Sultry and sexy define Corot's women at the National Gallery of Art

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Interrupted Reading, c. 1870, oil on canvas mounted on board, The Art Institute of Chicago, Potter Palmer Collection  The wistful subject seems to ask:  "Must you bother me?  I am so sad.  Please go away."  It is wonderful to see in the exhibition, Corot: Women, several samples of women reading. About two-thirds of women were literate in France at this time, compared to "virtually all the [American] women born around 1810," says a Colonial Williamsburg report which seems hard to believe..

Today is the last day to see these ladies (and one man) before they leave the National Gallery of Art and go their separate ways after appearing together for the first time in more than 100 years in a show, Corot: Women.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, The Lady in Blue, 1874, oil on canvas, Musée du Louvre, Paris, Département des peintures.This view of the woman's back gives one pause to question the meaning. She seems another unhappy soul with muscular arms planted on the piano as if to sigh: "I am tired of this party and want to leave." It is unusual that the artist left her arms bare.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot,The Repose, 1860, reworked c. 1865–1870, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Corcoran Collection (William A. Clark Collection). Corot generally tried to disguise the faces of nude models, unlike other artists, but Repose came out near the peak of his career which was beginning to wane. According to the catalogue, Repose  was intended to enliven Corot's artistic image and to show he was more than a landscape artist.

You walk through the galleries and almost feel like you are peering or intruding upon the models' innermost thoughts as they brood, study, read, and welcome no one.  Happiness is absent, but what would a painting be without conflict or turmoil? They are like books with climax, the peak of interest.

The models look askance, in that direction, this way, down, seldom at the viewer.  One has been bitten by a viper.  In another, a voyeur gets his comeuppance when his hounds chase and kill him.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Agostina, 1866, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Chester Dale Collection. One of Mr. Dale's favorites which hung in the Dales' New York apartment. The Dales' gifts to the National Gallery of Art form the basis of the Gallery's impressionist and post-impressionist collections, according to the catalogue.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot,Young Woman in a Pink Skirt, c. 1845–1850, oil on canvas, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts. Her blouse hangs suggestively low.  Might she be a girl of the street? 

The subjects languish over props, with their heads in their hands, positioned sideways, almost sad, some suffering "melancholia."  

Although Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875) was chiefly known for his landscapes, this exhibition is a study in portraiture.

He painted these 44 works between 1830 and the 1870s and kept the works in his studio, most not exhibited publicly during his lifetime.  

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Young Woman at The Fountain, c. 1860, oil on canvas, Musée d'Art d'Historie de Genève.
 
Many of the women are dressed in colorful costumes, an appreciation of apparel Corot gained from helping his mother in her dress shop and observing his father's work as a draper.  Corot was a textile apprentice until age 26 when he persuaded his parents to let him study art full time. He never married, he said, because he only wanted to concentrate on his art.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Wounded Eurydice, c. 1868–1870, oil on canvas, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Bequest of Mrs. Egil Boeckmann. Before she dies from a viper's bit, Eurydice rubs her foot. Her husband, Orpheus, chases her to the underworld, but disobeys an order and looks back, to lose Eurydice forever.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Saint Sebastien, c. 1850-1869, oil on canvas. Musee des beaux- arts de Lyon. Perhaps for balance, the exhibition includes a single male "nude." He is nude? That is the description in the "nudity" gallery of the Corot show.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Diana and Actaeon (Diana Surprised in Her Bath), 1836, oil on canvas. Lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Robert Lehman Collection.This is based on Ovid's Metamorphoses when Actaeon stumbles upon Diana bathing and she turns him into a stag who is killed by his own hounds.  (Take that, you voyeur!) A close-up from Diana and Actaeon (Diana Surprised in Her Bath).

 

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Bacchante with a Panther, 1860, reworked c. 1865–1870, oil on canvas. Collection of Shelburne Museum, Anonymous gift in memory of Harry Payne Bingham.. Is this weird or what? Even the National Gallery of Art cannot explain it. A nude woman shows a dead bird to a child on a leopard (?) The label says it looks like a mythological study, however, no one can identify the study, if it is.  The painting almost looks like two separate works.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Springtime of Life, 1871, oil on canvas. Minneapolis Institute of Art, Bequest of Mrs. Erasmus C. Lindley in memory of her father, James J. Hill. Springtime reminds me of the poem by Robert Herrick (1591-1674):

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
   Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
   Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun, 
   The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
   And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
   When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
   Times still succeed the former. 

Then be not coy, but use your time,
   And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
   You may forever tarry.

Like Corot, it took Mary Morton, the National Gallery's curator and head of the department of French paintings, some convincing of "higher authorities," (in this case, the National Gallery director, Earl A. Powell III) to do the show, which had been cruising in her mind for 20 years.

