Tag: Van Gogh

Courtauld Gallery, London

Courtauld Gallery, London

“Boutique Gallery without Museum Fatigue”

The Courtauld Gallery is a museum in Somerset House, on the Strand in London. It houses the collection of the Courtauld Institute of Art. Famous for its French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, of which you can see my favourites hereunder.

The Courtauld was founded in 1932 by the industrialist and art collector Samuel Courtauld, who in the same year presented an extensive collection of paintings, mainly the French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works on view now. Further bequests were added even up to these days, from Old Master paintings and drawings to modern English abstract works. The gallery reopened in 2021 after a major redevelopment. It’s a treasure-house, on 3 gallery levels, and certainly no museum fatigue! It’s a very pleasant place to visit.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841 – 1919), La Loge or The Theatre Box, 1874, 80x64cm, The Courtauld Gallery (Samuel Courtauld Trust), London. Bequeathed by Samuel Courtauld, 1948.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s La Loge (The Theatre Box) is celebrated as one of the most important paintings of the Impressionist movement. The heart of the painting is a play of gazes enacted by these two figures seated in a theatre box. The elegantly dressed woman lowers her opera glasses, revealing herself to admirers in the theatre and looking towards us viewers, whilst her male companion trains his gaze elsewhere in the audience, trying to spot who are seating in the other boxes. Renoir focuses upon the theatre as a social stage where status and relationships were on public display. This scene was staged in Renoir’s studio. His brother Edmond and Nini Lopez, a model from Montmartre, posed as the couple.

George Seurat (1859 – 1891), The Bridge at Courbevoie, c.1886, 46x55cm, The Courtauld Gallery (Samuel Courtauld Trust), London. Bequeathed by Samuel Courtauld, 1948.

George Seurat painted this view on The Bridge at Courbevoie at the river Seine near Paris. The scene shows an island called the Grande Jatte, which Seurat often painted, but now the mood is unusually sombre and silent. The socially distanced human figures add to the sense of melancholy. The grass, sailing boats and the fisherman contradict with the smokey factory chimney. These images signify the adverse effects industrialisation has brought on the environment that was formerly calm and unpolluted. Courbevoie was a riverside town but became an industrial suburb of Paris.

Seurat is using a technique he had recently created, called “pointillism”. It means painting with lots of tiny dots or points of colour. If you look closely at this painting you will see that everything in the picture is made up of tiny dots. Seurat wanted colours painted side by side to mix in our eye when we look at the pictures, this is called Optical Mixing. Seurat believed that this would make his pictures brighter and more vibrant. Although here he created a picture full of sadness.

Vincent van Gogh (1853 – 1890). On the left Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, January 1889, F527, 60x49cm, The Courtauld Gallery (Samuel Courtauld Trust), London. On the right Self-portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe, January 1889, F529, 51×45cm, Private Collection, on view in Kunsthaus Zürich.

Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear (above on the left) by Vincent van Gogh and painted in January 1889, is one of the highlights of the Courtauld Gallery collection. It’s one of the two self-portraits painted by Van Gogh in January 1889, a week after leaving hospital. He had received treatment there after cutting off most of his left ear (shown here as the bandaged right ear because he painted himself in a mirror). This self-mutilation was a desperate act committed a few weeks earlier, following a heated argument with his fellow painter Paul Gauguin.

Van Gogh had moved from Paris to Arles in the south of France, in hopes of creating a community for artists. He invited Paul Gauguin, an artist whom he had befriended in Paris, to come stay with him. They proved to be a disagreeable pair. The evening of December 23, 1888 during one of their arguments, Van Gogh threatened Gauguin with a razor, but then injured himself, severing part of his left ear. Van Gogh lost a lot of blood and had to be taken to the hospital. Van Gogh returned to his house at the beginning of January. He wrote to Gauguin, apologizing for the incident and assuring him of their continued friendship. He was keen to start painting again and worked on two self portraits during the weeks following his return home. The second self-portrait (above on the right) is the other self-portrait with bandaged ear, wearing same coat and hat, and also painted in January 1889. Vincent van Gogh died on July 29, 1890.

