tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/ngv-10543/articles
NGV – The Conversation
2022-10-04T03:51:58Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/189702
2022-10-04T03:51:58Z
2022-10-04T03:51:58Z
‘Beautiful and terrifying’: how artist Richard Mosse brings us the vast, significant and urgent story of the Amazon’s destruction
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487910/original/file-20221003-12-n2idx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3834%2C2160&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Richard Mosse, Broken Spectre, 2022 (still).</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Richard Mosse: Broken Spectre, NGV International.</em></p>
<p>The Amazon is reaching a <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2336521-the-amazon-rainforest-has-already-reached-a-crucial-tipping-point/">tipping point</a>. Once a proportion of the rainforest is lost, it will no longer be able to hold the necessary moisture to create the rainfall to sustain itself. Massive dieback will occur with a devastating release of carbon into the atmosphere with a major global impact on climate change. </p>
<p>How does one make an artwork about this? One that possesses a dazzling beauty and, at the same time, has the ability to stop you in your tracks and shock you into action? </p>
<p>This is the mission the Irish-born, New York-based photographer Richard Mosse set himself in <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/richard-mosse-broken-spectre/">Broken Spectre</a>, an immersive, 74-minute-long moving image work having its world premiere at the NGV.</p>
<p>On a 20 metre wide screen, Broken Spectre breaks with many existing cinematographic conventions and has created new technology through which to document this existential threat to the human species. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-the-amazon-rainforest-on-the-verge-of-collapse-178580">Is the Amazon rainforest on the verge of collapse?</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A storyteller</h2>
<p>Mosse started work on this project in 2018. Over the next few years he visited the Amazon more than a dozen times, on occasion staying in very remote villages for a couple of months at a time. Subsequently, he invited the Australian-born composer Ben Frost and the American cinematographer Trevor Tweeten as his collaborators to work in the field with him in Brazil. </p>
<p>Mosse is primarily a storyteller; his first degree was in English at Kings College London. Here, the narrative commences with the arrival of the settlers establishing their subsistence farming with a few cattle. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487911/original/file-20221003-12-8sca6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Trees burning" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487911/original/file-20221003-12-8sca6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487911/original/file-20221003-12-8sca6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487911/original/file-20221003-12-8sca6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487911/original/file-20221003-12-8sca6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487911/original/file-20221003-12-8sca6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487911/original/file-20221003-12-8sca6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487911/original/file-20221003-12-8sca6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Richard Mosse, Mass Burn, Rondônia, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With time the settlers become environmental criminals, clearing more rainforest for cattle grazing and soybean. Then, destructive goldminers move in with their devastating hydraulic processes. </p>
<p>Great century-old trees are toppled, forests are burnt, waterways are polluted. The cattle industry adopts industrial proportions and the farmer settlers become mounted cowboys, loggers with huge chainsaws and miners. </p>
<p>There is a culmination in the story when a young Indigenous woman Adneia Yanomami speaks with passion to camera for seven minutes demanding help. She exclaims: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>You white people, see our reality. Open your minds. Don’t let us talk so gallantly and do nothing. White people! Tell your fathers and mothers. Explain to them. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Later footage shows the demonstrations by Indigenous peoples in Brasilia and pockets of the Amazon that are still pristine and subject to ecological tourism.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487921/original/file-20221003-14-cg6luf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Trees in red and clearing in blue." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487921/original/file-20221003-14-cg6luf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487921/original/file-20221003-14-cg6luf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487921/original/file-20221003-14-cg6luf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487921/original/file-20221003-14-cg6luf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487921/original/file-20221003-14-cg6luf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487921/original/file-20221003-14-cg6luf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487921/original/file-20221003-14-cg6luf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Richard Mosse, Broken Spectre, 2022 (still).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-great-amazon-land-grab-how-brazils-government-is-clearing-the-way-for-deforestation-173416">The great Amazon land grab – how Brazil's government is clearing the way for deforestation</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Broken spectatorship</h2>
<p>Mosse notes about his narrative:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My film examines an intergenerational destruction; a legacy passed on from grandparents to grandchildren. We have only one generation left to save the Amazon rainforest. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The strength of the storytelling in part lies in that it is not a linear narrative. It is presented in patches with seams or fault lines apparent between the sweeping aerial views of dying forests presented as a surreal experience, the mounted cowboys, proud Indigenous peoples, scenes of the majestic Amazon, cattle slaughter yards and family gatherings with a constant jump between micro and macro views. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487912/original/file-20221003-12-dke6s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three cowboys on horses" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487912/original/file-20221003-12-dke6s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487912/original/file-20221003-12-dke6s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=165&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487912/original/file-20221003-12-dke6s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=165&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487912/original/file-20221003-12-dke6s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=165&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487912/original/file-20221003-12-dke6s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=207&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487912/original/file-20221003-12-dke6s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=207&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487912/original/file-20221003-12-dke6s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=207&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Richard Mosse, Broken Spectre, 2022 (still).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Meaning resides not in any single narrative, but in the seams between discovered by individual viewers. </p>
<p>When I asked Mosse as to the meaning of the title, Broken Spectre, he said it was a reference to “broken spectatorship” – the failure of story telling when confronting a topic as vast as climate change. In his film, we experience something so vast, significant and urgent as to be almost incomprehensible, yet we see it in small mosaic pieces each viewer will individually assemble together. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487916/original/file-20221003-16-wevlve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Purple plants in close up" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487916/original/file-20221003-16-wevlve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487916/original/file-20221003-16-wevlve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487916/original/file-20221003-16-wevlve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487916/original/file-20221003-16-wevlve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487916/original/file-20221003-16-wevlve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487916/original/file-20221003-16-wevlve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487916/original/file-20221003-16-wevlve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Richard Mosse, Broken Spectre, 2022 (still).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In terms of film history, Broken Spectre to some extent taps into the tradition of Sergio Leone’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_Western">spaghetti westerns</a> as these modern-day cowboys settle in the Amazon. </p>
<p>In the old Soviet film <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Cuba">I am Cuba</a> (1964), the director, Mikhail Kalatozov, used infrared film (obtained from the Soviet military) to exaggerate the contrast between colonial oppression and the new Cuba. Mosse employs infrared imagery for many of the scenes of devastation. In the film, there may also be a nod to Werner Herzog’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lessons_of_Darkness">Lessons of Darkness</a> (1992) that documented a different ecological disaster.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487913/original/file-20221003-24-2vmubv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An infrared landscape" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487913/original/file-20221003-24-2vmubv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487913/original/file-20221003-24-2vmubv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487913/original/file-20221003-24-2vmubv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487913/original/file-20221003-24-2vmubv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487913/original/file-20221003-24-2vmubv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487913/original/file-20221003-24-2vmubv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487913/original/file-20221003-24-2vmubv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Richard Mosse, Broken Spectre, 2022 (still).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Beautiful and terrifying</h2>
<p>In his technical strategies, Mosse designed and had built for him a special multispectral camera that, when suspended from a helicopter, enabled the sweeping panoramic views of devastation in the Amazon. The landscapes appear as eerie and surreal, simultaneously beautiful and terrifying. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487917/original/file-20221003-3479-cgaf4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A destroyed landscape" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487917/original/file-20221003-3479-cgaf4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487917/original/file-20221003-3479-cgaf4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487917/original/file-20221003-3479-cgaf4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487917/original/file-20221003-3479-cgaf4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487917/original/file-20221003-3479-cgaf4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487917/original/file-20221003-3479-cgaf4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487917/original/file-20221003-3479-cgaf4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Richard Mosse, Broken Spectre, 2022 (still).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Satellite data has been a key to documenting the destruction of the Amazon. By combining <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/geographic-information-system-gis">geographic information system</a> data with art photography, Mosse creates deeply disturbing realities. </p>
<p>The destruction is on many different fronts. The film presents indexical levels of information, sweeping vistas as well as highly emotionally charged scenes that can only be read on a human level.</p>
<p>Frost, Mosse’s long-term musical collaborator, has responded to the challenge of the visual with a soundtrack echoing westerns, the sounds of the rainforest and sounds of destruction and some recorded on an ultrasonic recorder. The sounds are haunting, emotional and profoundly disturbing. In one sequence, environmental criminals are felling some of the giants in the forest. After the piercing noise accompanying the death of an ecosystem there follows a deadly silence that fills the entire space. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487914/original/file-20221003-12-y5p6zj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An Indigenous man" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487914/original/file-20221003-12-y5p6zj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487914/original/file-20221003-12-y5p6zj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=165&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487914/original/file-20221003-12-y5p6zj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=165&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487914/original/file-20221003-12-y5p6zj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=165&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487914/original/file-20221003-12-y5p6zj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=207&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487914/original/file-20221003-12-y5p6zj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=207&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487914/original/file-20221003-12-y5p6zj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=207&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Richard Mosse, Broken Spectre, 2022 (still).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Broken Spectre is a very beautiful but profoundly disturbing film: at times glorious and heroic but simultaneously tragic and horrifying. Despite Mosse’s high-tech equipment, there is a very artisan-like, handmade quality to the presentation – a humble human plea to save the Amazon and the human species. </p>
<p><em>Richard Mosse: Broken Spectre is at NGV International until April 23 2023.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-defenders-stand-between-illegal-roads-and-survival-of-the-amazon-rainforest-brazils-election-could-be-a-turning-point-190550">Indigenous defenders stand between illegal roads and survival of the Amazon rainforest – Brazil's election could be a turning point</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189702/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sasha Grishin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Broken Spectre, an immersive, 74-minute-long moving image work, is having its world premiere at the NGV.
