Textiles and modern abstraction close Sunday at the National Gallery of Art

Ann Hamilton (b. 1956), (side by side.coats), 2018/2023.  The label says Ms. Hamilton worked on her art in northern Portugal, sourcing fleeces from a local farmer and using coats from secondhand shops to show "enduring interdependencies: between human and animal, manufactured and organic, nurture and sacrifice." Loaned by the artist/By Patricia Leslie

The National Gallery of Art hosts a large show, Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction, in eight rooms to display some 160 works by 50 artists from around the globe. Their art begins with the first World War and continues to present day.

The exhibition brings to mind the question: Why have textiles and related arts taken a back seat to oil, sculpture, prints and drawings and other fine arts?*

The fact that textiles and woven arts are usually associated with women likely plays a role. 

Sophie Taeuber-Arp, 1889-1943, Cushion Panel (detail), 1916 (facsimile 2021) cross-stitch embroidery. Loaned by the Museum of Design, Zurich. Silhouettes of viewers are reflected in the protective glass/By Patricia Leslie

Jeffrey Gibson (b. 1972), from left, The Past as Future Artifact (Mask 2), 2020, The Anthropophagic Effect, Helmet No. 2, 2019, and The Anthropophagic Effect, Helmet No. 1, 2019.  Materials used included birch bark, pine resin, porcupine quills, brass bells, metal jingles, turquoise, and beeswax. Loaned by the artist/By Patricia Leslie

These artists produce their works for the same reasons as other artists: to effect political and social change, to capitalize on change, to build momentum for matters of the time, to promote more awareness of cultural and historical change, to enjoy beauty, to document scenes from current events, to express themselves.

Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979), Electric Prisms (detail), 1913, Davis Museum at Wellesley College/By Patricia Leslie

Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979), Groupe de femmes, 1923-1924, watercolor, colored inks and graphite on paper glued on cardboard, Centre Pompidou, Paris/By Patricia Leslie

In a textiles gallery at the National Galley of Art, Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie

Eden Gallery with offices around the world may have answers to why these arts have not enjoyed the same prestige and importance as other "fine arts."

On its website, Eden asks:

What exactly is fine art, and how has its definition changed over the centuries?

Art, in its broadest sense, embodies the act of crafting something unique that tantalizes our visual or auditory senses. Fine art, often labeled as "high art," stands as the pinnacle of artistic expression, emphasizing aesthetics over functionality. This inherent aesthetic quality sets fine art apart from "low arts" which are crafted with a more utilitarian purpose in mind.

Yet, as the art world continues to evolve, the once-clear boundaries that defined what is "high" or "low" art blur. This prompts the question: should any art form be considered superior to another in today's democratized art landscape?

Sonia Delaunay, 1885-1979, from left, Summer Dress, c. 1926, printed silk and Dress, c. 1926, printed and pleated silk. Private collection/By Patricia Leslie

The artists explain their various techniques of weaving, knitting, netting, knotting, and felting** and the reasons why they choose the mediums they do.  

Here I've included artworks which I found of particular interest, and without paying attention to the artists' names as I photograhed them, I was struck later as I write this, that of the few I chose for this blog post, three are by Sonia Delaunay 1885-1979.

Olga de Amaral (b. 1932), Cintas Entrelazadas, c. 1969, wool and cotton. Loaned by the artist/By Patricia Leslie

Marilou Schultz (b. 1954), Replica of a Chip (detail), 1994, wool. The label says the Intel Corporation commissioned Ms. Schultz, a Native American weaver, "to make a blanket featuring their Pentium microprocessor," using the traditional techniques that she learned as a child growing up on the reservation. The company proposed "affinities between Native American aesthetics and advanced technologies" as part of its marketing campaign. Loaned by the American Indian Science and Engineering Society/By  Patricia Leslie

