Showing posts with label Spain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spain. Show all posts

Friday, December 16, 2022

Sargent and Spain, NGA's Christmas gift to the nation

John Singer Sargent, Women at Work, c. 1912 oil on canvas, private collection. The shadows and contrasts here are stunning, one of my favorites in the show.
 
John Singer Sargent, Study for the Spanish Dance, c. 1879-1880,  oil on canvas, Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO. Gift of Julia and Humbert Tinsman. Another of my favorites.  Look at the arms of both figures!  Her dress!  The combination with the background. Sargent has been called the greatest American impressionist painter although he never lived in the U.S. His parents were Americans, and he was born in Florence, Italy.

Attention, Parents! Firsthand experiences can mean so much more than schoolroom learning! Carpe diem for your brood! Read on.

For art lovers at Christmas, a finer pleasure than to walk the galleries of the Sargent and Spain exhibition at the National Gallery of Art would be hard to beat, and for a gift?

A finer gift that the new catalog ($55) of the American's time in Spain,would be hard to beat.*

John Singer Sargent,  Manuel García, 1904–1905, oil on canvas. Lent by Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence. Garcia (1805-1906) was a renowned Spanish baritone and teacher whom Sargent was commissioned to paint on the occasion of the musician's 100th birthday, according to label copy. Sargent's affinity for the styles of the Spanish painter, Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) is evident in this work.

John Singer Sargent, La Carmencita Dancing, 1890, oil on canvas, private collection. Sargent painted several portraits of La Carmencita whom he saw dance and met in New York where she entertained at music halls and private parties.  She traveled the world, showing off her talents and is screened in a short video at the exhibition, filmed at Thomas Edison's studio in 1894, a snippet, below. 


William K. L. Dickson (1860-1935) and William Heise (1847-1910), filmmakers, Carmencita, 1894, Thomas Edison motion picture film, Library of Congress.
Curator Sarah Cash talks about another of Sargent's La Carmencita's, this  one painted in 1890 and loaned by the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.  The dancer was a native of Andalusia.  According to label copy, she so inspired the painter that he created this without commission, ten years after he had largely completed his dancers' oeuvre. 


The Sargent paintings and drawings hanging in the eight rooms at the National Gallery are lovely to behold, bewitching, enabling one to travel to time and scenes of yesterday, almost floating from one place to another.

John Singer Sargent, Escutcheon of Charles V of Spain, 1912, watercolor over graphite on white wove paper. Lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art,  Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1915.  An "escutcheon" is a shield, this one belonging to Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor and king of Spain from 1516-1556. It's positioned above a large fountain dedicated to the king.  Curators speculate that because this is above eye level, Sargent may have used a photograph and painted it indoors.
John Singer Sargent, Tomb at Toledo, c. 1903? watercolor over graphite on paper sheet. Lent by Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence.  A tomb for Cardinal Juan Pardo de Tavera by 16th-century sculptor Alonso Berruguete at the church of Toledo's Hospital of St. John the Baptist, a favorite spot of the artist.

John Singer Sargent, Street at Camprodón, Spain, 1892 watercolor over graphite, with gouache, on paper, private collection.  This street, the Carrer de Isaac Albéniz, leads down to a medieval bridge over the Ter River and is named after a pianist and composer of Spanish folk music whom Sargent greatly admired.

John Singer Sargent, Granada, 1912 watercolor over graphite, with wax crayon, on white wove paper, lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Francis Ormond, 1950.  What more can I say?  Let's go!

John Singer Sargent, Group of Spanish Convalescent Soldiers (detail), c. 1903 watercolor over graphite, with gouache, on paper, private collection.
The last gallery at the exhibition is the "Learning and Engagement Gallery" with an interactive scrapbook, photographs of Sargent on a cruise, in his studio, and more/Photo by Patricia Leslie

In the photo above in the last gallery, Sargent stands in his Paris studio c. 1883-1884 at his infamous Madame X  which scandalized Paris.  Originally, the painting had one of the woman's straps loosely hanging over her right shoulder but due to outrage, Sargent pulled the strap up and moved to London to escape Parisian wrath.  The second version of Madame X is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, "an icon of the Met's collection."/Photo by Patricia Leslie
At the "Learning and Engagement Gallery"/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Dignitaries at the opening of Sargent and Spain. From left, Miguel Albero Suárez, head of the Cultural Office, Embassy of Spain; Larry Di Rita, president, Greater Washington DC, Bank of America; Kaywin Feldman, NGA director, and curators Richard Ormond, Sarah Cash, and Elaine Kilmurray/Photo by Patricia Leslie


John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) loved Spain and spent part of three decades on seven trips there between 1879 and 1912, painting the landscapes, the events, the people, the church, the variety of life he found, including the dancers and making copies of works by Velázquez whom he admired and whose styles he incorporated in his own works. 

