressionists, in the case of Seurat, the more you see smoke-belching railroad locomotives and industrial furnaces off in the distance.

Detail of Bathers at Asnières, 1884

Impressionism was art made in reaction to the Industrial Revolution. The bathers in Seurat's early masterpiece were mill hands, taking a Sunday dip in the river polluted by the factories where they worked the other six days of the week. 

Grovier's conclusions about the 230 ft. long embroidery depicting the Norman conquest of Anglo-Saxon England in 1066 are a matter of dispute. This could hardly be different as the Bayeux Tapestry is one of history's most mysterious works of art. 

Grovier follows the conventional script that William the Conqueror's half-brother, Bishop Odo of Bayeux, commissioned the vast medieval panorama. Odo took part in the Battle of Hastings, wielding a mace since clergymen were prohibited from using swords. The combative bishop appears riding a black stallion in the extreme right-hand of the scene from the Bayeux Tapestry below.

Detail of the Bayeux Tapestry, c. 1077

More recent scholarship contends that Count Eustace II of Boulogne was the patron of the work. Eustace had quarreled with Odo, a most unpleasant man like his half-brother, after the conquest. The tapestry was intended both as a peace-offering and as a reminder of the crucial role which Eustace had played in the Norman invasion of England. If this theory is true, then the intended eye-hook would have been the very prominent depiction of Eustace astride his warhorse, riding alongside Duke William at Hastings.

Instead, Grovier selected as his eye-hook the scene of the death of England's King Harold during the battle. Clutching an arrow in his eye, Harold falls and Anglo-Saxon England falls with him. 

Detail of King Harold with an arrow in his eye, Bayeux Tapestry, c. 1077

Close scrutiny of the embroidery has convinced many scholars that the Bayeux Tapestry was made by English needle-women, who were renowned for their skill during the Middle Ages. Could it be that the nobility of Harold, as he dies defending his homeland, was a subtle tribute by these English women for their hero king? If so Count Eustace and Bishop Odo, like the Assyrians with the lion hunt bas relief, missed the point.

Kelly Grovier, however, never misses a beat in this compelling book. His scholarship is authoritative and the caliber of his writing is first rate. Most notably, A New Way of Seeing helps the reader do exactly what the title promises, while enabling us to understand how the artists felt, believed  and saw at the time when these mighty works of art were created.

J. M. W. Turner, Rain, Steam, and Speed – The Great Western Railway, 1844

When we look at J.M.W. Turner's Rain, Steam, and Speed, we can grasp - without too much difficulty - the symbolical status of Turner's painting for the Industrial Revolution. Grovier's brilliant commentary on this iconic work enables us to appreciate how Turner, born in 1775, felt as the steam engine of change came rushing at him, full-blast.

Turrner placed a tiny, almost imperceptible, rabbit on the tracks, desperately racing for safety. With a couple of dabs of his paint brush, Turner illustrated the modern condition, a new way of looking at a world in constant flux. 

Detail of Rain, Steam, and Speed – The Great Western Railway, 1844

With his perceptive "eye-hooks" and poetic commentary, that is what Kelly Grovier does too.

***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved.

All images courtesy of Thames & Hudson. The picture of the opening of the lions' pen, 645-635 BC. from the relief, Ashurbanipal Hunting Lions, is courtesy of The British Museum's website.

Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring c. 1665. Oil on canvas: 44.5 x 39 cm (17 ½ x 15 ⅜ in.) Mauritshuis, The Hague

Book cover:   Courtesy Thames & Hudson

Detail of the earring in Girl with a Pearl Earring.  Mauritshuis, The Hague

Diego Velázquez, Detail of Las Meninas, 1656. Oil on canvas: 318 x 276 cm (125 ⅛ 108 5/8 in.) Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

Detail of the opening of the lions' pen, 645-635 BC. From the relief, Ashurbanipal Hunting Lions. Courtesy of The British Museum, London

Georges Seurat, Bathers at Asnières, 1884. Oil on canvas: 201 x 300 cm (79 ⅛ x 118 ⅛ in.) National Gallery, London


Detail of the factory chimney in the background of Bathers at Asnières, 1884. National Gallery, London