Sasha Grishin, Adjunct Professor of Art History, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/181329
2022-06-10T04:53:08Z
2022-06-10T04:53:08Z
Pablo Picasso was not a lone genius creator – he was at the centre of several creative hubs, and changed the course of western art
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468137/original/file-20220610-25216-fwa0vz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C0%2C2982%2C2002&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pablo Picasso, Spanish 1881–1973
Figures by the sea (Figures au bord de la mer) 12 January 193, oil on canvas 130.0 x 195.0 cm. Musée national Picasso-Paris Donated in lieu of tax, 1979
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Succession Picasso/Copyright Agency, 2022 Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée national Picasso-Paris) / Mathieu Rabeau</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibition 2022: The Picasso Century, NGV International.</em> </p>
<p>The Picasso Century exhibition presents Picasso as we have never seen him before. </p>
<p>Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) is not presented as the lone genius creator – a mythology promoted by the artist himself – but as being at the centre of several creative hubs. He was surrounded by groups of brilliant creative men and women and his influence was a powerful presence for the whole 20th century. </p>
<p>In his life, Picasso rarely acknowledged his creative collaborators, this exhibition sets out to redress this omission. </p>
<p>The great French poet, critic and art collector Guillaume Apollinaire, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/275509.Apollinaire_on_Art">wrote of his friend</a> Picasso:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>His insistence of the pursuit of beauty has changed everything in art […] The great revolution of the arts, which he has achieved almost unaided, was to make the world his new representation of it. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Leo Stein, another of Picasso’s friends and patrons, <a href="https://vdoc.pub/documents/a-life-of-picasso-volume-i-1881-1906-1e5bgrkhr5ko">when writing</a> on the rivalry between Picasso and Matisse observed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Matisse saw himself in relation to others and Picasso stood apart, alone. He recognised others, of course, but as belonging to another system, there was no fusion. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Some people may not like the phallocentric persona of Picasso but he did effectively change the course of western art and, in the process, changed the way in which we see the world. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468138/original/file-20220610-28319-7sdug2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468138/original/file-20220610-28319-7sdug2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468138/original/file-20220610-28319-7sdug2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468138/original/file-20220610-28319-7sdug2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468138/original/file-20220610-28319-7sdug2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468138/original/file-20220610-28319-7sdug2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468138/original/file-20220610-28319-7sdug2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468138/original/file-20220610-28319-7sdug2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pablo Picasso Spanish 1881-1973. Weeping woman 1937, oil on canvas, 55.2 x 46.2 cm. National Gallery of Victoria. Purchased by donors of The Art Foundation of Victoria, with the assistance of the Jack and Genia Liberman family, Founder Benefactor, 1986.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Succession Picasso/Copyright Agency, 2022 Photo: NGV</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Picasso and his contemporaries</h2>
<p>Picasso affected the art of his friends and contemporaries, as well as that of those who never met him. </p>
<p>Although Apollinaire described him as achieving a revolution in the arts “almost unaided” and for Stein “Picasso stood apart”, in reality Picasso also reflected the cultural and intellectual milieu that surrounded him. </p>
<p>This very ambitious multifaceted exhibition sets out to define “Picasso’s voice” during his long career through a selection of over 80 of his works, many quite major and never previously seen in this country. It also investigates his interactions with his surrounding cultural milieu. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468136/original/file-20220610-20-oazey6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2354%2C2995&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468136/original/file-20220610-20-oazey6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2354%2C2995&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468136/original/file-20220610-20-oazey6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=765&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468136/original/file-20220610-20-oazey6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=765&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468136/original/file-20220610-20-oazey6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=765&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468136/original/file-20220610-20-oazey6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=961&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468136/original/file-20220610-20-oazey6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=961&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468136/original/file-20220610-20-oazey6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=961&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pablo Picasso Spanish 1881-1973. Portrait of a woman (Portrait de femme) 1938 oil on canvas, 98.0 x 77.5 cm. 116.5 x 96.3 cm (framed) Centre Pompidou, Paris, Musée national d’art moderne-Centre de création industrielle Gift of the artist, 1947.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Succession Picasso/Copyright Agency, 2022 Photo © Centre Pompidou, MNAM- CCI/Georges Meguerditchian/Dist. RMN-GP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Picasso paintings, graphics, sculptures and ceramics are accompanied by about 100 works by more than 50 of his contemporaries to create a context through which his significance can be assessed. </p>
<p>Apart from Apollinaire, the contemporaries considered include Georges Braque, Salvador Dalí, Alberto Giacometti, André Masson, Juan Gris, Henri Matisse, Dorothea Tanning, Natalia Goncharova, Julio González, Wifredo Lam, Suzanne Valadon and Joan Miró. </p>
<p>A large, curious and little-known painting hanging near the entrance of the exhibition, Marie Laurencin’s Apollinaire and his friends (2nd version) (1909) from the Centre Pompidou.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468129/original/file-20220610-18-6hjdww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468129/original/file-20220610-18-6hjdww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468129/original/file-20220610-18-6hjdww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468129/original/file-20220610-18-6hjdww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468129/original/file-20220610-18-6hjdww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468129/original/file-20220610-18-6hjdww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468129/original/file-20220610-18-6hjdww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468129/original/file-20220610-18-6hjdww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Marie Laurencin, French 1883-1956. Apollinaire and his friends (2nd version) (Apollinaire et ses amis [2ème version]) 1909 oil on canvas. 130.0 x 194.0 cm. Centre Pompidou, Paris, Musée national d’art moderne-Centre de création industrielle. Donated in lieu of tax, 1973.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Fondation Foujita/ADAGP. Copyright Agency, 2022 Photo © Centre Pompidou, MNAM- CCI/Audrey Laurans/Dist. RMN-GP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The painting shows Apollinaire with Picasso looking over his shoulder and surrounded by a number of figures including Gertrude Stein, Fernande Olivier, Marguerite Gillot, Maurice Cremnitz as well as Laurencin herself in the foreground in a pale blue dress. Stein, on the left, appears in the role of one of the three inspirational graces or Muses. </p>
<p>Apollinaire admired this painting and had it positioned over the head of his bed for much of his life. </p>
<p>Picasso was to paint portraits of many in this grouping, including that of Apollinaire who was amongst the first to recognise the significance of cubism and collected Picasso’s work. Picasso <a href="https://www.bridgemanimages.com/en/picasso/apollinaire-as-the-pope-of-cubism-1911/nomedium/asset/1734996">was to refer</a> to Apollinaire in jest as “the pope of cubism”. </p>
<h2>Traversing artistic eras</h2>
<p>In the exhibition, there are a number of iconic Picasso paintings, including his Portrait of a man (1902-03), a classic work from his so-called “<a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/new-exhibition-reveals-the-hidden-images-under-picasso-blue-period-paintings-180979875/">blue period</a>”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468130/original/file-20220610-18-2t6oaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468130/original/file-20220610-18-2t6oaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468130/original/file-20220610-18-2t6oaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=696&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468130/original/file-20220610-18-2t6oaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=696&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468130/original/file-20220610-18-2t6oaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=696&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468130/original/file-20220610-18-2t6oaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=874&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468130/original/file-20220610-18-2t6oaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=874&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468130/original/file-20220610-18-2t6oaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=874&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pablo Picasso, Spanish 1881-1973. Portrait of a man (Portrait d’homme) winter 1902-03, oil on canvas, 93.0 x 78.0 cm/ Musée national Picasso-Paris Donated in lieu of tax, 1979.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Succession Picasso/Copyright Agency, 2022 Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée national Picasso-Paris) / Mathieu Rabeau</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is a brooding and introspective image where the tone defined an epoch. </p>