Ellen Lesperance (b. 1971), Cardigan Worn by One Woman of the Boeing Five,  Tried for Entering the Boeing Nuclear Missile Plant on September 27th, 1983, Sentenced to Fifteen Days in the King County Jail for Defending Life on Earth, 2011. Loaned by Brooklyn Museum/By Patricia Leslie

Liz Collins (b. 1968) and Gary Graham (b.1969) (GRIZ), Pride Dress from the Seven Deadly Sins series, 2003. Loaned by Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design/By Patricia Leslie

Liz Collins (b. 1968) and Gary Graham (b.1969) (GRIZ), Pride Dress from the Seven Deadly Sins series, 2003. Loaned by Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design/By Patricia Leslie

A hardback catalog, Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abraction of almost 300 pages with 200 colored illustrations is available in the shops, online at shop.nga.gov, and by phone, 800-697-9350 for $32.50. Accompanying products are available.

The exhibition comes to NGA after its showing at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and, after its stay in Washington, will travel to the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (November 8, 2024–March 2, 2025) and then, the Museum of Modern Art, New York (April 20–September 13, 2025).

Lynne Cooke, senior curator in the department of special projects in modern art, National Gallery of Art, curated the exhibition.

*After you've seen the show, maybe you can answer the question.

**sculpting and making figures and shapes from wool 

Hannah Höch is one of the artists included in this show and for more on her, go here where she's included in a book on Da Da.

What: Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction

When: Through July 28, 2024. The National Gallery hours are 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. daily.

Where: East Building Concourse and Ground Floor, National Gallery of Art, 6th and Constitution, Washington

How much: Admission is 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

Accessibility information: (202) 842-6905


patricialesli@gmail.com

I go da da for Da Da

George Grosz (1893-1959), The Guilty One Remains Unknown, 1919, pen and Italian ink drawing, collage on cardboard, the Art Institute of Chicago

What is dada?  It's everything in the name and...nothing! The creators desired it to implode and illustrate the absurdity of it all, with mechanical and complex machinery void of humanity but showcasing gibberish, confusion, and assault on everything modern in the time after the first World War. 

Early on Marcel Duchamp called Dadaism “anti-art.” Later, various artists argued over the origination of the name, more than one claiming credit.

NPR's Susan Stamberg quotes George Grosz who called Dada, "the organized use of insanity to express contempt for a bankrupt world."

The cover of Dadaism is a reproduction of George Grosz's, Republican Automatons, 1920, watercolor and pencil on paper, Museum of Modern Art, N.Y.

I loved the book, Dadaism by Dietmar Elger, published by Taschen (2022) which describes the movement in an introduction of several pages, followed by features on 12 of the most notable dadaists of the period between 1916 and 1924.

The movement is complex, confusing, and baffling, but it whets my appetite for the mysterious. 

I gathered through the pages that despite cultural and world upheavals, the artists still had fun while waging art war, concentrating on the "lost world," and the dissolution of systems, using art as their means to take out their anger, frustrations, and bitterness at what was happening around them.

Less than 100 pages, the book is printed on heavy coated stock, filled with full page color illustrations and on the facing page, a brief description about the artist of the featured work and his or her other renderings. (One woman, Hannah Höch, is included.) 

One of the two-page spreads with thumbnail photo of artist, Hannah Höch, a brief description of her life and works, and a sample of her art on the facing page which shows a detail of her Da Dandy, 1919, photomontage, private collection

In 2006 a Dada exhibition opened at the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris, and then traveled to Washington and the National Gallery of Art when it stayed for three months, enjoyed by a crowd of 175,000. Afterwards, it moved to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  

Some of the artists found in the book and the exhibition are Duchamp, Grosz, Raoul Hausmann, Francis Picabia, and Man Ray.

Multiple examples of their works are presented in Dadaism with those of Hans Arp, Johannes Baader, Johannes Theodor Baargeld, Max Ernst, Hannah Höch, John Heartfield,  and Kurt Schwitters.

