Head of a Woman
PABLO PICASSO
‘The masks weren’t like other kinds of sculptures’, said Picasso when talking about the African art that influenced and inspired him, ‘they were magical things’. It was this implacable power that most informed him, above any sense of visual order or identity, it was the way in which the masks pointed to a higher level of existence and seemed to understand the totality of humanity in all of its contradictions. So much of the earth-shaking revolution that Picasso would bring to the art world started out of this aspirational influence. As he further developed Cubism alongside Braque, for this is a particularly early work of the movement, the multiplicity of perspectives would get larger, more overt and more severe, but they all strove for the same goal that the African masks did almost effortlessly – capture the truth that life can never be truly seen from one perspective.
Pablo Picasso
PABLO PICASSO, 1907. OIL ON CANVAS.
‘The masks weren’t like other kinds of sculptures’, said Picasso when talking about the African art that influenced and inspired him, ‘they were magical things’. It was this implacable power that most informed him, above any sense of visual order or identity, it was the way in which the masks pointed to a higher level of existence and seemed to understand the totality of humanity in all of its contradictions. So much of the earth-shaking revolution that Picasso would bring to the art world started out of this aspirational influence. As he further developed Cubism alongside Braque, for this is a particularly early work of the movement, the multiplicity of perspectives would get larger, more overt and more severe, but they all strove for the same goal that the African masks did almost effortlessly – capture the truth that life can never be truly seen from one perspective.
La Barrière
PAUL GAUGUIN
At the end of the century, a small group of artists attempted aesthetic alchemy. Known as the Synthetists, being part of the Synthetism movement, they wanted to combine the external appearance of nature, the internal feelings of the artist, and the purity of aesthetic colour and form into single works that spoke to the totality of human experience across cerebral and physical plains. Gauguin was the leader of this movement, distinctly different from the Impressionists whom he has been latterly associated with, and he understood the nature of painting in more rational, empirical way. For Gaugin, and all the Synthetists, it was essential to remember that paintings are simply flat surfaces covered in arranged color, and the goal of a painting was the remind the viewer of this, alongside more emotional responses. So Gaugin’s work is read first in response, the initial feeling that the painting provokes leads you into truthfulness, and a deep appreciation for the simple act of arranging colors.
Paul Gauguin
PAUL GAUGUIN, 1889. OIL ON CANVAS.
At the end of the century, a small group of artists attempted aesthetic alchemy. Known as the Synthetists, being part of the Synthetism movement, they wanted to combine the external appearance of nature, the internal feelings of the artist, and the purity of aesthetic colour and form into single works that spoke to the totality of human experience across cerebral and physical plains. Gauguin was the leader of this movement, distinctly different from the Impressionists whom he has been latterly associated with, and he understood the nature of painting in more rational, empirical way. For Gaugin, and all the Synthetists, it was essential to remember that paintings are simply flat surfaces covered in arranged color, and the goal of a painting was the remind the viewer of this, alongside more emotional responses. So Gaugin’s work is read first in response, the initial feeling that the painting provokes leads you into truthfulness, and a deep appreciation for the simple act of arranging colors.
Woman in Blue
CHAÏM SOUTINE
Pain, anguish, and poverty seem to materialise in tortured hands. The flesh and bones distort, fracture, expand, and contract in painful brushstrokes and Soutine, in his depiction of 10 digits, fills them with enough emotion to last a lifetime. Painted in the inter-war years, it depicts an unknown subject - normal for Soutine who rarely depicted anyone he had a personal connection with – whose anonymity does not dampen the psychological intensity of the work. Abstract in its colours and style yet traditional in subject, it never shies away from a seeming revulsion to flesh, creating a caricature of humanity that feels at once absurd and sharply observed. Soutine lived in abject poverty nearly all of his life, often forgoing food in favour of art supplies and channelling his literal hunger into inspiration and drive. The titular women in blue is a stand-in for Soutine himself, her pain is his, their shared lives built upon both universal hardship and the beautiful longing for more that accompanies it.
Chaïm Soutine
CHAÏM SOUTINE, c.1919. OIL ON CANVAS.