Detail of the Bayeux Tapestry, c. 1077 or after. Crewel embroidery on linen: total 50 x 100 cm (19 ⅝ x 275 ½ in.) Bayeux Museum, France


Detail of King Harold with an arrow in his eye, Bayeux Tapestry, c. 1077 or after.              Bayeux Museum, France

J. M. W. Turner, Rain, Steam, and Speed – The Great Western Railway, 1844, oil on canvas, 91 x 121.8 cm (35 ⅝ x 47 ⅞ in.) National Gallery, London


Detail showing the hare in Rain, Steam, and Speed – The Great Western Railway, 1844.      National Gallery, London

Art Eyewitness Looks at the Art Scene in 2017

Reflections on the Art Scene during 2017

By Ed Voves
Photos by Anne Lloyd

The art world commemorated the life of sculptor, Auguste Rodin, in 2017. Rodin died one hundred years ago, as did Edgar Degas. The "War to End All Wars" was raging in all its pointless fury, destroying much of the civilization that Rodin and Degas had enriched with their works of art. The death of these great artists represented the end of an era and it is only natural to look back on their achievements as counterpoints to the mindless waste of life that was World War I.

To "look back" comes naturally to human beings. One can look back with nostalgia or with hesitation or "look back in anger" as in the case of John Osborne's 1950's play. We live a lot of our lives, toeing the water of the future, glancing over our shoulders at the past.

One of Rodin's greatest works, small in scale but astonishing in its power, treats such a moment of looking back. Orpheus and Eurydice depicts the moment when the mythological hero, Orpheus, makes the fatal mistake of checking if his wife has escaped from Hades. 

Anne Lloyd Photo (2017), Detail of Auguste Rodin's Orpheus and Eurydice, 1893

Orpheus' bid to rescue Eurydice from Hades depended on not look upon her until she is safely beyond the gate of Hades. Yet, on the brink of escape and triumph, he looks back -thus dooming Eurydice to oblivion.

Like smoke dissolving into empty air,                                                                                Passed and was sundered from his sight ...                                                                                    
Virgil, Georgics, Book IV, lines 501-502, J.B. Greenough Translation, 1900

Orpheus and Eurydice is on display in an excellent exhibition honoring Rodin at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, on view to January 15, 2018. Rodin's works appear in all their glorious variety - sketches, plaster models, finished sculptures -  in the Met's B. Gerald Cantor Sculpture Gallery. Down the hall is an exhibit of the drawings (plus a few sculptures) of a man with whom Rodin is often compared: Michelangelo. 

Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer is one of 2017's stellar exhibitions. The lighted photo version of the Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes is a spectacular feature of the exhibit in the Metropolitan's Tisch gallery.  

Anne Lloyd Photo (2017) Gallery view of Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer 

As magnificent as this recreation of Michelangelo's magnum opus is, the really significant feature of the exhibit is the rare opportunity to study drawings by the great Florentine master of disegno.

The art of disegno or drawing was so omnipresent in the exhibits that featured in Art Eyewitness that this proved to be the dominant theme for 2017. 

There were outstanding exhibits of painting, sculpture, photography, fashion and ceramics during 2017, too. The National Gallery of Art in Washington reawakened memories of one of their greatest triumphs, the fabled 1995 Vermeer exhibit, with a superb presentation of Dutch Golden Age painting, Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry (October 22, 2017 - January 21, 2018)

Johannes Vermeer, The Astronomer, 1668

The Vermeer show came close to rivaling the 1995 exhibit, but it is worth remembering that in 2016, the National Gallery presented Drawings for Paintings in the Age of Rembrandt which emphasized the role of sketching and draughtmanship in seventeenth century Holland. 

Time and again, 2017 exhibitions dealing with drawings delivered the greatest impact. Drawing, "the pencil of nature" as it was called during the eighteenth century, comes closest to the individual artist's perception of the world as he or she directly sees it.

To make a drawing is an act of looking back at nature or at a person we esteem without experiencing the tragic fate of Orpheus and Eurydice. Drawings are investments of time, talent, energy and belief in the future.