For the 2006 National Gallery show, the Smithsonian carried an article about Dada, including this: "And for all its zaniness, the movement would prove to be one of the most influential in modern art, foreshadowing abstract and conceptual art, performance art, op, pop and installation art. But Dada would die out in less than a decade and has not had the kind of major museum retrospective it deserves, until now." 

Surrealism was its offspring.

Dietmar Elger (b. 1958), the author, has written many books about modern art and is considered one of the (if not "the") top experts on Gerhard Richter. Elger studied at the University of Hamburg and received his doctorate with a thesis on the art houses created by Schwitters.

Read more about dadaism at Artland Magazine. 

patricialesli@gmail.com

National Gallery's curator talks Philip Guston

Philip Guston, Painting, Smoking, Eating (detail), 1973, collection of the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 

Close your eyes and visualize for a moment stubby fingers and heads, cigarette butts, an eyeball here, some shoes over there, a lightbulb, flabby, cartoonish fleshly colored characters and parts and what or who comes to mind?

Just the strange world of Philip Guston (1913-1980) whose 225 art works are set to leave the National Gallery of Art on August 27 after a five-months' stay.

Martial Memory, 1941, oil on canvas, Saint Louis Art Museum, Eliza McMillan T

Philip Guston, Martial Memory, 1941, Saint Louis Art Museum, Eliza McMillan Trust.

HauMartial M emory, 1941, oil on canvas, Sainrt Resource, 

Philip Guston, Passage, 1957–1958, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Bequest of Caroline Wiess Law.

The NGA calls him "one of America's greatest modern painters....[and] one of America's most influential modern artists" and has devoted 17,640 square feet of exhibition space on two floors in its East Building for Philip Guston Now.

The arrangements are laid out chronologically following  Guston's style changes, according to Harry Cooper, the Gallery's senior curator and head of the department of modern and contemporary art, who organized the Washington presentation.

"I wanted to tell Guston’s story and show his development as clearly as possible," Cooper emailed.

The Guston show has already run at the Museums of Fine Art in Houston and Boston and when it leaves Washington, will travel to the Tate Modern, London, for its last venue.

Each of the four places approached their presentation of the exhibition differently, Cooper noted.

Philip Guston, Untitled, 1964, National Gallery of Art, Gift of Musa Guston Mayer.

Philip Guston, Untitled, 1968, oil on panel, private collection.

Interest in Guston has grown since the four museums postponed the show scheduled for 2020 because of Guston's Ku Klux Klan works and the clash with culture and turmoil sweeping the U.S. then, largely as a result of the murder in Minneapolis of George Floyd the same year.

Some 2,600 artists protested the postponement. The National Gallery has segregated the KKK drawings in a different gallery with signs warning visitors about their content.

Philip Guston, Untitled, 1968, brush and ink, private collection.

Philip Guston, Head II, 1969, charcoal on paper mounted to paperboard, National Gallery of Art, gift of Edward R. Broida.

Philip Guston, The Studio, 1969, promised gift of Musa Guston Mayer to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Whether this is a self-portrait like the wall copy says, Mr. Cooper wrote: "I might prefer to call it a self-image because it is obviously not a likeness."

Guston's daughter, Musa Guston Mayer (who has the same first name as her mother and Guston's wife), attended the National Gallery's opening and proclaimed it "a gorgeous exhibition; a beautiful show," complimenting Cooper and the NGA staff.

Mayer was "thrilled" the show would hang for "a significant period of time which would not have happened without the postponement." Mayer is also the president and founder of the Guston Foundation which has promised the Gallery her father's complete Richard Nixon drawings which followed his watershed exhibition in 1970 at the Marlborough Gallery in New York.

There his art announced publicly that Guston was eschewing abstract expressionism for cartoonish figures and anti-heroes which Cooper attributes to "pure courage and conviction and  personal/aesthetic necessity."