Pain, anguish, and poverty seem to materialise in tortured hands. The flesh and bones distort, fracture, expand, and contract in painful brushstrokes and Soutine, in his depiction of 10 digits, fills them with enough emotion to last a lifetime. Painted in the inter-war years, it depicts an unknown subject - normal for Soutine who rarely depicted anyone he had a personal connection with – whose anonymity does not dampen the psychological intensity of the work. Abstract in its colours and style yet traditional in subject, it never shies away from a seeming revulsion to flesh, creating a caricature of humanity that feels at once absurd and sharply observed. Soutine lived in abject poverty nearly all of his life, often forgoing food in favour of art supplies and channelling his literal hunger into inspiration and drive. The titular women in blue is a stand-in for Soutine himself, her pain is his, their shared lives built upon both universal hardship and the beautiful longing for more that accompanies it.
Our Lady of Perfection
PEDRO FRESQUIS
In Hispanic New Mexico in the early 1800s, works for personal worship offered protection against the ills and ailments of the day. Small paintings such as this, done of wood and metal panels, adorned family homes as religion became increasingly individualised and the santeros who created them drew from diverse sources of inspiration, incorporating contemporary styles alongside Byzantine, Greek, Roman and Renaissance compositions. Neither folk art in the modern sense, for these artists were established in their unique fields, yet totally removed from the ornate, detailed, and realistic contemporary artistic visions, the interpretation of biblical stories through the multifaceted lens created an unintentional but distinctly modern feeling to the works. There is brevity to the brush strokes and a natural ease to the depiction, Mary’s features drawn from a single, calligraphic line, that flew in the face of academic aesthetic thought. Fresquis’ work seems almost eternal, outside of time or geography and only placeable in its reverence to divinity.
Pedro Fresquis
PEDRO FRESQUIS, c.1815. WATER BASED PAINT ON WOOD PANEL.
In Hispanic New Mexico in the early 1800s, works for personal worship offered protection against the ills and ailments of the day. Small paintings such as this, done of wood and metal panels, adorned family homes as religion became increasingly individualised and the santeros who created them drew from diverse sources of inspiration, incorporating contemporary styles alongside Byzantine, Greek, Roman and Renaissance compositions. Neither folk art in the modern sense, for these artists were established in their unique fields, yet totally removed from the ornate, detailed, and realistic contemporary artistic visions, the interpretation of biblical stories through the multifaceted lens created an unintentional but distinctly modern feeling to the works. There is brevity to the brush strokes and a natural ease to the depiction, Mary’s features drawn from a single, calligraphic line, that flew in the face of academic aesthetic thought. Fresquis’ work seems almost eternal, outside of time or geography and only placeable in its reverence to divinity.
La Corniche Near Monaco
CLAUDE MONET
During trips to the French Riviera, Monet used his canvas a means to freeze time. His paintings here capture so potently and accurately an atmosphere, taking a single moment and imbuing it with the gift of eternity, that though they depict known landscapes it is not the place that we recognise but the feeling. The sun lowers in the sky over a bend in La Corniche, now the major road connecting Nice and Monaco but then little more than a dirt path, and the world seems to glimmer under its light. The sea shimmers and the plants are vibrant and frenetic, cliffsides soften under a sky that mirrors the water below it and a calmness washes over the viewer. Monet’s trips to this part of the world began after the death of his first wife, and he revisited the same areas over a 6-year period, finding in the pastoral landscape not motif but salvation.
Claude Monet
CLAUDE MONET, 1884. OIL ON CANVAS.
During trips to the French Riviera, Monet used his canvas as a means to freeze time. His paintings here capture so potently and accurately an atmosphere, taking a single moment and imbuing it with the gift of eternity, that though they depict known landscapes it is not the place that we recognise but the feeling. The sun lowers in the sky over a bend in La Corniche, now the major road connecting Nice and Monaco but then little more than a dirt path, and the world seems to glimmer under its light. The sea shimmers and the plants are vibrant and frenetic, cliffsides soften under a sky that mirrors the water below it and a calmness washes over the viewer. Monet’s trips to this part of the world began after the death of his first wife, and he revisited the same areas over a 6-year period, finding in the pastoral landscape not motif but salvation.
Dada Head
HANS RICHTER
Living in Zurich during the war, Richter became the chronicler of the Dadaists with his naïve and intoxicating portraits. Before Tristan Tzara introduced him to a young filmmaker and Richter found his calling in moving pictures, it was painted, mixed media works like these that occupied his attention. Trying to paint using the principles of avant-garde music, using the negative space to offer moments of calm before slowly rising to a crescendo, Richter applied the philosophy of an aphysical medium to the page. As he moved through the 1910s, these portraits got increasingly abstract, and the multiple portraits he painted across his career tell the story of a movement away from the external world and into an inner life. Richter’s experimental films, some of the very first to ever be made, owe a debt to his painterly work. In pushing the boundaries of one medium, he was able to open up unknown potential in another.