<p>Dated a few year later is the memorable Mother and child oil painting from the summer of 1907 that already speaks of <a href="https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/glossary-terms/primitivism">primitivism</a> and the radical formal transformation evident in the <a href="https://www.moma.org/collection/works/79766">Les Demoiselles d'Avignon</a> (1907) that was to become a defining moment in the course of western art.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468131/original/file-20220610-18093-lwq1rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468131/original/file-20220610-18093-lwq1rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468131/original/file-20220610-18093-lwq1rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468131/original/file-20220610-18093-lwq1rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468131/original/file-20220610-18093-lwq1rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468131/original/file-20220610-18093-lwq1rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1021&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468131/original/file-20220610-18093-lwq1rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1021&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468131/original/file-20220610-18093-lwq1rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1021&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pablo Picasso, Spanish 1881-1973. Mother and child (Mère et enfant) summer 1907, oil on canvas, 81.0 x 60.0 cm. Musée national Picasso-Paris Donated in lieu of tax, 1979.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Succession Picasso/Copyright Agency, 2022 Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée national Picasso-Paris) / Adrien Didierjean</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The exhibition has a number of significant cubist paintings, Picasso’s The violin (1914) and Georges Braque’s <a href="https://www.georgesbraque.org/woman-with-a-guitar.jsp">Woman with a guitar</a> (1913) both from the collection of the <a href="https://www.centrepompidou.fr/en/">Centre Pompidou</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468132/original/file-20220610-15-idh6xn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468132/original/file-20220610-15-idh6xn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468132/original/file-20220610-15-idh6xn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468132/original/file-20220610-15-idh6xn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468132/original/file-20220610-15-idh6xn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468132/original/file-20220610-15-idh6xn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468132/original/file-20220610-15-idh6xn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468132/original/file-20220610-15-idh6xn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pablo Picasso, Spanish 1881-1973. The violin (Le violon) 1914, oil on canvas 81.0 x 75.0 cm, 92.7 x 87.0 cm (framed). Centre Pompidou, Paris, Musée national.
d’art moderne-Centre de création industrielle Gift of M. Raoul La Roche, 1953</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Succession Picasso/Copyright Agency, 2022 Photo © Centre Pompidou, MNAM- CCI/Audrey Laurans/Dist. RMN-GP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This chronologically is followed by the artist’s return to order with <a href="https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/glossary-terms/neoclassicism">neoclassicism</a> with Picasso’s stunning portrait of his wife Olga (1918).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468133/original/file-20220610-16487-msscaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468133/original/file-20220610-16487-msscaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468133/original/file-20220610-16487-msscaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=881&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468133/original/file-20220610-16487-msscaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=881&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468133/original/file-20220610-16487-msscaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=881&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468133/original/file-20220610-16487-msscaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1107&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468133/original/file-20220610-16487-msscaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1107&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468133/original/file-20220610-16487-msscaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1107&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pablo Picasso Spanish 1881-1973. Portrait of Olga in an armchair (Portrait d’Olga dans un fauteuil) spring 1918. Oil on canvas 130.0 x 88.8 cm. Musée national Picasso-Paris Donated in lieu of tax, 1979.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Succession Picasso/Copyright Agency, 2022 Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée national Picasso-Paris) / Mathieu Rabeau</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/glossary-terms/Surrealism">Surrealism</a>, at least in part a response to the violence of the 1930s, is particularly well represented in this exhibition with numerous examples from the artist and his contemporaries as well as a section on Picasso’s political engagement when, as a member of the communist party, he stood up to fascism and later to US imperialism in all of its guises.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468139/original/file-20220610-27901-am4w3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468139/original/file-20220610-27901-am4w3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468139/original/file-20220610-27901-am4w3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468139/original/file-20220610-27901-am4w3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468139/original/file-20220610-27901-am4w3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468139/original/file-20220610-27901-am4w3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=609&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468139/original/file-20220610-27901-am4w3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=609&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468139/original/file-20220610-27901-am4w3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=609&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pablo Picasso, Spanish 1881-1973. Cat seizing a bird (Chat saisissant un oiseau) 22 April 1939. Oil on canvas, 81.0 x 100.0 cm/ Musée national Picasso-Paris. Donated in lieu of tax, 1979.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Succession Picasso/Copyright Agency, 2022 Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée national Picasso-Paris) / Mathieu Rabeau</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/surrealists-at-sea-dusan-and-voitre-marek-finally-receive-their-place-in-the-pantheon-of-australian-surrealism-163249">Surrealists at Sea: Dušan and Voitre Marek finally receive their place in the pantheon of Australian surrealism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A remarkable exhibition</h2>
<p>This is a huge exhibition of over 180 pieces that explores neat niches, such as Picasso’s engagement with sculpture in the context of González and Giacometti, or his excursion into ceramics, as well as his mainstream developments. </p>
<p>Whereas in many exhibitions one despairs over padding with inferior and irrelevant pieces, here the works have been carefully selected and are frequently of exceptional calibre. For example, the wondrous <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pierre_Bonnard_Portrait_of_the_Artist_in_the_Bathroom_Mirror.jpg">Pierre Bonnard Self-portrait in the bathroom mirror</a> (1939-45), or the Francis Bacon Picasso inspired painted heads.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468140/original/file-20220610-27912-r665l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468140/original/file-20220610-27912-r665l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468140/original/file-20220610-27912-r665l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468140/original/file-20220610-27912-r665l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468140/original/file-20220610-27912-r665l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468140/original/file-20220610-27912-r665l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=629&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468140/original/file-20220610-27912-r665l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=629&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468140/original/file-20220610-27912-r665l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=629&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pablo Picasso, Spanish 1881-1973. Reclining woman (Femme couchée) 19 June 1932, oil on canvas, 38.0 x 46.0 cm, 55.6 x 63.0 cm (framed) Centre Pompidou, Paris, Musée national d’art moderne-Centre de création industrielle Donated by Louise and Michel Leiris, 1984.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Succession Picasso/Copyright Agency, 2022 Photo © Centre Pompidou, MNAM- CCI/Bertrand Prévost/Dist. RMN-GP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The exhibition was curated over about a decade by Didier Ottinger, deputy director of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mus%C3%A9e_National_d%27Art_Moderne">Musée national d’art moderne</a>, Centre Pompidou, Paris and is a triumph of visual intelligence. </p>
<p>No matter how well you think you know Picasso and the collections of the Centre Pompidou and the <a href="https://www.museepicassoparis.fr/en/collection">Musée national Picasso-Paris</a>, in this exhibition you are guaranteed to be surprised, amazed and delighted.</p>
<p>The Picasso Century is a remarkable exhibition that may change the way you will view Picasso. </p>
<p><em>The Picasso Century is on at the NGV International until October 9.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181329/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sasha Grishin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Picasso Century at the National Gallery of Victoria is a remarkable exhibition that may change the way you will view Picasso.