(And rather than "abstract impressionism," Mr. Cooper wrote that it is "a term that some critics used to describe Philip Guston’s style of a softer abstract expressionism. I find it misleading because he had no interest in most of the Impressionists.")

Only one of Guston's pieces sold at the Marlborough.  (Not to miss: 12 of the original Marlborough 33 works in the separate gallery.)

Harry Cooper addresses the press at the National Gallery of Art, Mar. 2, 2023 with Guston's Dawn, right, and Caught, left, in the background with colors counter to the originals/By Patricia Leslie

Philip Guston, Painter’s Table, 1973, National Gallery of Art, Gift (Partial and Promised) of Ambassador and Mrs. Donald Blinken in memory of Maurice H. Blinken and in honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art.

Philip Guston,The Ladder (detail), 1978, National  Gallery of Art, Gift of Edward R. Broida. That's Guston's wife's head surfacing on the horizon.

Cooper and Mayer both described Guston's art as "darkening" over time. Said Mayer about her father's change from color to dark colors: "I think it had to do with the darkening times."

Guston had been traumatized by current events, including the Vietnam War; he felt he could not ignore what was happening around him and began a shift from complete abstraction.

In 1968, the year of the Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy assassinations, Guston started painting hooded figures like members of the Ku Klux Klan which he called "self-portraits … I perceive myself as being behind the hood … The idea of evil fascinated me … I almost tried to imagine that I was living with the Klan." 

He is quoted in the catalog and on a Gallery wall:

“So when the 60s came along I was feeling split. Schizophrenic. The [Vietnam] war, what was happening to [in] America, the brutality of the world. What kind of man am I, sitting at home, reading magazines, going into [a] frustrated fury about everything – and then going into my studio to adjust a red to a blue."

The Marlborough criticism sent Guston packing to Italy for eight months when, upon returning to the U.S. and inspired by his friend, Philip Roth's novel, Our Gang, the artist began work on his Richard Nixon series.

They are 73 drawings which satirize the president and his henchmen, Henry Kissinger, John Mitchell, and Spiro Agnew, all completed in one year, 1971. The National Gallery has the entirety of the set on the walls on the main East Building floor.

When you go, enter the gallery on your right and circle, ending on the left with "Nixon cookie," "Spiro's Sponge Cake," and "Kissinger Pot Pie." (Those are not to miss!)

Guston planned to make the drawings into a book but held back. Finally, 21 years after his death, they came out in an exhibition and release of Philip Guston's Poor Richard by Deborah Bricker Balken, the University of Chicago Press. (A new edition, Poor Richard by Philip Guston with afterword by Mr. Cooper, is available.**)

Philip Guston, Poor Richard entrance, National Gallery of Art. In the center is Guston's San Clemente, Nixon's escape place after he resigned in 1974. It's the only painting  Guston made of the former president. See below/By Patricia Leslie

Philip Guston, San Clemente, 1975, Glenstone Museum. The wall label notes that Nixon has some pencils in his pocket, possibly a signal from the artist who may have sympathized with a celebrity under fire whose leg is bandaged from ill effects of phlebitis and Washington's attacks. 

Philip Guston, Poor Richard (no. 52), 1971, ink , the Guston Foundation, promised gift to the National Gallery of Art by Musa Guston Mayer. Guston's tatoos on Nixon's arms were prescient,  about 50 years ahead of the tatoo craze.

Philip Guston, Poor Richard (no. 46), 1971, ink , the Guston Foundation, promised gift to the National Gallery of Art by Musa Guston Mayer. Nixon in black face, patronizing black Americans with Spiro Agnew on left, and Henry Kissinger (or is that John Mitchell?), center. Notice hanging objects.

Philip Guston, Poor Richard (no. 37), 1971, ink , the Guston Foundation, promised gift to the National Gallery of Art by Musa Guston Mayer. In center left near the bottom are small letters with the words "Key Biscayne  Aug. 1971". Sink or swim?  Looks like Nixon and Kissinger are sinking, caught by the throes of the monster above, themselves?