Paul Cézanne (1839 – 1906), Montagne Sainte-Victoire with Large Pine, c.1887, 67x92cm, The Courtauld Gallery (Samuel Courtauld Trust), London. Gift from Samuel Courtauld, 1934.

The Montagne Sainte-Victoire dominates the countryside surrounding Paul Cézanne’s hometown of Aix-en-Provence in southern France. For Cézanne, the mountain embodied the rugged landscape and people of Provence. Cézanne painted and drew the mountain from different vantage points throughout his career, each time finding a new mood or atmosphere. The timeless quality of the setting is interrupted only by the modern railway viaduct on the right and the trail of steam left by a passing train. The sweeping pine branches in the foregrounded of this painting are like a curtain and follow the contours of the mountain. The pine tree acts as a “repoussoir” (French for “pushing back”), a painting technique by which an object acts as a frame along the foreground and directs the viewer’s eye into the depth of the composition and emphasizes distance, like here the contrast between the pine tree and the faraway mountain. A highly advisable trick for nowadays instagrammers, getting more depth and effect in their insta-pics.

Cézanne lived in Aix-en-Provence for most of his life. He inherited his family estate and was free of financial worries, making him able to focus on art and painting. The Montagne Sainte-Victoire became the subject of about forty of Cézanne’s oil paintings and twenty of his water colors.

Édouard Manet (1832 – 1883), A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, 1882, 96x130cm, The Courtauld Gallery (Samuel Courtauld Trust), London. Gift from Samuel Courtauld, 1934.

This celebrated work  A Bar at the Folies-Bergère is the last major painting by  Édouard Manet, completed  a year  before he died. The central figure is a barmaid in front of a mirror, engaged with a customer we can see in the reflection on the right. In the mirror behind her, we see the world she surveys in front of her. In the top left corner a pair of green feet, which belong to a trapeze artist who is performing above the restaurant’s patrons. Amidst the bottles are two brown ones with a red triangle on its label, from the UK’s Bass Brewery Beer, still existing today. And the wine label on the red bottle on the left has the artist’s signature, “Manet 1882“.

TheFolies-Bergère was the first music hall in Paris; a nightclub where every one spoke the language of pleasure. The barmaids were vendors of drink and love. Manet knew the Folies-Bergère well. He made preparatory sketches for A Bar at the Folies-Be on site, but the final painting was executed in his studio. He set up a bar and employed Suzon, one of the barmaids of the Folies-Bergère, to pose behind it. In 1882 when this painting made its début at the Paris Salon, the yearly French art fair, Édouard Manet’s health was fading as he struggled to complete this painting. Manet died at the age of 51 the following year.

Paul Cézanne (1839 – 1906), Pot of Flowers and Fruit c.1889, 46x56cm, The Courtauld Gallery (Samuel Courtauld Trust), London. Bequeathed by Samuel Courtauld, 1948.

This Pot of Flowers and Fruit is such a simple still life, and at the same time there is so much to see. It’s not about the objects, but it’s all about the colors and the forms. Paul Cézanne contrasts the roundness of the fruits with the flat leaves of the plant and the rectangular forms at the reverse of the stretched canvas in the background. The colors are in great balance, yellow on the two sides of the green leaves of the plant, with the green-yellow leaves connecting everything. The white flower is a modest – but also triumphant – touch in the centre. We read the image as a balanced play of shapes and colours.

The Courtauld Gallery and Courtauld Institute of Art
Somerset House
Strand, London

Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

“The Hippest Museum In Town…“

The Hammer Museum is an art museum and cultural centre in Los Angeles, known for its artist-centric and progressive array of exhibitions and public programs. Founded in 1990 by the entrepreneur-industrialist Armand Hammer, the museum has since expanded its scope to become “the hippest and most culturally relevant institution in town.” Here are four paintings from the original art collection of its founder.