Sasha Grishin, Adjunct Professor of Art History, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/163268
2021-06-30T04:09:16Z
2021-06-30T04:09:16Z
An orgy of sunlight, colour and hedonism: the French Impressionists are an oasis in a gloomy Australia
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408996/original/file-20210630-27-1xeyndm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C4%2C2995%2C2474&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Camille Pissarro, French (born in the Danish West Indies) 1830–1903. Spring pasture, 1889. Oil on canvas, 60.0 x 73.7 cm.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Deposited by the Trustees of the White Fund, Lawrence, Massachusetts Photography © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. All Rights Reserved</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: French Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. NGV International</em></p>
<p>When prospects for overseas travel are bleak, a major exhibition of the work of the French Impressionists is a salvation — a beautiful shining oasis in a somewhat gloomy Australia. </p>
<p>When I lived in Cambridge Massachusetts, across the Charles River from Boston, the <a href="https://www.mfa.org/">Museum of Fine Arts</a> in Boston was an unexpected veritable treasure trove. Unexpected in that it is not as well known as some of the museums in New York, London or Paris. </p>
<p>But, with more than 450,000 art objects, it is the 14th largest art museum in the world and is famed for its collection of French Impressionism. </p>
<p>This “neglect” means, of the 100 works at this exhibition, about 80% have never before been seen in this country. </p>
<p>The exhibition sparkles with unexpected treasures including Edouard Manet’s Street singer (c1862), a huge vibrant life-size painting; Claude Monet’s luminous Poppy Field in a hollow near Giverny (1885); Paul Cézanne’s classic Fruit and a jug on a table (c1890–94) and the pulsating Vincent van Gogh, Houses at Auvers (1890).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408997/original/file-20210630-14-1stwzx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408997/original/file-20210630-14-1stwzx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408997/original/file-20210630-14-1stwzx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408997/original/file-20210630-14-1stwzx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408997/original/file-20210630-14-1stwzx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408997/original/file-20210630-14-1stwzx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408997/original/file-20210630-14-1stwzx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408997/original/file-20210630-14-1stwzx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paul Cézanne, French 1839–1906. Fruit and a jug on a table c.1890–94. Oil on canvas 32.4 x 40.6 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Bequest of John T. Spaulding Photography © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. All Rights Reserved</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The accessibility of Impressionism</h2>
<p>The National Gallery of Victoria’s Winter Masterpieces series of exhibitions commenced in 2004 with the exhibition Impressionists: Masterpieces from the Musée d'Orsay. There were then exhibitions of Monet (2013), Degas (2016) and Van Gogh (2017). </p>
<p>Impressionism has certainly been a unifying thread of the Winter Masterpieces series. These four exhibitions have attracted almost a million visitors between them.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409003/original/file-20210630-28-1s63l6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409003/original/file-20210630-28-1s63l6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409003/original/file-20210630-28-1s63l6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409003/original/file-20210630-28-1s63l6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409003/original/file-20210630-28-1s63l6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409003/original/file-20210630-28-1s63l6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409003/original/file-20210630-28-1s63l6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409003/original/file-20210630-28-1s63l6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vincent van Gogh, Dutch (worked in France) 1853–90. Houses at Auvers 1890. Oil on canvas, 75.6 x 61.9 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Bequest of John T. Spaulding Photography © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. All Rights Reserved</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What is it about Impressionism that makes it the most popular art movement amongst the general public? In part, it is because it is such an accessible and undemanding art language. </p>
<p>There is no demand made on the viewer to decipher the complexities of mythology — the naked gods in complicated embraces — and the subject matter deals with a reality known and experienced by many in their audience. There is a celebration of a physically accessible countryside; of a hedonistic lifestyle with pretty girls and handsome young men frolicking, flirting and enjoying parties, spending a day at the races or travelling to beauty spots abroad. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408998/original/file-20210630-11592-1hhlm9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408998/original/file-20210630-11592-1hhlm9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408998/original/file-20210630-11592-1hhlm9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408998/original/file-20210630-11592-1hhlm9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408998/original/file-20210630-11592-1hhlm9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408998/original/file-20210630-11592-1hhlm9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1429&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408998/original/file-20210630-11592-1hhlm9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408998/original/file-20210630-11592-1hhlm9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1429&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pierre Auguste Renoir, French 1841–1919. Dance at Bougival 1883. Oil on canvas 181.9 x 98.1 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Picture Fund Photography © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. All Rights Reserved</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Dance at Bougival (1883), an icon image for this exhibition, shows a man eating up the woman in his arms on the dancefloor, while companions sit at tables drinking and sharing the cheer. There is a palpable feeling of a joyous letting go, and celebrating. </p>
<p>You can almost hear the dance music radiating from the picture.</p>
<p>In part, the popularity of Impressionism must lie in the new way of painting with the brighter and more luminous palette, generally the broken, roughly applied brush strokes and the move of the whole colour scheme away from the dark tonal masses to vibrant heightened colour reflexes. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408999/original/file-20210630-23-160u3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408999/original/file-20210630-23-160u3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408999/original/file-20210630-23-160u3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408999/original/file-20210630-23-160u3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408999/original/file-20210630-23-160u3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408999/original/file-20210630-23-160u3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408999/original/file-20210630-23-160u3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408999/original/file-20210630-23-160u3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Claude Monet, French 1840–1926. Meadow with poplars c. 1875. Oil on canvas 54.6 x 65.4 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Bequest of David P. Kimball in memory of his wife Clara Bertram Kimball. Photography © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. All Rights Reserved</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This applies equally to Camille Pissarro’s light and breezy Spring pasture (1889) or the radiating Claude Monet’s Meadow with poplars (c1875). By classical standards, the works appear “unfinished” or impressions of scenes, instead of the carefully composed and compositionally resolved views with their mirror-like finishes. </p>
<p>Berthe Morisot’s White flowers in a bowl (1885) or Monet’s Grand Canal, Venice (1908) sit on the canvas like a sketch breathing with life and light and appear immediate and accessible. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409000/original/file-20210630-13-10j2ajk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409000/original/file-20210630-13-10j2ajk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409000/original/file-20210630-13-10j2ajk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409000/original/file-20210630-13-10j2ajk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409000/original/file-20210630-13-10j2ajk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409000/original/file-20210630-13-10j2ajk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409000/original/file-20210630-13-10j2ajk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409000/original/file-20210630-13-10j2ajk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Berthe Morisot, French 1841–95. White flowers in a bowl 1885. Oil on canvas 46.0 x 55.0 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Bequest of John T. Spaulding Photography © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. All Rights Reserved</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The iconic and the forgotten</h2>