Hans Richter
HANS RICHTER, 1918. INK AND CHARCOAL ON PAPER.
Living in Zurich during the war, Richter became the chronicler of the Dadaists with his naïve and intoxicating portraits. Before Tristan Tzara introduced him to a young filmmaker and Richter found his calling in moving pictures, it was painted, mixed media works like these that occupied his attention. Trying to paint using the principles of avant-garde music, using the negative space to offer moments of calm before slowly rising to a crescendo, Richter applied the philosophy of an aphysical medium to the page. As he moved through the 1910s, these portraits got increasingly abstract, and the multiple portraits he painted across his career tell the story of a movement away from the external world and into an inner life. Richter’s experimental films, some of the very first to ever be made, owe a debt to his painterly work. In pushing the boundaries of one medium, he was able to open up unknown potential in another.
Reserve Head
UNKNOWN SCULPTURE OF THE 4TH DYNASTY, REIGN OF KHUFU
The true function of these life-size sculptures is unknown. Found in the sub-tombs of non-royalty along the Nile and dating from 2551-2496B.C, nearly all known examples have the same seemingly intentional damage, consisting of damaged or removed ears and a deep carved line from the back of the cranium to the nape of the neck. Carved of smoothed but unpolished limestone, they are no idealised portraits the like would be made for private busts or death masks, but instead seem to be honest portraits of the deceased. Many theories persist but none are conclusive, and perhaps never will be. They take their name of ‘Reserve Heads’ from the early theory that these were spare vessels for the soul of the dead if something were to happen to their entombed body. Yet mystery surrounds these delicate portraits, and their otherwise simple forms are all the more enticing for the inherent unknowability of their function.
Unknown Sculptor of the 4th Dynasty, Reign of Khufu
UNKNOWN SCULPTOR OF THE 4TH DYNASTY, REIGN OF KHUFU, c.2609-2584 BC. LIMESTONE.
The true function of these life-size sculptures is unknown. Found in the sub-tombs of non-royalty along the Nile and dating from 2551-2496B.C, nearly all known examples have the same seemingly intentional damage, consisting of damaged or removed ears and a deep carved line from the back of the cranium to the nape of the neck. Carved of smoothed but unpolished limestone, they are no idealised portraits the like would be made for private busts or death masks, but instead seem to be honest portraits of the deceased. Many theories persist but none are conclusive, and perhaps never will be. They take their name of ‘Reserve Heads’ from the early theory that these were spare vessels for the soul of the dead if something were to happen to their entombed body. Yet mystery surrounds these delicate portraits, and their otherwise simple forms are all the more enticing for the inherent unknowability of their function.
Prometheus Being Chained By Vulcan
DIRCK VAN BABUREN
Prometheus stole fire from the Gods and gave it to the mortals. In some versions of the story, it was he who crafted humans from clay and used the fire to imbue them with life, in others the fire was merely a tool to allow them to create civilisation. Yet in all tellings, the ending if the same; the great Titan Prometheus is bound to rock by the blacksmith God Vulcan, god of fire, volcanoes and deserts, and for eternity has his liver consumed by an eagle. It is one of many stories from the ancient world that artists of the Baroque drew their stories from yet is devoid of so much of the romance more commonly seen in the movement. Van Baburen’s depiction borrows heavily from the work of Renaissance artists before him, adapting Caravaggio’s depiction of St. Paul to become his Prometheus most notably. Yet for all the obvious influences, van Barburen brings new light to an ancient story and find the humanity, the religion and the beauty in myth.
Dirck van Baburen
DIRCK VAN BABUREN, 1623. OIL ON CANVAS.
Prometheus stole fire from the Gods and gave it to the mortals. In some versions of the story, it was he who crafted humans from clay and used the fire to imbue them with life, in others the fire was merely a tool to allow them to create civilisation. Yet in all tellings, the ending if the same; the great Titan Prometheus is bound to rock by the blacksmith God Vulcan, god of fire, volcanoes and deserts, and for eternity has his liver consumed by an eagle. It is one of many stories from the ancient world that artists of the Baroque drew their stories from yet is devoid of so much of the romance more commonly seen in the movement. Van Baburen’s depiction borrows heavily from the work of Renaissance artists before him, adapting Caravaggio’s depiction of St. Paul to become his Prometheus most notably. Yet for all the obvious influences, van Barburen brings new light to an ancient story and find the humanity, the religion and the beauty in myth.