At Poor Richard by Philip Guston, National Gallery of Art, Washington/By Patricia Leslie

Musa Guston Mayer welcomes guests to the Guston exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, Mar. 2, 2023/By Patricia Leslie

Guston was born in Canada in 1913 where his parents had fled in 1905 to escape persecution in Ukraine.

When Philip was 10, the family moved to Los Angeles where, unable to find work, Guston's father committed suicide by hanging in the same year as the family's move. Whether Philip's mother or Philip himself found his father is debated.  According to the catalog's chronology, a few years later found Philip withdrawing to a closet with a single light bulb to read and to draw when family members came calling.   

Nine years later his brother died in a car accident.

When asked whether his father's death affected Guston's art, Cooper replied:

"Deeply. Look at the essay I wrote for the catalogue of the 2000 Yale-Harvard show, which was reprinted in the journal October. [Not easily accessible.] Most basically, I think his interest in hanging things (light bulbs, pull cords on shades) refers back to this trauma."

Once you are made aware of these objects and their connections to Guston's past, they seem to appear in almost every piece of his art.

Although several references, including label copy at the exhibition, say Guston was self-taught, Dr. Cooper said Guston "is not self-taught. He went to an arts high school (where he was friends with Jackson Pollock) and then went to Otis College of Art and Design for a few months."


Wikipedia says that at Los Angeles Manual Arts High School, he and Pollock protested the school's emphasis on sports vs. art and both were expelled, however, the catalog says only Pollock was caught and expelled but later graduated. Guston's graduation is not listed in the catalog.

Encouraged by Pollack to move east, Mr. Guston relocated to New York in 1936 where he quickly found work for the Federal Art Project as a muralist. Later, he joined abstract expressionists to create art representing the unconscious rather than reality or "inner" concepts rather than "outer" concepts.

Forty institutions and private collectors loaned art for the show, but the National Gallery has up 30 more than any of the other showplaces, including Guston's last works, single images made in 1980, the year he died. 

In an auditorium at the exhibition, an enthralling documentary, Philip Guston: A Life Lived (58 minutes, 1981), by Michael Blackwood runs continuously and features long interviews with Guston. In it the artist says art flowed from him; he was a mere vessel of transmittal.

The highest price ever paid for a Guston work was $25.8 million at Christie’s in 2013 for the abstract painting To Fellini (1958). His Smoking II (1973) sold for $7.65 million at Phillips in New York in 2019, neither of which appears in the show.


The Terra Foundation for American Art is a major sponsor of the international exhibition.

Out of respect for Black History Month in February, the Gallery postponed the opening of the exhibition until March of this year.

*The catalog, Philip Guston Now ($65), sold in the gift shops, is hardcover with 280 pages, most in color, a comprehensive chronology of Guston's life, and the lead essay by Harry Cooper.

**Also see Poor Richard by Philip Guston, $21, paperback, 73 drawings which Amazon calls " a monument of contemporary satirical art and virtuoso drawing."

What: Philip Guston Now

When: Through August 27, 2023. The National Gallery hours are 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. daily.

Where: East Building Concourse and Ground Floor, National Gallery of Art, 6th and Constitution, Washington

How much: Admission is 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

Accessibility information: (202) 842-6905


patricialesli@gmail.com

Interview with Dante's curator at the National Gallery of Art

At the entrance to Going Through Hell: The Divine Dante at the National Gallery of Art/By Patricia Leslie

Before the show closes Sunday in the West Building of the National Gallery of Art, come and see Dante's Hell and the effects of his poem, The Divine Comedy, on artists and writers which they created over several centuries.  

By two years Covid delayed the opening of Going Through Hell: The Divine Dante which the Gallery had originally planned to celebrate in 2021, the 700th anniversary of The Divine Comedy's publication, but the disease could not stop the show.