<p>Particularly when Impressionism is interpreted in the very broad sense of the word, as it is in this exhibition to include much of what immediately preceded it, Impressionism attracted some of the best painters over several generations. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409002/original/file-20210630-22-1707e3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409002/original/file-20210630-22-1707e3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409002/original/file-20210630-22-1707e3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409002/original/file-20210630-22-1707e3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409002/original/file-20210630-22-1707e3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409002/original/file-20210630-22-1707e3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409002/original/file-20210630-22-1707e3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409002/original/file-20210630-22-1707e3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Edgar Degas, French 1834–1917. Racehorses at Longchamp 1871, possibly reworked in 1874. Oil on canvas, 34.0 x 41.9 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museum of Fine Arts, Boston S. A. Denio Collection—Sylvanus Adams Denio Fund and General Income. Photography © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. All Rights Reserved</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This show includes some of the greats in realism such as Gustave Courbet, a good selection of Eugène Louis Boudin, the wonderful tonal landscapes of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, a cross-section of the Barbizon School of landscape painters, right through to Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley, Monet, van Gogh and Henri de Toulouse Lautrec. </p>
<p>It is a very strong show that combines famous iconic images by some of the great names, such as Monet’s much reproduced and discussed Grainstack (snow effect) (1891) and his water lilies series, with some quirky and puzzlingly neglected works, including Gustave Caillebotte’s Man at his bath (1884). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409001/original/file-20210630-25-5vnmh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409001/original/file-20210630-25-5vnmh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409001/original/file-20210630-25-5vnmh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409001/original/file-20210630-25-5vnmh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409001/original/file-20210630-25-5vnmh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409001/original/file-20210630-25-5vnmh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409001/original/file-20210630-25-5vnmh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409001/original/file-20210630-25-5vnmh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Claude Monet, French 1840–1926. Grainstack (Snow effect) 1891. Oil on canvas, 65.4 x 92.4 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gift of Miss Aimée and Miss Rosamond Lamb in memory of Mr. and Mrs. Horatio Appleton Lamb. Photography © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. All Rights Reserved</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This Boston Impressionists show, on one hand, caters for a popular audience with a display of some of quintessential “masterpieces” of French Impressionism that will find a ready resonance with any viewer seeking an escapist orgy of sunlight, colour and hedonism. </p>
<p>On the other hand, it is also intended for the very erudite viewer, who can be inducted into the complex nuances and states of Pissarro’s etchings or into Boudin’s profound explorations of colour and mood.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409004/original/file-20210630-23-1otwwup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409004/original/file-20210630-23-1otwwup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409004/original/file-20210630-23-1otwwup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=713&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409004/original/file-20210630-23-1otwwup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=713&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409004/original/file-20210630-23-1otwwup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=713&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409004/original/file-20210630-23-1otwwup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409004/original/file-20210630-23-1otwwup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409004/original/file-20210630-23-1otwwup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French 1864–1901. Carmen Gaudin in the artist’s studio 1888. Oil on canvas 55.9 x 46.7 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Bequest of John T. Spaulding Photography © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. All Rights Reserved</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even as COVID clouds gather once more over Australia, French Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is almost guaranteed to become a blockbuster exhibition success. </p>
<p>It will assist us in better understanding the Australian Impressionism exhibition presently on show at NGV Australia, and further our love affair with Impressionism. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/she-oak-and-sunlight-the-best-feelgood-show-i-have-seen-since-covid-158311">She-Oak and sunlight: 'the best feelgood show I have seen since COVID'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><em>French Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is at NGV International until October 3</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163268/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sasha Grishin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is the 14th largest gallery in the world, and now Melbourne can see some of its masterpieces.
Sasha Grishin, Adjunct Professor of Art History, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/158311
2021-04-06T20:10:06Z
2021-04-06T20:10:06Z
She-Oak and sunlight: ‘the best feelgood show I have seen since COVID’
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393516/original/file-20210406-19-1ne2rz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C4%2C2995%2C1809&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Clara Southern, Australia 1860-1940, An old bee farm, c.1900. Oil on canvas, 69.1 × 112.4 cm</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Felton Bequest, 1942</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: She-Oak and sunlight: Australian Impressionism, NGV Australia, Federation Square, Melbourne</em></p>
<p><a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/she-oak-and-sunlight/">She-Oak and sunlight</a> is a visually stunning exhibition that brings together some of Australia’s most famous and much-loved paintings and presents them within a radically different context.</p>
<p>Dr Anne Gray, the curator of this exhibition, dismisses the traditional title for these painters, “<a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/h/heidelberg-school">The Heidelberg School</a>”, as a misnomer — they worked in Eaglemont, not Heidelberg, and it was never a school. </p>
<p>She also argues in her exhibition the idea this was a purely “blokey” orientation in art, with Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, Charles Conder and Frederick McCubbin as the only serious members, needs to be revised.</p>
<p>They shared the limelight with a number of talented women artists including Jane Sutherland, Clara Southern, Iso Rae, May Vale, Jane Price and Ina Gregory, all of whom are present in considerable numbers in this exhibition. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393518/original/file-20210406-13-1hn2h1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393518/original/file-20210406-13-1hn2h1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393518/original/file-20210406-13-1hn2h1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393518/original/file-20210406-13-1hn2h1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393518/original/file-20210406-13-1hn2h1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393518/original/file-20210406-13-1hn2h1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393518/original/file-20210406-13-1hn2h1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393518/original/file-20210406-13-1hn2h1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ethel Carrick, Australia, 1872-1952, Flower market, 1907. Oil on wood panel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Presented through The Art Foundation of Victoria by the late Major B. R. F. MacNay, and Mrs D. Mac`Nay, Fellow 1994</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Finally, Gray contextualises the narratives presented by these painters with older co-existing narratives by contemporary Australian Indigenous artists, especially <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/artist/172/">William Barak</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-importance-of-william-baraks-ceremony-60846">Explainer: the importance of William Barak’s Ceremony</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The title of the show, She-oak and sunlight, is derived from the title of a small painting by Tom Roberts, recently acquired by the NGV, exhibited in one of Australia’s most famous/notorious exhibitions of all time, the <a href="http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/artsets/xyb2jw">9 by 5 Impression Exhibition</a> that opened August 17, 1889 at Buxton’s Art Gallery, Swanston Street, Melbourne. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393452/original/file-20210406-21-1juiv2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Painting: a dusky tree against a dry landscape and blue sky." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393452/original/file-20210406-21-1juiv2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393452/original/file-20210406-21-1juiv2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393452/original/file-20210406-21-1juiv2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393452/original/file-20210406-21-1juiv2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393452/original/file-20210406-21-1juiv2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393452/original/file-20210406-21-1juiv2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393452/original/file-20210406-21-1juiv2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tom Roberts, Australia 1856–1931, She-oak and sunlight, 1889. Oil on wood panel, 30.4 × 30.1 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Jean Margaret Williams Bequest, K. M. Christensen and A. E. Bond Bequest, Eleanor M. Borrow Bequest, The Thomas Rubie Purcell and Olive Esma Purcell Trust and Warren Clark Bequest, 2019</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Roberts’s She-oak and sunlight appeared as no. 19 in the catalogue and perfectly epitomises the mood of the exhibition. The she-oak, or Casuarina, is native to Australia. The show celebrates the “Australianness” of the vegetation and topography, and stresses the quality of the intense, bleaching light in this country. </p>
<p>This is the best feelgood show I have seen since COVID, glowing and basking in nationalism and optimism.</p>
<h2>The French and the Australians</h2>
<p>The extent to which these painters could be described as “impressionists” depends a little bit on definitions. </p>