John Singer Sargent (1856 – 1925), “Dr. Pozzi at Home” (1881), 202x102cm, The Armand Hammer Collection, Gift of the Armand Hammer Foundation. Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.
Dr. Samuel Jean de Pozzi was a Parisian dandy, art collector, gynaecologist, and a womanizer. An extremely handsome man, who, if he had lived during the 21th century, would surely have become a celebrity. Standing in his scarlet dressing gown, his robe is reminiscent of a monastic habit, and recalls Renaissance portraits of Catholic popes and cardinals. Dr. Pozzi was described by a contemporary as “himself a kind of beautiful work of art.” This grand painting was the trigger for the 2019 book by Julian Barnes, “The Man in the Red Coat“.

The Hammer Museum opened 1990, founded by Dr. Armand Hammer, former Chairman of Occidental Petroleum Corporation. Financed by Occidental, the Museum was built adjacent to the Corporation’s international headquarters in Westwood, Los Angeles. At that time, the Museum featured galleries for Dr. Hammer’s collections — old master paintings and drawings — as well as galleries for traveling exhibitions. Dr. Hammer passed away in December 1990, three weeks after the opening of the Museum.

Claude Monet (1840 – 1926), “View of Bordighera” (1884), 66x82cm, The Armand Hammer Collection, Gift of the Armand Hammer Foundation. Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.

The original Armand Hammer Collection features works of art from the sixteenth through the twentieth century that reflect the interest and dedication of Armand Hammer. The highlights from the collection are on permanent display at the museum, and four of these are depicted here. Over the last 20 years, the Hammer Museum has formed a Hammer Contemporary Collection which now holds over 2,000 artworks. The museum also instituted the internationally acclaimed Hammer Projects, a series of contemporary exhibitions and installations featuring local, national, and international emerging artists.

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 – 1669), “Portrait of a Man Holding a Black Hat” (c.1637), 76x69cm, The Armand Hammer Collection, Gift of the Armand Hammer Foundation, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.

The Hammer Museum is nowadays affiliated with UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles). The museum and its art centre believe in the promise of art and ideas to illuminate our lives and build a more just world. The Hammer understands that art not only has the power to transport us through aesthetic experience but can also provide significant insight into some of the most pressing cultural, political, and social questions of our time. The Hammer shares the unique and invaluable perspectives that artists have on the world around us.

Vincent van Gogh (1853 – 1890), “Hospital at Saint-Rémy” (1889), 92x73cm, The Armand Hammer Collection, Gift of the Armand Hammer Foundation. Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.

The Hammer Museum hosts a diversity of programs throughout the year, from lectures, symposia, and readings to concerts and film screenings in its Billy Wilder Theatre. The museum’s collections, exhibitions, and programs are completely free to all visitors.Watch 1,000+ talks, performances, artist profiles, and more on the Hammer Channel.

HAMMER MUSEUM
10899 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90024

    Saint Lazarus

    Saint Lazarus

    “The Walking Dead”

    Today July 29 is the official celebration day of two sisters and a brother: Martha, Mary and Lazarus. They are from Bethany, a city on the West Bank close to Jerusalem. And it’s the place where Lazarus miraculously resurrected from death, through the hand of Jesus, four days after his entombment. This has been a popular story throughout history and depicted for over 1000 years. Now we have Netflix and “The Walking Dead” series, but in those days there were only paintings to support imagination. The miracle of returning to life gave hope over the fear of death. And from a religious point of view this is a true “Act of God”.

    Giotto di Bondone “Giotto” (c.1267 – 1377) “Raising of Lazarus” (c.1305), Fresco, 200x185cm, Scrovegni Chapel (Cappella degli Scrovegni), Padua, Italy.