Gretchen Hirschauer, curator of Italian and Spanish paintings for the National Gallery of Art who curated the Dante show, with the Allegorical Portrait of Dante, late 16th century, National Gallery of Art, Samuel H. Kress Collection/By Patricia  Leslie

In the painting above, the National Gallery of Art describes Dante looking across the water at small figures walking along the elevated circles of Purgatory, where souls await purification before admission to Paradise. 

And rather than patting Dr. Hirschauer on the head as it appears above, Dante's right hand in the allegory hovers over the bell tower and cathedral (Duomo) of Florence, illuminated from below by flickering flames, perhaps of Hell itself, the portrait which you must see in person. 

According to the Gallery, Dante holds in the painting a large manuscript copy of his poem opened to the 25th Canto of Paradise which focuses on his hope and longing to return to the place of his birth, Florence.

 Detail of Allegorical Portrait of Dante

Detail of Allegorical Portrait of Dante

Gustave Dore, 1832-1883, Dante’s Inferno, 1880, National Gallery of Art, gift of Huntington Cairns  “From the mouth of each [hole] projected the feet of a sinner and his legs as far as the calf…their soles on fire, because of which their joints were twitching so hard that they could have snapped ropes….” (The white circles of light are ceiling lights reflected in protective glass covering the drawing.)

 Gy. Szabó Béla, 1905-1985,  Dante: L'enfer, Chant XXI, Ongles sales (Dante's Inferno, Canto XXI, Nasty Claws), 1963, National Gallery of Art, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Le Bovit.

“The sinner sank under and rose again, rump up; but the devils, who were under cover of the bridge, cried….”  That is Virgil in the foreground, identified by the laurel wreath on his head, overlooking a black pit of bubbling liquid where demons gather and aim their pitchforks at politicians to keep them in line. (Hmmm...perhaps another use for the Capitol Reflecting Pool?)

Gretchen Hirschauer, curator of Italian and Spanish paintings for the Gallery who curated the show from the Gallery's collection, sat down for an interview.

When Covid hit, "we were closed at least a year. I was very pleased when we started back to work to learn that the Gallery wanted to continue" the show which includes 20 works of art  from the 15^th to 20^th centuries, created by artists inspired by Dante to depict compositions and scenes based on the Comedy. 

The poem traces the writer's journey through Hell, Purgatory and then to Paradise, accompanied initially by the poet, Virgil, and lastly by "Beatrice" (not Dante's wife).

William Blake, 1757-1827, The Circle of the Thieves: Agnolo Brunelleschi Attacked by a Six-Footed Serpent, 1827, National Gallery of Art, Rosenwald Collection

On his journey in Hell, Dante (above left in dark flowing robe with his guide, Virgil) saw the thief Brunelleschi who had been captured by a serpent: “On his shoulders behind the nape lay a dragon with outstretched wings that sets on fire whomever it encounters.”

And probably the most gruesome illustration is detail from an illustration, below. I don't know about you, but I'm going to try and stay out of Hell. That ending looks rather unbearable and painful.

Italian 15th Century, The Inferno, after the Fresco in the Camposanto of Pisa, c. 1480/1500, engraving, National Gallery of Art, Rosenwald Collection

Detail of The Inferno, after the Fresco in the Camposanto of Pisa, c. 1480/1500, engraving, National Gallery of Art, Rosenwald Collection

Someone mentioned to Hirschauer that Dante's themes were "an evergreen topic; the whole notion of love and lost love and the journey to the afterlife, and everyone's fears and hopes for it.

"It’s timeless which is one of the reasons Dante is still so well known and popular," Hirschauer said.

"It’s always interesting when I go back and read something he wrote.  He wrote this 700 yrs ago, and it sounds like a story we could have been talking about yesterday."

And indeed we are, and talking about it tomorrow and the next day and the ...