The three curators NGA's Sarah Cash, the UK's Richard Ormond (the artist's grand-nephew), and Elaine Kilmurray, present 140 works, including some never-before-seen photographs, the only known pictures of Sargent in Spain discovered in research for the exhibition, some of them almost guaranteed to have been taken by the artist himself.

Dr. Ormond and Dr. Kilmurry are the world's foremost authoritities on Sargent and have collaborated on the nine-volume Sargent catalogue raisonné (1998-2016). They came for the National Gallery's Sargent opening in October when Dr. Kilmurray was gracious enough to give me a few moments of her time to chat.

She said she and Dr. Ormond have "done a number of [Sargent] exhibitions in the U.S., Spain, Italy, the UK," essentially, around the globe.

I asked her what sparked her interest in Sargent, and she explained that she had no "personal interest. I was invited to participate.My interest developed from that."

[The nine-volume catalog] has taken "a long time in research and writing, and Richard asked me to join him on what's been an amazing adventure!"

Their "lifetime's work" began in the early 1980s.

"Richard used to be at the National Portrait Gallery in London and then at the Maritime Museum in London when he was director. He's retired. We're both independent scholars."

She talked a bit about Sargent's background:

"He was born in Italy; his family traveled. In the hot months they'd go to the Alps where it was cooler; in the winter they'd be in Rome, Bologna, Venice, Nice.

"He was really saturated in European art.

"His mother was an amateur water colorist; quite accomplished. He didn't go to school the way children do now; his education was the European experience. He spoke fluent French, pretty good Italian, some Spanish, some German. [And English.]

"He's very much a cosmopolitan artist. These early years of kind of a vagabond lifestyle, moving from one place to another had a huge impact on his artistic personality."


"Often when he was painting portraits, he would play music. It was a way to develop relationships with the sitter; it's background and I suppose it was something to talk about."

He loved Wagner, Kilmurray said. "At the time Wagner was [considered] progressive. Sargent had extensive musical contacts and was a considerable musician himself. He played piano. We think he played guitar and banjo in a kind of 'folksy' kind of way almost. But he was a very considerable pianist. He would not have been self-taught."

Although the title Gypsy Dancer is sometimes associated with Sargent's work, Kilmurray explained that for cultural sensitivities, the National Gallery of Art has elected to avoid the term "gypsy" which, in 2022, is considered "derogatory.

"We tried to respect," others, she said, emphasizing national in the name, National Gallery of Art. Roma has been substituted for gypsy, she said. 

Dr. Kilmurray explained that artists frequently did not title their works but titles evolve through sales and exhibitions.

"The world we are living in now is very sensitive and the National Gallery is being national, trying to respect that."

Indeed, the catalog states (p. 242): "Some titles and dates also reflect new research and language--for instance, the term 'gypsy' is strongly associated with negative stereotypes and has been removed from the titles of Sargent's works."

Sargent was a workaholic, Kilmurray said, always painting until his death. 

Large photographs of the artist are found hanging in the last gallery, one with his celebrated Madame X which shook the world and Sargent, too, forcing his move from Paris to London to escape the Parisian criticism.

Prepare to be delighted at this exhibition with loaned works from private collectors and 46 institutions and named individuals.

*Also available, prints, magnets, and journals, from $12. Order here. NGA also has a Sargent ornament! ($24)* NGA's Catherine Southwick, with the help of Diana Seave Greenwald and Katherine Pratt-Thompson, researched and prepared a chronology and year-by-year listing of  Sargent's time in Spain. The catalog has 256 illustrated pages.


The people of the United States and visitors are grateful to the Bank of America, the national tour sponsor, and others for providing support for the exhibition which next moves to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Feb. 11 - May 14, 2023.


What: Sargent and Spain


When: Through January 2, 2023. The National Gallery hours are 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. daily.

Where: West Building, 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







 


Sunday, February 16, 2020

Spain's Renaissance sculptor leaves Washington

From the exhibition: "This is Berruguete’s earliest surviving sculpture, which comes from a monastic church near Valladolid, the town in central Castile where the artist moved in 1522. Depicting the bound and tortured Christ as he is presented to jeering crowds on the way to his crucifixion, the figure is likely to have stood on an altar, perhaps as the central figure in a retablo (altarpiece). Berruguete’s treatment of the subject was unconventional in Castile. Instead of following tradition and covering Christ’s body with scourge marks and blood, Berruguete elicits sympathy from the viewer through other means. The cross-legged pose, slender limbs, and unsupported arms create a sense of unbalance that conveys Christ’s helplessness. The solution reflects works of art that Berruguete would have studied in Italy."