Baptism of Christ
PAOLO VERONESE
At his workshop in Venice, Veronese and a large team of apprentice artists made variation after variation of this scene. Details change, figures are added and removed and small adjustments in the compositional structure are varied. The mood too changes across the versions. Some are bright and reverent, marking the occasion as Christ fulfilling his position and starting his journey towards the kingdom of heaven, while others and darker and more ominous, as Christ gets baptised in the River Jordan he takes on, in that moment, the sins of all men shared in the water and thus condemns himself to the fate of his crucifixion. Yet for all the changes, each of which brings a new idea and dimension to the image, there is continuity too. The dove, representing the Holy Spirit, that shines powerfully above is consistent, and the poses of John and Christ, confident and trepidatious respectfully, reappear through many versions. Veronese found remarkable depth and new layers with each retelling of this scene, and in a world before reproduction, repetition brought with it revelation.
Paolo Veronese
PAOLO VERONESE, c.1580. OIL ON CANVAS.
At his workshop in Venice, Veronese and a large team of apprentice artists made variation after variation of this scene. Details change, figures are added and removed and small adjustments in the compositional structure are varied. The mood too changes across the versions. Some are bright and reverent, marking the occasion as Christ fulfilling his position and starting his journey towards the kingdom of heaven, while others and darker and more ominous, as Christ gets baptised in the River Jordan he takes on, in that moment, the sins of all men shared in the water and thus condemns himself to the fate of his crucifixion. Yet for all the changes, each of which brings a new idea and dimension to the image, there is continuity too. The dove, representing the Holy Spirit, that shines powerfully above is consistent, and the poses of John and Christ, confident and trepidatious respectfully, reappear through many versions. Veronese found remarkable depth and new layers with each retelling of this scene, and in a world before reproduction, repetition brought with it revelation.
The Maiastra
CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI
A beneficent, dazzlingly plumed golden bird flew around Brancusi’s mind since childhood. The Maiastra is a character in the Romanian folklore he heard growing up and his preoccupation with the bird as a formal object, plastic and changeable, started in his teenage years. Brancusi made more than 30 variations of this theme, the most minute adjustments radically changing the sculpture’s weight and feeling within space. The plumage is simplified into medium, polished bronze that catches the light and seems to take flight, and the bird is reduced to it’s constituents parts, delicate in its balance on a small base but imposing in its power. Brancusi’s genius was in the finding of an essence, removing the pomp and ornament of people, objects, and beings and distilling them into something approaching pure truth. His bird is a platonic ideal, universally recognisable and yet open to the possibility of immense and infinite variation.
Constantin Brancusi
CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI, c.1912. BRASS ON LIMESTONE BASE.
A beneficent, dazzlingly plumed golden bird flew around Brancusi’s mind since childhood. The Maiastra is a character in the Romanian folklore he heard growing up and his preoccupation with the bird as a formal object, plastic and changeable, started in his teenage years. Brancusi made more than 30 variations of this theme, the most minute adjustments radically changing the sculpture’s weight and feeling within space. The plumage is simplified into medium, polished bronze that catches the light and seems to take flight, and the bird is reduced to it’s constituents parts, delicate in its balance on a small base but imposing in its power. Brancusi’s genius was in the finding of an essence, removing the pomp and ornament of people, objects, and beings and distilling them into something approaching pure truth. His bird is a platonic ideal, universally recognisable and yet open to the possibility of immense and infinite variation.
Self-Portait
VINCENT VAN GOGH
“People say – and I’m quite willing to believe it – that it’s difficult to know oneself – but it’n not easy to paint oneself either”, so said Van Gogh in one of his many letters to his brother Theo. Yet for all the difficulty, or perhaps because of it, Van Gogh did paint himself, constantly and almost obsessively in his short-lived artistic life. Often from the same angle, with his face at three quarters to the view, Van Gogh documented his changing life, mind, and health with each new self-portrait and from the clues that are hidden within them we can learn enormous amounts about his life. This painting was perhaps his first since he moved to Paris, seeking out the new style of French painting he had heard of. He documents himself as a fashionable Parisian, bourgeois with an elegant suit and well fitted straw hat, in rhythmic, hypnotic brushstrokes. Yet Van Gogh never quite felt comfortable as the figure he tried to depict here, this portrait was a version of himself and you can see, in his eyes, that it does not match his true spirit.