Two exhibitions at the Morgan Library and Museum during 2017 proved the power of drawing with special force. 

The highlight of Treasures from the Nationalmuseum of Sweden at the Morgan (February 3 - May 14, 2017) was supposed to be François Boucher's The Triumph of Venus, 1740. This painting was the pride and joy of the Swedish emissary to the court of Versailles, Count Carl Gustaf Tessin (1696-1770). Tessin also purchased superb drawings - and nearly bankrupted himself in the process - by Rembrandt, Dürer, Watteau and others. These drawings are so far above Boucher's erotic "eye candy" in quality that I spent most of my time studying them rather than the voluptuous Venus and her minions.                                                                         
Of course, Rembrandt, Dürer and Watteau are pretty stiff competition for any artist to encounter. However, I felt the same about the drawings of an obscure French artist, 
Nicolas de Plattemontagne (1631–1706) when compared to Boucher or other French eighteenth century painters like Fragonard. I had never even heard of Nicolas de Plattemontagne before seeing this magnificent study of hands and drapery at another Morgan exhibit, Poussin, Claude, and French Drawing in the Classical Age, June 16 - October 15, 2017. 

Nicolas de Plattemontagne, Study of St. Agnes, ca. 1680

In popular estimation, French art of the seventeenth century usually ranks well-below Dutch art of the same period. The Morgan exhibit of French drawing was a revelation not because it proved the facility of Nicholas Poussin and Claude Lorrain in drawing. That hardly needs emphasizing. Rather, by showcasing an unknown (to me at least) artist like De Plattemontagne, the importance that was attached to drawing by the Academic establishments of Europe was highlighted and underscored.

To be a successful artist in the Western world between the Renaissance and the Second World War, you needed to be skillful in drawing. It says something about the crisis of confidence in the West today, that the importance of drawing well is no longer insisted upon as a hallmark of a successful artist.

This comment is not intended as an editorial rant. There are still many great artists, technically proficient and artistically inspired. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) David Hockney at the Metropolitan Museum, Nov. 20, 2017

It was a great experience to attend the press preview in November 2017 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the David Hockney exhibit. Hockney made an appearance at the preview, a moment I will long cherish. 

To everyone's delight, Hockney made the rounds, subjecting himself to a barrage of digital cameras and phones. There is certain appropriateness to this, as Hockney has been a bold innovator using everything from a Polaroid camera to the iPad and iPhone to further his explorations of landscapes and people.

Hockney remains a staunch believer in the discipline of drawing. "Teaching someone to draw," Hockney affirms, "is teaching them to look."

I came across this quote in a book I read while working on my review of the Hockney exhibition: Martin Gayford's, A Bigger Picture: Conversations with David Hockney (Thames & Hudson, 2016 edition). Gayford and Hockney are a brilliant team and their engaging dialogue on the nature of art is hugely enjoyable and thought provoking. 

The Yorkshire-born artist told Gayford that he believed one of his ancestors had been "a cave artist who liked making marks on the wall." In short, Hockney's distant relative had been an experimenter in art, innovating with a piece of chalk the way Hockney has adapted the iPhone to be his sketchbook. 

Yet, Hockney does not believe that new modes of technology will make traditional drawing or painting obsolete. Rather, drawing and painting are primal modes of human expression. Mass media like films and newspapers are being edged aside by the iPhone and the iPad.  

Anne Lloyd Photo (2017), David Hockney's Contre-Jour in the French Style,1974

Hockney believes that drawing and painting will endure. The whole person is engaged in these modes of artistic expression, especially in drawing. Hockney confided to Gayford:

When you are drawing, you are always one or two marks ahead. You are always thinking. 'After what I'm doing here I'll go there and there.' It's like chess or something. In drawing I've always thought economy of means was a great quality - not always in painting, but always in drawing. It's breathtaking in Rembrandt, Picasso and van Gogh. To achieve that is hard work, but stimulating: finding how to reduce everything you've looked at to just lines -  lines that contain volume in them.

Along with seeing Hockney at the Metropolitan Museum, my wife Anne and I met one of the great nature photographers of the present age, Michael Nichols, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Nichols' photos are awesome (for once the word is used accurately). 