A color catalogue of 180 pages written by Ms. Morton and others is available.

 Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, c. 1850 by Victor Laisné or Lainé (1830-1911),
(1853) Histoire des artistes vivants, français et étrangers, peintres, sculpteurs, architectes, graveurs, photographes : études d'après nature, Paris: E. Blanchard, pp. 27 Retrieved on 5 March 2013/Wikimedia Commons

What:  Corot: Women

When: Today at the National Gallery of Art, open 10 a.m.- 5 p.m.

Where: The main floor of the West Building between Third and Ninth streets at Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. On the Mall.

Admission charge: It's always free at the National Gallery of Art.

Metro stations for the National Gallery of Art:
Smithsonian, Federal Triangle, Navy Memorial-Archives or L'Enfant Plaza

For more information: 202-737-4215

patricialesli@gmail.com

Follow me on Twitter@patricadcdc











 

19th century French art exits Sunday

Gustave Dore, The Shades of French Soldiers from the Past Exhort the Army to Victory on the Rhine, 1870. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Helen Porter and James T. Dyke Fund, 2006

Edgar Allan Poe fans familiar with the memorable illustrations by Gustave Dore of Poe's poem, The Raven, will not want to miss four original Dores which are part of a enchanting exhibition now in its final weekend at the National Gallery of Art.

Color, Line, Light: French Drawings, Watercolors, and Pastels from Delacroix to Signac presents 100 pieces from the 19th century French collection of James T. Dyke and his wife, Helen L. Porter, and from the National Gallery's collection made possible by the couple.

Alexandre Calame, An Ancient Pine Forest with a Mountain Stream, 1847. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Helen Porter and James T. Dyke, 1999

Dyke, who heads the Gallery's Trustees' Council, and Ms. Porter are avid collectors who “buy what they like” and not necessarily pieces which are in style at the moment, said Andrew Robison, one of the curators of the show.

"Jim likes to go to auctions" and says occasionally to Robison: "I don't like it, but I'll give

you the money to buy it."

Mr. Dyke and Ms. Porter have "built up this extraordinary collection...a really comprehensive view of 19th century French art" with "many (artists) you haven't heard of," Robison, an enthusiastic guide, said.

Robison and Dyke worked on the project for ten years.

Gustave Dore, A River Gorge in a Mountain Landscape. Dyke Collection

It is a "quiet" display, soothing and spiritually moving, with many invitations to novels which beg to be written. Muted tones and fairy-tale scenes evoke memories of long ago images from Grimm’s Fairy Tales, which match those mysterious, haunting places where you could wander amidst magical forests with castles and high peaks, alone and yet secure, guided by a mysterious path and hand.

Maxime Lalanne, Alpine Castle above a Wooded Lake, c. 1870. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Helen Porter and James T. Dyke Fund, 2006

The artworks flow chronologically by style in five galleries which the catalogue (edited by Mr. Robison and co-curator Margaret Morgan Grasselli) follows: Romanticism (with three Dores), Realism and Naturalism (one Dore), Impressionism, Nabis and Symbolists (which I have nicknamed the Lemmen Gallery after one of Dyke's favorite artists, Georges Lemmen, who has several on the walls here), and Neo-Impressionism (the "Signac Gallery" with eight by Paul Signac).

Hippolyte Petitjean, A Broad Valley at Sunset, c. 1897. Dyke Collection, promised gift to the National Gallery of Art, Washington

Lengthy descriptions of the different media the artists used (chalk, watercolor, graphite, pen and ink, charcoal, pastel) are an important part of this show.

Robison said the contents are "major works by minor artists and major works by major masters" (Cezanne, Degas, Millet, Monet, Pissarro, Seurat, Bonnard, Vuillard, Signac, Delacroix), and please don't overlook the women in the show, whom Ms. Grasselli pointed out:  Berthe Morison and Suzanne Valadon.

Francois-Auguste Ravier, A Marsh at Sunset. Dyke Collection

One of the most provocative works is Lemmen’s Two Studies of Madame Lemmen (1885). Two female figures stand, almost facing each other, but that's impossible since one stands farther back. They look towards the center of the chalk drawing, but not at each other. The shadowy silhouettes are dressed alike, and the dominant figure seems to offer her hand to the other.  Touching of their hands is hinted, however, distance between them prevents that.  What is in the background, please?  An open coffin?  To which she steps?  Or emerges?  Perhaps it is a piece of luggage before she embarks on a trip?  To where?  Is the larger figure an apparition who tries to warn or rescue the other? 

Georges Lemmen, Two Studies of Madame Lemmen, 1885. Dyke Collection, promised gift to the National Gallery of Art, Washington

You see what art can do!