Auguste Rodin, 1840-1917, The Thinker (Le Penseur), model 1880, cast 1901, bronze, National Gallery of Art, gift of Mrs. John W. Simpson

Four thinkers at Divine Dante, National Gallery of Art, with a representation of Rodin's Gates of Hell behind them, July 3, 2023/By Patricia Leslie 

William Blake, 1757-1827, The Circle of the Lustful: Paolo and Francesca, 1827, engraving, National Gallery of Art, Rosenwald Collection, showing the adulterious couple swept away by desire from canto V of Inferno.  Francesca's husband murdered them both but what happened to the husband?  Now that would be a novel!  See also at the exhibition, Rodin's The Kiss based on the two lovers.

Hirschauer has read the Divine Comedy several times, in English and Italian, the latter which - surprise! - is harder than English, she said.

"He wrote this [the Comedy] after he was exiled, but we don’t really know for sure when he wrote it.  He was exiled earlier on and then for life later.  It took many years for him to finish it."

Dante's expressions reflect the hell and depression he endured while wandering the world suffering the losses of his greatest loves: Beatrice and Florence, the former, his lifelong idolization of the woman who captured his fancy beginning when he was nine years old, and the latter, his beloved birthplace  which banished him twice, once for two years for his failure to pay a fine, and the last, for  "public corruption, fraud, falsehood, fraud, malice, unfair extortion practices, illegal proceeds, pederasty ..." condemning him to death by fire if he returned!

It is possible that Beatrice was a figment of his imagination who grew more attractive to Dante over the years.

Robert Rauschenberg, Drawings for Dante's 700 Birthday, II.B, 1965, National Gallery of Art, gift of the Woodward Foundation

Visitors view books and illustrations at Divine Dante, National Gallery of Art, July 3, 2023/By Patricia Leslie 

Hirschauer:  It's "not a fact that they ever were lovers or spent any time together. [Beatrice was also married to someone else.] Maybe he fell in love with the ideal woman, when he was nine.  I am sure he idealized her. She died young, when she was 25" leaving him "very despondent.

"He started writing this more than 10 years after she died, when he was about 35, but we don't know really when he started.  It may have taken him 15 years [to write]."

He was middle-aged and experiencing a crisis in his life,  Hirschauer said.  

In his Nine Circles of Hell, Dante (1265-1321) ranks treachery and traitors as the worst kinds of sin, because, Dr. Hirschauer believes,"he himself was exiled from Florence.

"He was a very proud Florentine and he loved his city very much and he feels (I can’t speak for him, but) betrayed by the city he loved so much. I think that’s why he put traitors at the very bottom because of the wrong that was done to him."

(It took the City of Florence 700 years - until 2008 - to rescind Dante's sentencing of death.)

Beginning with a ceiling illuminated in red, two galleries usher visitors in to explore displays, books, maps, and statues like The Thinker (1880, 1901) by Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) who was inspired by the first part of the Comedy, the Inferno which he sculpted for his The Gates of Hell, two bronze doors found now in Philadelphia and Paris at the Rodin museums.  

(At the Gallery, a lifesized photograph of the doors stands behind the The Thinker who may have been modeled on Dante himself.)

Dante's themes of love, rejection, and justice are those experienced by every adult at one time or another. 

Is life a comedy? My cousin sometimes wonders if Hell is life on Earth!  

Come to the show and shed light on your own life and, by all means, when entering your afterlife, pass Hell, pass Purgatory and go straight to Paradise. Tell them Dante sent you.

The Divine Comedy has been translated into more than 50 languages.

What: Going Through Hell: The Divine Dante 

When: Through July 16, 2023. The National Gallery hours are 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. daily.

Where: West Building, Main Floor, Galleries 10 and 11, National Gallery of Art, 6th and Constitution, Washington

How much: Admission is 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

Accessibility information: (202) 842-6905

patricialesli@gmail.com

At Divine Dante, National Gallery of Art, July 3, 2023/By Patricia Leslie