    The raising of Lazarus is a miracle of Jesus recounted in the Gospel of John (John 11:1–44) in the New Testament part of the Bible. Jesus raises Lazarus of Bethany from death, four days after his entombment. It went as follows. Lazarus became ill and his sisters Marta and Mary (note: this is Mary of Bethany and not Mary, the Mother of Christ) contacted Jesus to help curing their brother. He visited the sisters only after Lazarus already passed away. But no worries, they went to the tomb of Lazarus and Jesus said, “Take away the stone”. Martha then said, “it will stink, he has been in that tomb for four days”.  That’s depicted by members of the crowd cover their noses with cloth. They took away the stone and Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead Lazarus came out, his hands and feet wrapped in his grave cloths, but alive and kicking and lived for another 30 years. Jesus also said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”

    Giovanni di Paolo, “The Resurrection of Lazarus” (1426), 41x44cm, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

    On the pictures are usually Martha and Mary, the two sisters of Lazarus, whose gestures and expressions record successive states of awareness and awe, and a crowd of astounded witnesses and some of Jesus’ followers. And the two main characters of course: Jesus making signs to resurrect Lazarus, and Lazarus himself getting up out of his grave. The story goes on, as Lazarus never smiled during the thirty years after his resurrection, worried by the sight of unredeemed souls he had seen during his four-day stay in Hell.

    The Limbourg Brothers Paul, Johan and Herman, (active 1385 – 1416), “Raising of Lazarus”, from Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (C.1412), Château de Chantilly, near Paris.

    The event is said to have taken place at Bethany. This is the last of the miracles that Jesus performs before the passion, crucifixion and his own resurrection, linking Lazarus’ resurrection with Jesus’ resurrection, and through faith as a sign of hope for all Jesus’ followers. John Calvin summarized it nicely when he said, “not only did Christ give a remarkable proof of his Divine power in raising Lazarus, but he likewise placed before our eyes a lively image of our future resurrection.” The Lazarus story also appeared in Islamic tradition. Although the Quran mentions no specific figure named Lazarus, among the miracles with which he Quran credits Jesus, the raising of people from death is included.

    Juan de Flandes (c.1460 – 1519), “The Raising of Lazarus” (c.1516), 110x84cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid.

    The reputed tomb of Lazarus is in Bethany (now called: Al-Eizariya, which means “Place of Lazarus”) and continues to be a place of pilgrimage to this day. Several Christian churches have existed at the site over the centuries. Since the 16th century, the site of the tomb has been occupied by the al-Uzair Mosque to serve the town’s (now Muslim) inhabitants and named it in honor of the town’s patron saint, Lazarus of Bethany.

    Rembrandt van Rijn (16010 – 1669), “The Raising of Lazarus” (c.1631), 95x81cm, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles.

    In medical science “Lazarus syndrome” refers to an event in which a person spontaneously returns to life (the heart starts beating again) after resuscitation has been given up. The “Lazarus sign” is a reflex which can occur in a brain-dead person, thus giving the appearance that they have returned to life. The difference between revival immediately after death, and resurrection after four days, is so great as to raise doubts about the historicity of the Lazarus story. The hand of God is needed!

    Vincent van Gogh (1853 – 1890), “The Raising of Lazarus”, after a print by Rembrandt, (1890), Oil on Paper, 50x66cm, Van Gogh Museum (Vincent van Gogh Foundation), Amsterdam.

    I cannot resist to share an image of a more modern “Lazarus”, an artist impression of Béla Lugosi as Dracula from the famous 1931 film. At night, Dracula awakes from death and steps out of his coffin. Béla Lugosi made this Dracula image as iconic as Giotto did with his Lazarus fresco around 1305. Death and resurrection are eternal themes, based on a mixture of fear and hope. It’s with much wonder how we look at death and at the possibility to come back from the underworld. Are we identifying ourselves with Lazarus? And how about the nowadays series on Netflix, like “The Walking Dead”? I dare to see a similarity between a 13th century visitor to the Scrovegni Chapel, looking amazed at Giotto’s Lazarus, and ourselves watching an episode of The Walking Dead. It’s all a mixture of fear and hope. May we conquer death and may we come back to life, not like a zombie but in true divine Lazarus style!

    Artist Impression of Béla Lugosi as Count Dracula in the the film “Dracula” (1931).