Vincent van Gogh
VINCENT VAN GOGH, 1887. OIL ON PASTELBOARD.
“People say – and I’m quite willing to believe it – that it’s difficult to know oneself – but it’n not easy to paint oneself either”, so said Van Gogh in one of his many letters to his brother Theo. Yet for all the difficulty, or perhaps because of it, Van Gogh did paint himself, constantly and almost obsessively in his short-lived artistic life. Often from the same angle, with his face at three quarters to the view, Van Gogh documented his changing life, mind, and health with each new self-portrait and from the clues that are hidden within them we can learn enormous amounts about his life. This painting was perhaps his first since he moved to Paris, seeking out the new style of French painting he had heard of. He documents himself as a fashionable Parisian, bourgeois with an elegant suit and well fitted straw hat, in rhythmic, hypnotic brushstrokes. Yet Van Gogh never quite felt comfortable as the figure he tried to depict here, this portrait was a version of himself and you can see, in his eyes, that it does not match his true spirit.
Signac and His Friends in the Sailing Boat
PIERRE BONNARD
Pierre Bonnard was a member of Les Nabis, an avant-garde, post-impressionist group of radical artists joined by a belief that art was not intended to represent nature but was instead a synthesis of symbols and metaphors of the artists ideas. His paintings were cosmopolitan, depicting urban life and intimate domestic scenes, and the forays into landscapes were static and devoid of human presence. Paul Signac, on the other hand, was a Pointillist who, together with Georges Seurat, created the new style of painting and used it to depict scenes of rural and Mediterranean life, alive with joyous, relaxed civilisation. So it should come as no surprise then, that this somewhat anomalous work in Bonnard’s career features at its centre a depiction of his friend from across the aisle, Signac. It is not just a literal depiction of him, surrounded by his friends helming a sailing boat, but Bonnard takes its further and paints like Signac, not in style but in content and feel. The work is alive, jubilant and reverent of nature – the philosophy of a companion translated through his personal lens.
Pierre Bonnard
PIERRE BONNARD, c.1924. OIL ON CANVAS.
Pierre Bonnard was a member of Les Nabis, an avant-garde, post-impressionist group of radical artists joined by a belief that art was not intended to represent nature but was instead a synthesis of symbols and metaphors of the artists ideas. His paintings were cosmopolitan, depicting urban life and intimate domestic scenes, and the forays into landscapes were static and devoid of human presence. Paul Signac, on the other hand, was a Pointillist who, together with Georges Seurat, created the new style of painting and used it to depict scenes of rural and Mediterranean life, alive with joyous, relaxed civilisation. So it should come as no surprise then, that this somewhat anomalous work in Bonnard’s career features at its centre a depiction of his friend from across the aisle, Signac. It is not just a literal depiction of him, surrounded by his friends helming a sailing boat, but Bonnard takes its further and paints like Signac, not in style but in content and feel. The work is alive, jubilant and reverent of nature – the philosophy of a companion translated through his personal lens.
Flash
GEORGES MATHIEU
Mathieu saw the movement of ‘Lyrical Abstraction’ that he created as a conclusion to the revolution of art history, following in the slipstream of freedom that avant-garde movements before him allowed. Impressionism freed the artwork from realism, Cubism from shapes, Geometric abstraction from the representation of perceived reality and lyrical abstraction was the final destruction. ‘Henceforth in the history of shapes as in the history of the world’, said Mathieu, ‘the sign precedes its meaning’. His work was freed from the requirements of meaning, he painted with gesture and passion, and painted in public in early happenings that broke down the barriers between artist and observer. He saw public creation as an act of true and joyful communion, a connection built from the shared focus on a visual impetus that requires no context to understand. Mathieu’s lyrical abstraction was not the conclusion he hoped it would be, movements after him returned meaning to their signs, but to look at his large scale works is to see an artist totally unchained, aesthetics that are freed from millennia of expectations to sing of total freedom.
Georges Mathieu
GEORGES MATHIEU, c.1965. OIL ON CANVAS.