<p>Like the French Impressionists, these Australian painters worked outside <em><a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/plein-air">en plein air</a></em>, they made rapid, sketchy paintings that favoured landscapes and everyday subjects, they employed compositional structures influenced by photography and they were aware — even if in some cases indirectly — of the work of the French artists. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393453/original/file-20210406-15-pnnqyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three children outdoors" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393453/original/file-20210406-15-pnnqyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393453/original/file-20210406-15-pnnqyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393453/original/file-20210406-15-pnnqyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393453/original/file-20210406-15-pnnqyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393453/original/file-20210406-15-pnnqyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393453/original/file-20210406-15-pnnqyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393453/original/file-20210406-15-pnnqyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jane Sutherland, United States, 1853-1928, Field naturalists c.1896. Oil on canvas, 80.9 × 121.3 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Gift of Mrs E. H. Shackell,1962</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the 9 by 5 catalogue (the name derived from the fact many of the paintings in the show were painted on nine by five inch cedar cigar box lids), the artists stated: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>An effect is only momentary; so an impressionist tries to find his place. Two half hours are never alike […] So in these works, it has been the object of the artist to render faithfully, and thus obtain first records of effects widely differing, and often of very fleeting character.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The French Impressionists’ use of “colour theory”, with paint applied in small adjacent dabs of colour and the whole colour palette moved to the ultraviolet end of the spectrum, was in little evidence in the 1889 Melbourne exhibition. Most of the Australian paintings had colour applied traditionally in tonal gradations.</p>
<p>Some Australian artists who lived primarily in France, especially <a href="https://www.artistprofile.com.au/john-peter-russell-rising-obscurity/">John Peter Russell</a>, were much closer to the French Impressionists in mood, spirit and technique, but these were essentially expats.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-monet-to-rodin-john-russell-australias-french-impressionist-maps-artistic-connections-100249">From Monet to Rodin, John Russell: Australia's French Impressionist maps artistic connections</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Outstanding visual intelligence</h2>
<p>Prior to this show, the benchmark exhibition of Australian impressionists was Jane Clark’s <a href="http://www.artgallery.nws.gov.au/collection/works/?exhibition_id=2004">Golden Summers: Heidelberg and beyond</a> held at the NGV in 1985 that broke all records for attendances. A <a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/australianimpressionism">less successful exhibition</a> covering similar ground was held at the same gallery in 2007. </p>
<p>Gray’s exhibition, with over 250 artworks, is outstanding for its scope, scale and visual intelligence in the way it has been presented. Not only have all of the key works been assembled from around Australia, which is no mean feat — for example, to prise out of the Art Gallery of Western Australia, McCubbin’s Down on his luck, 1889, a destination painting — but new visual connections are created throughout the show. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393455/original/file-20210406-23-w15mp9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A swag man sits, dejected." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393455/original/file-20210406-23-w15mp9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393455/original/file-20210406-23-w15mp9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393455/original/file-20210406-23-w15mp9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393455/original/file-20210406-23-w15mp9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393455/original/file-20210406-23-w15mp9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393455/original/file-20210406-23-w15mp9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393455/original/file-20210406-23-w15mp9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Frederick McCubbin, Australia, 1855-1917, Down on his luck c.1889. Oil on canvas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Purchased 1896, State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A painting by the French Impressionist, Alfred Sisley in the collection of the NGV is juxtaposed with Russell’s painting of Madame Sisley in the collection of the Art Gallery of NSW. Gray has realised both were painted on the same spot in Moret-sur-Loing with the same white chalk cliff in the background.</p>
<p>Édouard Manet, Claude Monet and James Abbott McNeill Whistler all feature in this exhibition to demonstrate the international artistic milieu in which these artists operated.</p>
<p>The 9 by 5 exhibition has been recreated with 55 of the original works reassembled in a separate room with Handel’s music filling the chamber, as was celebrated in the original display. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-our-art-museums-finally-opened-their-eyes-to-australian-women-artists-102647">How our art museums finally opened their eyes to Australian women artists</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>A startling surprise is seeing one of Australia’s most famous paintings, Arthur Streeton’s The purple noon’s transparent might c.1896, as one has never seen it before. It has been cleaned of its dirty varnish during the COVID lockdown and now radiates with light and warmth – the glowing mystique of the Hawkesbury River near Richmond.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393457/original/file-20210406-13-1hxvfm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A brilliant blue river." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393457/original/file-20210406-13-1hxvfm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393457/original/file-20210406-13-1hxvfm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393457/original/file-20210406-13-1hxvfm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393457/original/file-20210406-13-1hxvfm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393457/original/file-20210406-13-1hxvfm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393457/original/file-20210406-13-1hxvfm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393457/original/file-20210406-13-1hxvfm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Arthur Streeton, Australia 1867–1943, The purple noon’s transparent might c.1896. Oil on canvas, 123.0 × 123.0 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Purchased1896</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many of the icons of Australian art, including Roberts’s <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/2920/">Shearing the rams</a>, Streeton’s <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/832/">Fire’s on</a>, Roberts’s Break away and McCubbin’s <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/frederick-mccubbin-the-pioneer-1904/">The pioneer</a>, share the space with William Barak’s images of the Rainbow serpent and sacred ceremonies.</p>
<p>I suspect this will become the definitive exhibition of our evergreen favourite national artists who created quintessential images of Australia that have ever since haunted our collective imagination.</p>
<p><em>She-Oak and sunlight: Australian Impressionism, is at NGV Australia until August 22.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158311/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sasha Grishin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
This exhibition will become the definitive show of Australian Impressionism - and it features talented women artists alongside iconic males.
Sasha Grishin, Adjunct Professor of Art History, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/156747
2021-03-22T18:48:30Z
2021-03-22T18:48:30Z
We can’t seem to get enough of the Impressionists but can we move on from the sanitised version?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389709/original/file-20210315-19-1colpuq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C5%2C739%2C504&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Degas' Women on a Café Terrace in the Evening (1877) depicts a group of prostitutes.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">WikiArt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Barely a year goes by on the Australian art calendar without the announcement of a major Impressionist exhibition. The latest is the National Gallery of Victoria’s “international exclusive show”, <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/french-impressionism/">French Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston</a>.</p>
<p>The NGV’s is the next instalment in a series of recent Impressionist exhibitions, including <a href="https://nga.gov.au/impressionsunrise/default.cfm">Monet: Impression Sunrise</a> (National Gallery of Australia, 2019) and <a href="https://www.agsa.sa.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/colours-of-impressionism-masterpieces-from-the-mus%C3%A9e-dorsay/">Colours of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay</a> (Art Gallery of South Australia, 2018).</p>
<p>The global popularity of Impressionism can be traced back to 1886 when the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel mounted an exhibition of 300 Impressionist works in New York. Attracting widespread acclaim, it was a turning point in public awareness of the art movement. </p>
<p>The NGV announcement includes phrases such as “artistic energy and intellectual dynamism”, “radical practitioners” and a “breathtaking display”. But such cliche and hyperbole belies the more interesting realities of a divided group of artists striving to capture the complexities of the emerging modern world around them.</p>
<h2>A romanticised story</h2>
<p>At the heart of the popularity of Impressionism is a romanticised story of a group of young artists battling against the conservatism of the dominant French Salon. They are repeatedly presented as a passionate collective who embraced <em>plein air</em> painting, capturing nature with unprecedented freshness.</p>