Alonso Berruguete, Ecce Homo, c. 1524, painted wood with gilding and silvering, Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid. © Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid (Spain)/Photo by Patricia Leslie
Alonso Berruguete, Ecce Homo, c. 1524, painted wood with gilding and silvering, Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid. © Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid (Spain) /Photo by Patricia Leslie
Alonso Berruguete, Ecce Homo, c. 1524, painted wood with gilding and silvering, Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid. © Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid (Spain)/Photo by Patricia Leslie
 Spanish (Castile), The Miracle of the Palm Tree on the Flight to Egypt, c. 1490-1510, painted walnut with gilding, lent by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Artists in Castile, such as Berruguete, often turned for inspiration to Northern artists, such as Martin Schongauer whose work is below/Photo by Patricia Leslie
Martin Schongauer, The Flight into Egypt, c. 1470-1475, engraving, Natioonal Gallery of Art, Washington, Rosenwald Collection 
From the exhibition: "Painted by Alonso Berruguete’s talented father, Pedro, this exquisite scene of the Virgin and Child shows the enduring influence of Flemish painting on the arts of Castile. [The son] Berruguete must have started his career in command of a similar style of painting — now called the Hispanoex-Flemish style."

Pedro Berruguete, The Virgin and Child Enthroned, c. 1500, oil on panel, Ayuntamiento de Madrid, Museo de San Isidro, Los Orígenes de Madrid. 
Alonso Berruguete, Calvary Group, Crucified Christ Flanked by the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Evangelist, from the retablo mayor (high altarpiece) of San Benito el Real, 1526/1533, painted wood with gilding, Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid/Photo by Patricia Leslie
Alonso Berruguete, Calvary Group, Crucified Christ Flanked by the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Evangelist, from the retablo mayor (high altarpiece) of San Benito el Real, 1526/1533, painted wood with gilding, Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid. © Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid (Spain)/Photo by Patricia Leslie
Alonso Berruguete, Calvary Group, Crucified Christ Flanked by the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Evangelist, from the retablo mayor (high altarpiece) of San Benito el Real, 1526/1533, painted wood with gilding, Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid/Photo by Patricia Leslie
Alonso Berruguete, detail from the Calvary Group, Crucified Christ Flanked by the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Evangelist, from the retablo mayor (high altarpiece) of San Benito el Real, 1526/1533, painted wood with gilding, Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid/Photo by Patricia Leslie
 
Alonso Berruguete, Saint John the Evangelist (Calvary group), from the retablo mayor (high altarpiece) of San Benito el Real, 1526/1533, painted wood with gilding, Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid/Photo by Patricia Leslie
From the exhibition: "One of Berruguete’s most celebrated sculptures, this group depicts the moment when Abraham is about to sacrifice his son Isaac on God’s orders. As the anguished Abraham looks heavenward in disbelief, his terrified son kneels and awaits his fate. Before Abraham could carry out the act, however, God appeared and offered him a ram to sacrifice instead."

Alonso Berruguete, The Sacrifice of Isaac, from the retablo mayor (high altarpiece) of San Benito el Real, 1526/1533, painted wood with gilding, Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid. © Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid (Spain);/Photo by Patricia Leslie
Alonso Berruguete, The Entombment of Christ, 1540s or 1550s. Because of the distance, transportation, and cost to carry marble from Italy, alabaster was used for The Entombment of Christ. The "frenetic energy" displayed suggests the influence of Donatello whom Berruguete would have studied in Florence.
From the exhibition: "This is one of only a handful of paintings that survive from Berruguete’s time in Italy. It depicts Salome, who ordered Saint John the Baptist’s beheading. Here she holds his head on a silver platter. Her long fingers, elegant pose, demure gaze, and idealized features are consistent with mannerism, a style of art that was becoming fashionable in Florence during the 1510s. Berruguete was in the vanguard of the movement. Like other mannerist artists, he favored exaggerated forms and complicated poses over the restrained beauty of earlier Renaissance art."

Alonso Berruguete, Salome, c. 1514–1517, oil on panel, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence.


About 45 works by Alonso Berruguete (1488 or 1490 -1561), the Spanish sculpture icon, are on display for one day more at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the first time his works are the subject of an exclusive exhibition outside Spain.

He was, says Wikipedia, "the most important sculptor of the Spanish Renaissance."

Sculpture, paintings, and works on paper comprise the show which includes one of Berruguete's earliest recorded works, Salome, dating from 1514-1517 which he made while studying for 13 years in Italy.

After the death of his father, Pedro Berruguete, an artist in his own right (who also has a painting in the show, The Virgin and Child Enthroned), Berruguete moved to Italy in his late teens.


In Italy Alonso studied under Michelangelo, and learned to draw, becoming the first Spanish artist to "create a recognizable body of drawings," many which are included in the exhibition. (About 25 of his drawings are known to exist.)