Mathieu saw the movement of ‘Lyrical Abstraction’ that he created as a conclusion to the revolution of art history, following in the slipstream of freedom that avant-garde movements before him allowed. Impressionism freed the artwork from realism, Cubism from shapes, Geometric abstraction from the representation of perceived reality and lyrical abstraction was the final destruction. ‘Henceforth in the history of shapes as in the history of the world’, said Mathieu, ‘the sign precedes its meaning’. His work was freed from the requirements of meaning, he painted with gesture and passion, and painted in public in early happenings that broke down the barriers between artist and observer. He saw public creation as an act of true and joyful communion, a connection built from the shared focus on a visual impetus that requires no context to understand. Mathieu’s lyrical abstraction was not the conclusion he hoped it would be, movements after him returned meaning to their signs, but to look at his large scale works is to see an artist totally unchained, aesthetics that are freed from millennia of expectations to sing of total freedom.
The Crucifixion
UNKNOWN AUSTRIAN MASTER
In the fledgling beginnings of the Northern Renaissance, removed the cultural epicentre of Italy whose artistic style was progressing ahead of its northern neighbours, artists were rediscovering a representational style that had been lost for centuries. Perspectival drawing was mastered by the ancient world who, across generations of trial and error, discovered the secrets to representing a three-dimensional world onto a flat plane. But in the preceding centuries, the skills and knowledge of this style were lost – until, that is, the arrival of the renaissance at the end of 14th century. In the early decades of this revolution, we can witness the evolution of this style in real time, watch masterful artists create life from tempera, wood and brushes, and, in their completed works, see the successes and the failures go hand in hand. The results are poignant and surreal, as exemplified in this work by an unknown Austrian master. Figures’ scale changes with no relation to their positioning on the canvas, but this allows us to see their expressions more clearly. Detailed faces seem to sit in biologically impossible positions which only emphasises the anguish. For each imperfection, something is gained, and the immaculate detail of this work, both in narrative and emotion, is possible only for the slight naivety of its style.
Unknown Austrian Master
AUSTRIAN MASTER, c.1410. TEMPERA AND GOLD ON WOOD PANEL.
In the fledgling beginnings of the Northern Renaissance, removed the cultural epicentre of Italy whose artistic style was progressing ahead of its northern neighbours, artists were rediscovering a representational style that had been lost for centuries. Perspectival drawing was mastered by the ancient world who, across generations of trial and error, discovered the secrets to representing a three-dimensional world onto a flat plane. But in the preceding centuries, the skills and knowledge of this style were lost – until, that is, the arrival of the renaissance at the end of 14th century. In the early decades of this revolution, we can witness the evolution of this style in real time, watch masterful artists create life from tempera, wood and brushes, and, in their completed works, see the successes and the failures go hand in hand. The results are poignant and surreal, as exemplified in this work by an unknown Austrian master. Figures’ scale changes with no relation to their positioning on the canvas, but this allows us to see their expressions more clearly. Detailed faces seem to sit in biologically impossible positions which only emphasises the anguish. For each imperfection, something is gained, and the immaculate detail of this work, both in narrative and emotion, is possible only for the slight naivety of its style.
Tarring a Boat
ÉDOUARD MANET
Rejecting the naval life his upper-class family envisioned for him, Manet chose instead to depict modern life in the 19th century in a way no artist had done before. Blazing a trail of loose brushstrokes, simplified forms, and emotive works that rejected the realist painting that had come before and came to inform so much of the impressionist style that followed him, Manet never felt comfortable in any one group or movement. Despite his role as a guiding light for the Impressionists, and a close friendship and mentorship with many of its key members, he did not want to formally join the group. For all his avant-garde sensibilities and radical aesthetics, Manet wanted to exhibit in the Salon, a bastion of French artistic tradition that the Impressionists rejected. Yet the Salon didn’t embrace him, and Manet, despite his acclaim and success, was too radical for the institutions and too respectful of the same institutions for the radicals.
Édouard Manet
ÉDOUARD MANET, 1873. OIL ON CANVAS.
Rejecting the naval life his upper-class family envisioned for him, Manet chose instead to depict modern life in the 19th century in a way no artist had done before. Blazing a trail of loose brushstrokes, simplified forms, and emotive works that rejected the realist painting that had come before and came to inform so much of the impressionist style that followed him, Manet never felt comfortable in any one group or movement. Despite his role as a guiding light for the Impressionists, and a close friendship and mentorship with many of its key members, he did not want to formally join the group. For all his avant-garde sensibilities and radical aesthetics, Manet wanted to exhibit in the Salon, a bastion of French artistic tradition that the Impressionists rejected. Yet the Salon didn’t embrace him, and Manet, despite his acclaim and success, was too radical for the institutions and too respectful of the same institutions for the radicals.