<p>Impressionist exhibitions almost invariably perpetuate the notion of the male artist as a genius. An aura surrounds artists such as Monet, Renoir and Degas. They are repeatedly viewed as heroic radicals who shunned the establishment, rallying together to champion a new form of art.</p>
<p>For decades, Monet in particular, has been singled out for praise. From his pioneering work at La Grenouillère to his final days at Giverny, Monet is applauded for abandoning the studio and immersing himself in the landscape. His paintings have become the paragon of the Impressionists’ ability to authentically capture the world around them.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390301/original/file-20210318-13-z6w58f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390301/original/file-20210318-13-z6w58f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390301/original/file-20210318-13-z6w58f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390301/original/file-20210318-13-z6w58f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390301/original/file-20210318-13-z6w58f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390301/original/file-20210318-13-z6w58f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390301/original/file-20210318-13-z6w58f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390301/original/file-20210318-13-z6w58f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Claude Monet, La Grenouillère, 1869.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This romanticised story of visionary artists working in nature is echoed in the stories of Impressionism beyond France. By the late 19th century local variants of Impressionism had spread to places such as America and Australia. <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/she-oak-and-sunlight/">She-Oak and Sunlight: Australian Impressionism</a> will also be held at the NGV this year, presenting the work of leading exponents of Australian Impressionism. Into the 20th century, Impressionist techniques continued to be embraced in countries beyond France, including Japan and China. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/art-gallery-sa-goes-back-to-impressionisms-colourful-roots-with-masterpieces-from-musee-dorsay-94163">Art Gallery SA goes back to Impressionism's colourful roots with masterpieces from Musee d'Orsay</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Impressionist paintings readily lend themselves to merchandising, with their work reproduced on a vast array of mementos, including postcards, posters, mugs, magnets, scarves, jigsaw puzzles and even umbrellas. For galleries, the large crowds and their willingness to spend on such items are a winning blockbuster formula. Critics such as <a href="https://www.museumnext.com/article/blockbuster-addiction/">Meta Knol</a> have lamented our addiction to the blockbuster but such a successful model is difficult to abandon.</p>
<h2>Division</h2>
<p>However, the version of Impressionism that accompanies most blockbusters is highly sanitised. In truth, the artists were not the united group of popular imagination. </p>
<p>Degas was a particularly divisive figure. He was strident in his view that no-one in the group should exhibit with the conservative Salon, which had rejected and ridiculed them. This was an abiding source of tension.</p>
<p>In 1879 Renoir exhibited <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/438815">Madame Charpentier with her Children</a> at the Salon, which enraged Degas. A further feud broke out when Monet followed Renoir’s example and submitted <a href="https://collections.dma.org/artwork/5320662">Seine at Lavacourt</a> to the Salon. While usually portrayed as radicals, clearly Renoir and Monet were happy to court official recognition. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389445/original/file-20210315-19-1tiuix0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389445/original/file-20210315-19-1tiuix0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389445/original/file-20210315-19-1tiuix0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389445/original/file-20210315-19-1tiuix0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389445/original/file-20210315-19-1tiuix0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389445/original/file-20210315-19-1tiuix0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389445/original/file-20210315-19-1tiuix0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389445/original/file-20210315-19-1tiuix0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pierre Auguste Renoir, Mme. Charpentier and Her Children , 1878.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Pissaro and Degas argued that Monet should be thrown out of the group and consequently Monet, Renoir and Sisley did not exhibit in the fifth exhibition in 1880. As the bickering escalated, Durand-Ruel increasingly resorted to solo shows. By the final Impressionist exhibition in 1886 there was considerable acrimony within the group with Monet also rejecting Seurat’s Neo-Impressionism and his scientific application of optical principles. </p>
<p>The familiar blockbuster tropes also mask the reality that many Impressionists painted disturbing observations of human relationships and social division. Art historian <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/28481/the-painting-of-modern-life-by-tj-clark/">T. J. Clarke in The Painting of Modern Life</a> demonstrates that urbanisation and political instability in late 19th century France provides a much richer context to appreciate Impressionism than stories of individual geniuses capturing a fleeting moment.</p>
<p>For the Impressionists, places of leisure were ideal for observing human interaction. Degas, in particular, did not shy away from presenting the undercurrents of urban life. In <a href="https://www.wikiart.org/en/edgar-degas/women-on-a-cafe-terrace-in-the-evening-1877">Women on a Café Terrace in the Evening</a> (1877), for instance, he depicts a group of prostitutes. The woman in the middle is biting her thumb. Often interpreted as a simple sign of her boredom, art historian <a href="https://www.getty.edu/publications/resources/virtuallibrary/0892367296.pdf">Hollis Clayson</a> suggests this gesture references particular sexual activities. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389444/original/file-20210315-17-tw1hgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389444/original/file-20210315-17-tw1hgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389444/original/file-20210315-17-tw1hgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389444/original/file-20210315-17-tw1hgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389444/original/file-20210315-17-tw1hgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389444/original/file-20210315-17-tw1hgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1431&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389444/original/file-20210315-17-tw1hgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389444/original/file-20210315-17-tw1hgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1431&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Renoir’s Dance At Bougival, 1883.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In <a href="https://collections.mfa.org/objects/32592/dance-at-bougival?ctx=12f7d074-54c5-4ccb-a347-135fda9411dc&idx=0">Dance at Bougival</a>, one of the major paintings in the forthcoming NGV French Impressionism exhibition, Renoir depicts a couple dancing in the new open-air cafes. </p>
<p>On one level this is a simple scene of frivolity but a closer look reveals something more menacing at play. The woman is looking away from the boatman with her eyes cast down, while he leans into her with his face obscured by his straw hat. Their flushed cheeks and the way he pulls her towards him invites an uneasy contemplation of their relationship. </p>
<p>The discarded bouquet and the burnt matches add to the sense that something is awry. Renoir would have been very familiar with the use of such items as symbols of fallen virtue.</p>
<h2>Tension</h2>
<p>Even in a portrait as endearing as Mary Cassatt’s <a href="https://collections.mfa.org/objects/34519/ellen-mary-in-a-white-coat?ctx=7d50b3b7-6bf5-4e82-a2f6-3832db15509e&idx=25">Ellen Mary in a White Coat</a> — also among the paintings coming to Melbourne — there is a tension. Feminist art historians such as <a href="https://www.frieze.com/article/overlooked-radicalism-impressionist-mary-cassatt">Griselda Pollock</a> have argued there are radical undercurrents to such domestic images.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-national-gallery-is-erasing-women-from-the-history-of-art-42505">The National Gallery is erasing women from the history of art</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389443/original/file-20210315-15-2mtt53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389443/original/file-20210315-15-2mtt53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389443/original/file-20210315-15-2mtt53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389443/original/file-20210315-15-2mtt53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389443/original/file-20210315-15-2mtt53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389443/original/file-20210315-15-2mtt53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389443/original/file-20210315-15-2mtt53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389443/original/file-20210315-15-2mtt53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mary Cassatt, Ellen Mary Cassatt In A White Coat, 1896.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a single woman, Cassatt did not have the opportunity to paint a scene such as Renoir’s Dance at Bougival. Her gender and class denied her access to the open-air cafes. </p>
<p>Cassatt’s images of domesticity therefore reflect her confinement. The recurring imagery of little girls also reveals her concern for the next generation of women. The serious faced Ellen, who is swamped by her bonnet and coat, holds firmly to the chair as she looks to a point in the distance in this psychologically complex portrait.</p>
<p>Impressionist exhibitions will continue to delight large audiences. However, it is unfortunate that the anodyne story of the movement dominates.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156747/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elisabeth Findlay does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Hyperbole surrounds the Impressionists, who are perennial blockbuster fodder. In truth, they were not a united group of radicals and their subject matter is far darker than commonly acknowledged.