Anne Lloyd Photo (2017), Portrait of Michael Nichols

Nichols' stunning images of the remnant of Planet Earth's undomesticated animals were displayed in brilliant contrast to selected works of art from the Philadelphia Museum of Art collection. Wild: Michael Nichols, as the exhibit was called, was the big summer exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Then it traveled to the National Geographic Society Museum in Washington D.C. where it will be on view until January 12, 2018.

Wild or domesticated, every animal is a unique individual. Each animal exerts a dynamic presence in the world and in the lives of those humans lucky to create a bond or relationship with them. Anne and I were blessed to enjoy the friendship, support and example of Lily for nearly sixteen years. Lily, the Queen, could only be described as "indomitable."

One of my favorite pictorial themes is the story of St. Jerome and the Lion. Lily was our Lion. Like St. Jerome's companion, who had a thorn in his paw that Jerome removed, Lily faced many physical challenges. She survived a stroke two years ago which left her limping but unbowed.

Anne Lloyd Photo (2015), Lily.

Lily was the guardian of my wife's painting studio just as St Jerome's Lion guarded his study. Lily certainly ran a "good ship"  and Anne was never without companionship as she created her beautiful art.

On December 19th, we had to save Lily from further physical suffering. Sadly, there was no thorn for us to remove that would enable Lily to resume her watch in the studio. We had to free Lily's spirit to spare her pain and now Lily's spirit is free. 

Art is an act of freeing the spirit. Art enables us to engage the creative energies within ourselves, letting these spirits express themselves. And these spirits, once engaged will emerge, ready, willing and able to assert beauty in an often ugly, uncaring world.

2017 was a difficult year in many ways. Yet, the creative spirits were always in evidence in our lives. One such magic moment occurred when a monarch butterfly paid a late autumn visit to the zinnias in our neighbor's garden. 

Anne Lloyd Photo (2017), Butterfly Garden

Anne snapped this marvelous photo. It is proof, if any is necessary, that life's "wild"  moments  - and beautiful ones - are not as rare as we sometimes mistakenly think. 

May the coming year, 2018, provide us all with many such moments.

***

Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved  Photos courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., the Morgan Library and Museum, New York City and Anne Lloyd

Introductory Image:
Anne Lloyd Photo (2017), Gallery view of at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, showing Auguste Rodin's Orpheus and Eurydice, modeled ca. 1887, carved 1893. Marble: 48 3/4 × 31 1/8 × 25 3/8 in., 856 lb. (123.8 × 79.1 × 64.5 cm, 388.3 kg) Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Thomas F. Ryan, 1910. Accession Number:10.63.2

Anne Lloyd Photo (2017), Detail of Auguste Rodin's Orpheus and Eurydice at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

Anne Lloyd Photo (2017) Gallery view of Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer 

Johannes Vermeer (Dutch, 1632-1675) The Astronomer, 1668. Oil on canvas: 51.5 × 45.5 cm (20 1/4 × 17 15/16 in.) Musée du Louvre, Département des Peintures, Paris. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre)/Franck Raux. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Nicolas de Plattemontagne (French, 1631-1706) , Study of St. Agnes, with a Secondary Study of Her Hand Holding a Palm, ca. 1680. Red and white chalk The Morgan Library & Museum. Purchased on the E. J. Rousuck Fund, the Seligman Fund,and the Fellows Acquisition Fund; 2015.28


Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) David Hockney at the Metropolitan Museum, Nov. 20, 2017. Digital Photo.  Copyright of Anne Lloyd, all rights reserved.

Anne Lloyd Photo (2017), David Hockney's Contre-Jour in the French Style (Against the Day dans le Style-Francais),1974. Oil on canvas: 83 x 83 cm. Ludwig Museum-Museum of Contemporary Art, Budepest

Anne Lloyd Photo (2017), Portrait of Michael Nichols. Copyright of Anne Lloyd, all rights reserved

Anne Lloyd, Lily, 2015. Copyright of Anne Lloyd, all rights reserved

Anne Lloyd, Butterfly Garden, 2017. Copyright of Anne Lloyd, all rights reserved