Woman Walking in an Exotic Forest
HENRI ROUSSEAU
It was Rousseau’s lack of training that allowed his genius to flourish. His unfamiliarity with the technical skills and historical knowledge, that those dominating the avant-garde had, set him apart and gave him the space to rise above them all and establish himself as one of the leading artistic figures of the post-impressionist movement. Working as a tax collector until he was 49, Rousseau retired from his lifetime job and began to work as an artist full time. He was ridiculed by critics for his naïve style, for the uncanny sense of strangeness that pervaded his work, it’s imperfections, formal idiosyncrasies and disarming scale marked down to inability rather than genius. It was Picasso, who saw a painting of Rosseau’s offered by a street seller as a used canvas to paint over, who realised that though the style was naïve, it was the world who was behind. His childish style would go on to influence a new world of avant-garde painting, spurring figures of the 20th century to try and paint like a child, or more accurately, paint in the way that was so innate to Rousseau.
Henri Rousseau
HENRI ROUSSEAU, 1905. OIL ON CANVAS.
It was Rousseau’s lack of training that allowed his genius to flourish. His unfamiliarity with the technical skills and historical knowledge, that those dominating the avant-garde had, set him apart and gave him the space to rise above them all and establish himself as one of the leading artistic figures of the post-impressionist movement. Working as a tax collector until he was 49, Rousseau retired from his lifetime job and began to work as an artist full time. He was ridiculed by critics for his naïve style, for the uncanny sense of strangeness that pervaded his work, it’s imperfections, formal idiosyncrasies and disarming scale marked down to inability rather than genius. It was Picasso, who saw a painting of Rosseau’s offered by a street seller as a used canvas to paint over, who realised that though the style was naïve, it was the world who was behind. His childish style would go on to influence a new world of avant-garde painting, spurring figures of the 20th century to try and paint like a child, or more accurately, paint in the way that was so innate to Rousseau.
The Tower of Babel
PIETER BRUEGEL
‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.’ A unified, monolingual human race, working together as they traverse eastward come to the land of Shinar and begin to build a tower, high up into the sky. Yahweh, seeing them rise higher to the heavens and feeling threatened by the power of a species that can all communicate, confounds their speech, creating hundreds of different of languages so they can no longer understand each other, and the tower begins to break, scattering them all over the world. This is the story that Bruegel is telling, one of hubris and futility, of humans who aspire to divinity and have their pride punished. He paints the tower before it’s destruction, being built in a spiral upwards, but there are cracks showing and we see bricks beginning to fall. We are, he is trying to tell us, so arrogant to think we can reach God when our earthly craftsmanship is not even able to build a strong tower.
Pieter Bruegel
PIETER BRUEGEL THE ELDER, c.1563. OIL ON WOOD.
‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.’ A unified, monolingual human race, working together as they traverse eastward come to the land of Shinar and begin to build a tower, high up into the sky. Yahweh, seeing them rise higher to the heavens and feeling threatened by the power of a species that can all communicate, confounds their speech, creating hundreds of different of languages so they can no longer understand each other, and the tower begins to break, scattering them all over the world. This is the story that Bruegel is telling, one of hubris and futility, of humans who aspire to divinity and have their pride punished. He paints the tower before it’s destruction, being built in a spiral upwards, but there are cracks showing and we see bricks beginning to fall. We are, he is trying to tell us, so arrogant to think we can reach God when our earthly craftsmanship is not even able to build a strong tower.
Portrait of Dr. Felix J. Weil
GEORGE GROSZ
Grosz rejected the expressionist spirit that was overtaking European art in the early decades of the 20th Century. He saw their style as self-involved, uncommitted to reality in its yearning for romantic ideals which could never be and resented the personality cults that the artists of the movements cultivated, willingly or not, around them. ‘The cult of individuality and personality, which promotes painters and poets only to promote itself, is really a business.”, he said, “The greater the 'genius' of the personage, the greater the profit.” Instead, Grosz was at the forefront of a style known as New Objectivism, which was about practical and honest engagement with the world, rid of pretentions or fancy instead the artists would try and represent the world as it appeared and find the art in the truthful imperfections around them. His portraiture came to define this style, austere and honest, he depicts people as they were, creating historical records that aspire to little more than the beauty of the everyday.