This exhibition is another example of what I wish its staying power to be, to remain at the National Gallery and not go away so I can visit often for inspiration and palliative effects.

Charles Angrand, The Annunciation to the Shepherds, 1894. Dyke Collection

Please, are we soon going to expand to the other side of the street, and move to the Federal Trade Commission Building? Next week would be grand, so this show could hang in Washington a while longer. (It moves to the Musee des impressionnismes in Giverny to open July 27. Sigh.)

Ms. Grasselli called the exhibition "a banquet for the eyes."

P.S. And, for the soul. Who needs medication when there's art like this to carry you away to faraway, dreamy places?

A gallery talk by Kimberly Schenck begins at 2 p.m., May 24 at the Rotunda in the West Building

What: Color, Line, Light: French Drawings, Watercolors, and Pastels from Delacroix to Signac

When: Now through May 26, 2013, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and 11 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sunday

Where: Main Floor, the West Building, National Gallery of Art, between Third and Ninth streets, NW, at Constitution Avenue

Admission: No charge

Metro stations: Smithsonian, Federal Triangle, Navy Memorial-Archives, or L'Enfant Plaza

For more information: 202-737-4215

patricialesli@gmail.com

The National Gallery of Art opens 'triple header'

Pablo Picasso, Head of a Woman, 1921, pastel, Fondation Beyeler, Basil


Two new exhibitions and newly refurbished galleries were unveiled in the West Building at the National Gallery of Art over the weekend and its director, Earl A. Powell,III, called them "a triple play."

They are:

* The opening of the renovated 19th-century French galleries on the main floor

* Picasso's Drawings, 1890–1921: Reinventing Tradition through May 6, 2012 on the ground floor (near the 7th Street entrance)

* The Baroque Genius of Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione prints and drawings through July 8, 2012 on the ground floor (also near the 7th Street entrance)

After a two-year makeover, the French impressionism and post-impressionism galleries are now open, and many of the masterpieces which hung in the Chester Dale Collection up for two years on the ground floor which recently ended and you feared you would never see them again are here: Manet, Cezanne, Courbet, Cassatt, Morisot, Renoir, van Gogh, Degas, Gauguin, Monet, Toulouse-Lautrec, and finally, Picasso, are some of the artists. The way some of them are hung now, they can have "conversations" with each other, according to the Gallery's Mary Morton, head of French paintings.

The Monet gallery in the renovated French galleries at the National Gallery of Art.  It is the smallest of the new 14 galleries, good for "quiet contemplation," said Mary Morton, French painting curator and head/Patricia Leslie

On Sunday she spoke about the new show to several hundred people in the packed East Building auditorium.  Earlier in the week Dr. Morton called the Chester Dale Collection "one of the greatest of its kind in the country, if not the world."

Director Powell said the completion of the 14 French galleries ends 10 years of renovation at the West Building which is now "completely open again."

Gustave Caillebotte, Skiffs, 1877, collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

The 55 or so Picasso drawings, pastels, watercolors, and collages are much, much more than what visitors may expect.  The show is a history of early Picasso art including his earliest work, Hercules (age 9), and displays his first three decades of drawings in  chronological arrangement.

More than half the works come from private collections, most of which Gallery visitors will never see again. On an energetic flight through the exhibition, Curator Andrew Robison enthusiastically described them, pointing out one wall in the third gallery where three of four works are private. 

In the third gallery of the Picasso exhibition, three of these four paintings are from private collections/Patricia Leslie

The exhibition presages the Picasso masterpieces to come. Art education was important to the youthful Picasso whose father was a painter.

The 17th century drawings are detailed pen and ink scenes by the Italian baroque master, Castiglione, and his contemporaries and followers. Whether or not visitors are "churchy," the meticulous etchings and finest of pen strokes of many Biblical scenes will produce deep appreciation for this fine art where close-up inspection is permitted.

Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, The Flight into Egypt, 1647/1649, etching, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund

Pietro Testa, The Infant Christ at the Foot of the Cross, 1635/1637, etching,  National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund

The Frick Collection in New York and the National Gallery of Art organized the Picasso show for which the Hearst Foundation, Inc. is a major sponsor.

In celebration of the exhibitions, the National Gallery of Art is hosting talks, concerts and films. See the schedule here. 

When: Open daily from 10 a.m.- 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and 11 a.m.- 6 p.m., Sunday

Where: The West Building of the National Gallery of Art between 4th and 7th streets along Constitution Avenue

How much: No charge

Metro station(s): Archives, Judiciary Square, Federal Triangle, or L'Enfant Plaza and/or ride the Circulator bus with stops at the West Building

For more information: 202-737-4215  or click here

patricialesliexam@gmail.com