After finishing Salome, Alonso returned to Spain the next year, and was appointed court painter to Charles I (later, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V).

Following Spain's tradition, Alonso crafted wooden sculptures and altarpieces, retablos, which form the basis for the exhibition here.

His long, slender figures and sharp angles compare to those of El Greco (1541-1614) whom Alonso predated by 53 years.

From Washington Berruguete moves to the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University in Dallas where the show will open March 29 and close July 26 this year.

The curators, C.D. Dickerson III of the National Gallery of Art and Mark McDonald of the Metropolitan Museum of Art edited the catalogue* which is the first comprehensive Berruguete study in English. The Meadows' curator was Wendy Sepponen.

Organizers of the display are the National Gallery and the Meadows, in collaboration with the Museo Nacional de Escultura in Valladolid,
 

The people of the United States and visitors are grateful to the Buffy and William Cafritz Family Fund and the Exhibition Circle of the National Gallery of Art for sponsoring and making the presentation possible.

*Available in the shops: $55; 244 pages, 175 illustrations, hard cover

What: Alonso Berruguete: First Sculptor of Renaissance Spain

When: Now through February 17, 2020. The National Gallery is open Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., and on Sunday, 11 a.m.- 6 p.m.

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

How much
: Admission to the National Gallery of Art is always free.

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

Monday, February 6, 2012

Aznar's reign in Spain at GWU


Former Prime Minister of Spain, Jose Maria Aznar/Patricia Leslie


Maybe it was a long plane ride.

Or he had just landed at Dulles and had jet lag.

Or had eaten Italian and was drowsy from dinner.

Whatever it was or is, the former prime minister of Spain, Jose Maria Aznar who spoke at George Washington University last week, had little life in him when he addressed a group of mostly 150 students to talk about Iraq and terrorism at an event sponsored by the International Affairs Society and the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs.

Maybe that’s the way he always is: lethargic. He would not make it as a candidate here.


But he is not a candidate here.


Okay, he was a candidate in Spain, a successful candidate, and perhaps flash is not important to Spanish voters. Whatever...
Former Prime Minister of Spain, Jose Maria Aznar/Patricia Leslie

“Politics is about making things happen…not sitting…,” Aznar said.

“The world is not a perfect place.” Leadership is exercising power with imperfect information. Making decisions, taking action.  “Leadership and popularity rarely go together.”

It’s “essential to know what you believe in.” 

Iraq is now “a working nation, self-sufficient with pluralistic institutions that perform well.” (?)

“Islam can be and should be made compatible with Democratic practices.”

America is not looking at Europe any more. Europe has good relations with the U.S., but Europe is no longer a U.S priority, he said.
 Former Prime Minister of Spain, Jose Maria Aznar/Patricia Leslie

Aznar served as prime minister of Spain from 1996-2004 and elected not to seek a third term. He strongly supported the Bush administration's 2003 invasion of Iraq against the will of the majority (92%, Wikipedia) of Spanish citizens and many Spanish politicians. Wikipedia says Aznar told the Spanish people in a television interview that he had evidence of "weapons of mass destruction," and they should trust him.   (Spain pulled all its troops from Iraq in 2004.  Eleven Spanish soldiers died in Iraq including seven on the same day, November 29, 2003.)
 Aznar was the subject of a car bomb attack in 1995.

The euro? (Aznar steered Spain to the EU's single currency in 1999.)
The financial crisis? (Spain has the highest unemployment rate, almost 23%, of any of the 17 euro zone countries.)
The downgrading of Spanish debt? (Announced five days before he spoke)

These subjects were not on the agenda. Nor asked by the polite audience in the Q and A which followed his talk.

Prime Minister Aznar seemed to be stuck in the last decade, but not to belittle the threat of terrorism which is very real to Spain and which cost the nation 191 citizens when terrorists bombed the railroad in Madrid in 2004.
He talked about the unpopularity of making unpopular decision. (See Iraq.) And he spent several minutes on the widespread use of Spanish which is found in major American airports, he said.

He asked how many in the room spoke French. One "girl" raised her hand. And he may have said (his voice was soft spoken and the words, frequently hard to understand) that he had put Spanish vs. French on the table with the French president and, and, ?  I believe the point was Spanish is more prevalent worldwide than French.

Former Prime Minister of Spain, Jose Maria Aznar/Patricia Leslie

He is 58, looks 48, is drop-dead handsome, and although his gloomy mood, grey words, and lack of enthusiasm would not make nice on the political stage here, Hollywood may want to get him on contract.

Aznar serves on the board of directors for Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.  Wikipedia says Aznar has expressed doubt that climate change is a global problem, calling it "scientifically questionable' theory.

patricialesli@gmail.com