George Grosz
GEORGE GROSZ, 1926. OIL ON CANVAS.
Grosz rejected the expressionist spirit that was overtaking European art in the early decades of the 20th Century. He saw their style as self-involved, uncommitted to reality in its yearning for romantic ideals which could never be and resented the personality cults that the artists of the movements cultivated, willingly or not, around them. ‘The cult of individuality and personality, which promotes painters and poets only to promote itself, is really a business.”, he said, “The greater the 'genius' of the personage, the greater the profit.” Instead, Grosz was at the forefront of a style known as New Objectivism, which was about practical and honest engagement with the world, rid of pretentions or fancy instead the artists would try and represent the world as it appeared and find the art in the truthful imperfections around them. His portraiture came to define this style, austere and honest, he depicts people as they were, creating historical records that aspire to little more than the beauty of the everyday.
Premiere
STUART DAVIS
On the precipice of modernity, the long shadow of the Second World War starting to wane and the art forms that had sprung up in its wake becoming tired and clichéd, Stuart Davis built a bridge. The geometric abstractions, colour-field paintings, modernist simplifications and abstract expressionists that had dominated the aesthetic language for preceding decade meet with the burgeoning pop-art style, neither named nor acknowledged at scale at the time this work was made. Consumer products and bold slogans of capitalism and commerce combine with jazz-inspired formalism, to create a work that refuses to fit neatly into any genre. Davis was a visionary, and ahead of his time at every stage of his career. He was acutely aware of the political purpose of his art, and used his medium to push the discourse and the vision of a better future, and comment on the idiosyncrasies and flaws of the present he was living in.
Stuart Davis
STUART DAVIS, 1957. OIL ON CANVAS.
On the precipice of modernity, the long shadow of the Second World War starting to wane and the art forms that had sprung up in its wake becoming tired and clichéd, Stuart Davis built a bridge. The geometric abstractions, colour-field paintings, modernist simplifications and abstract expressionists that had dominated the aesthetic language for preceding decade meet with the burgeoning pop-art style, neither named nor acknowledged at scale at the time this work was made. Consumer products and bold slogans of capitalism and commerce combine with jazz-inspired formalism, to create a work that refuses to fit neatly into any genre. Davis was a visionary, and ahead of his time at every stage of his career. He was acutely aware of the political purpose of his art, and used his medium to push the discourse and the vision of a better future, and comment on the idiosyncrasies and flaws of the present he was living in.
The Virgin and Child with St. Barbara, St. Elizabeth, and Jan Vos
JAN VAN EYCK
A painting once imbued with the indulgence of forgiveness, Jan Vos, the monk Patron who is pictured kneeling before the Virgin Mary, ensured that any who said ‘Ave Maria’ before the image would receive forty days off their time in purgatory. The indulgence, however, was only valid so long as the painting remained in the Carthusian order for which it was commissioned, so when it was purchased in 1954 its powers of penance were lost. Van Eyck filled this commission with not only his signature style and unparalleled artistic ability, but also his trademark iconography. Behind Mary, an imagined city scape appears through the arches and in the cupola of Barbara’s tower, a statue of the deity Mars resides. Van Eyck places Jan Vos in the centre of the work, flanked by two saints, as he pays his respect and reverence to Mary and the infant Jesus. He collapses modernity into antiquity, imagination into reality and religious power into oil paint.
Jan Van Eyck
JAN VAN EYCK, c.1442. OIL ON MASONITE.
A painting once imbued with the indulgence of forgiveness, Jan Vos, the monk Patron who is pictured kneeling before the Virgin Mary, ensured that any who said ‘Ave Maria’ before the image would receive forty days off their time in purgatory. The indulgence, however, was only valid so long as the painting remained in the Carthusian order for which it was commissioned, so when it was purchased in 1954 its powers of penance were lost. Van Eyck filled this commission with not only his signature style and unparalleled artistic ability, but also his trademark iconography. Behind Mary, an imagined city scape appears through the arches and in the cupola of Barbara’s tower, a statue of the deity Mars resides. Van Eyck places Jan Vos in the centre of the work, flanked by two saints, as he pays his respect and reverence to Mary and the infant Jesus. He collapses modernity into antiquity, imagination into reality and religious power into oil paint.