Elisabeth Findlay, Director of Queensland College of Art, Griffith University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/133059
2020-03-12T01:09:37Z
2020-03-12T01:09:37Z
Ancient rhythms: Shirin Neshat and the dream space that contemporary Persian art can unlock
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319759/original/file-20200311-116232-10cfr6o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C9%2C1255%2C950&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Illusions & Mirrors (2013) </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://content.ngv.vic.gov.au/col-images/api/EXHI056918.tif/1280">Shirin Neshat</a></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world.</p>
<p>Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Rumi, Persia, 1207–1273</p>
<p><a href="http://www.artnet.com/artists/shirin-neshat/">Shirin Neshat</a>, Iranian-born though living in New York, has captured audiences around the world with her visually haunting black and white videos of loss and yearning. Three of her recent works, Illusions and Mirrors of 2013 (which stars Natalie Portman), Roja and Sarah, both of 2016, are <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/shirin-neshat/">on view</a> at the National Gallery of Victoria until April.</p>
<p>NGV curator Simon Maidment, in an accompanying <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/essay/shirin-neshat-dreamers/">essay</a>, reveals the influence of Western sources on Neshat, like the Surrealists and <a href="https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-french-new-wave/">Nouvelle Vague</a> (French New Wave) filmmakers, as well as parallels with <a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/Sigmund-Freud.html">Freudian</a> and <a href="https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-1-4614-5583-7_165">Lacanian psychoanalysis</a>. </p>
<p>But the deeper, older rhythm here is the power of Iranian, or Persian, civilisation itself, the richness of its culture, and the depth of its aesthetics and beliefs.</p>
<h2>Transcendence</h2>
<p>A central role of the arts in Islam is to enable each person an easier route to transcendence, to achieve a greater closeness to God. It is a role in which each person cleanses themselves of their outer trivial concerns, releasing their minds and their spirits from worldly cares to gain equanimity and peace. </p>
<p>For traditional Persian arts, it means a focus on music and words, through poetry and calligraphy. Visual and theatrical art usually eschews prosaic content - though Persian miniature paintings have portrayed mythical heroes and illustrations of poetic stories to much admiration.</p>
<p>One of the clearest forms of Islamic art in which this is manifest is architecture, built most obviously in the form of mosques, and naturally, in gardens: spaces in which to find this closeness to God. Neshat <a href="https://the-talks.com/interview/shirin-neshat/">talks</a> about her childhood garden as paradise. Visitors can stand in the 17th century Mughal, Persian-influenced <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badshahi_Mosque">Badshahi Mosque</a> in Lahore, Pakistan, with its central vast courtyard empty of physical objects, open to the sky, surrounded by sheer red inlaid stone walls, and feel its encouragement to let their rational, earthly mind slip away. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319762/original/file-20200311-116240-19ju7jj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319762/original/file-20200311-116240-19ju7jj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319762/original/file-20200311-116240-19ju7jj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319762/original/file-20200311-116240-19ju7jj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319762/original/file-20200311-116240-19ju7jj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319762/original/file-20200311-116240-19ju7jj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319762/original/file-20200311-116240-19ju7jj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319762/original/file-20200311-116240-19ju7jj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Structures like the Badshahi Mosque encourage visitors to transcend earthly concerns.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1582627367678-bf180d3b128a?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&auto=format&fit=crop&w=800&q=60">Salman Saleem/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We have our own such building in Melbourne, the <a href="https://architectureau.com/articles/australian-islamic-centre-of-newport/">Newport Mosque</a> designed by Glen Murcutt, a square space empty of objects but with coloured inset ceiling glass catching the changing sun obliquely. Even an unbeliever like me can find serenity in this.</p>
<h2>Elusive possibilities</h2>
<p>Neshat’s film installations give us space to still our thinking and immerse ourselves in her visual and aural offering. Nothing is resolved for us. Few words are ever used. The content or story is always elusive. </p>
<p>Her figures yearn for things that are never clear, seen from her earliest works, with flocks of black-clad women rushing to and fro across desert landscapes, never finding what they are seeking.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319764/original/file-20200311-116270-12olw8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319764/original/file-20200311-116270-12olw8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319764/original/file-20200311-116270-12olw8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319764/original/file-20200311-116270-12olw8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319764/original/file-20200311-116270-12olw8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319764/original/file-20200311-116270-12olw8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319764/original/file-20200311-116270-12olw8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319764/original/file-20200311-116270-12olw8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sarah (2016) still.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://content.ngv.vic.gov.au/col-images/api/EXHI056927.tif/1280">Shirin Neshat/NGV</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Her recent videos have a theme of migration and belonging, but that seems superficial in comparison to this wider emotion. As her heroines submerge in water, so we submerge into her spare visuals, seeking our own truths.</p>
<p>This Persian understanding is central to one of Australia’s leading artists: <a href="https://www.mca.com.au/artists-works/artists/hossein-valamanesh/">Hossein Valamanesh</a>, coming here after art school in Tehran in 1973. His work also leaves things unsaid with a similar restrained clarity to that of Neshat – he lets us find the truth of the work ourselves. His 1993 Sufi dancer, <a href="https://www.mca.com.au/artists-works/works/2005.4A-C/">The lover circles his own heart</a>, is a simple whirling piece of cloth. </p>
<p>Asia TOPA recently <a href="https://www.artscentremelbourne.com.au/event-archive/2020/asiatopa/abida-parveen">highlighted</a> Sufi singer <a href="https://open.spotify.com/artist/4EkSOXM6psqNE4w6j0tEEl">Abida Parveen</a> in its program, the diva giving one concert in Melbourne to over 2000 delighted fans. </p>
<p>Abida-ji <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-09-18-ca-36347-story.html">says</a> she sings of love for the divine. Listening to her is to enter another physical realm, and indeed to be transported to some other level of bodily awareness. Each person in the Melbourne audience was moved – carried way as surely as a pop audience might be by a reigning star.</p>
<h2>Persian influence in our midst</h2>
<p>Abida-ji is Pakistani, from a culture infused with Persian influence, but less courtly, refined and restrained, and often, in contemporary art, more vital.</p>
<p>When Islamic thinking comes to the fore, it can be clad in more commonplace clothing. Karachi artists Durriya Kazi and David Alesworth’s <a href="http://www.visualarts.qld.gov.au/linesofdescent/works/kazi.html">Very Very Sweet Medina</a> of 1999, now in the collection of the Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art, is full of blazing colour and human form, yearning again – literally here – for paradise, but visualised as a beautiful earthly house. Kazi was behind the 2006 Commonwealth Games <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/video/1269034563584/Karachi-W11-Tram-Pyar-Zindagi-Hai-Love-is-Life">Love is Life</a> tram that pulsated around Melbourne.</p>
<p>There is not just Hossein Valamanesh, or that tram, somewhere bundled away in a Melbourne shed, but the work of immigrants like <a href="http://nusraqureshi.com/about-us/">Nusra Qureshi</a>, <a href="https://niagaragalleries.com.au/artist-gallery/rubaba-haider/exhibitions-159/2018-a-story-of-thread-and-thrum">Rubaba Haider</a> and <a href="https://www.mca.com.au/artists-works/artists/khadim-ali/">Khadim Ali</a>, all trained in the ancient Mughal art of miniature painting at the National Art School in Lahore, and all making marks for themselves here and internationally.</p>
<p>They are part of the subtle web of creative people from the old Persian network of influence, like Abida Parveen, Durriya Kazi and Shirin Neshat, who have brought the rich strains of that culture here and created a new, vibrant, evocative space for us all.</p>
<p>The old Persian empire had wide influence, but it also allowed other cultures their own way. A reminder is the <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/visions-of-paradise/">display</a> NGV recently mounted of its Rajasthani miniature paintings. They pay homage to Persian tropes, with their stories of heroes, their colourful flatness of form and love of detail, and they are universally loved for this. </p>
<p>However, though made in courts close to Muslim Mughal centres, these paintings were painted for Rajput princes, Hindus. They are mostly secular stories of princely life, painted to celebrate living men. Transcendence and that sense of elusive possibilities are in short supply.</p>
<p><em>Shirin Neshat’s <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/shirin-neshat/">Dreamers</a> can be seen at NGV International until 19 April.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133059/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alison Carroll does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Shirin Neshat’s video installation at NGV and the recent Asia TOPA concert by Abida Parveen highlight how ancient forms can unlock ecstatic spaces for contemporary audiences.
Alison Carroll, Senior Research Fellow, Victorian College of the Arts, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/98148
2018-06-12T06:10:38Z
2018-06-12T06:10:38Z
MoMA at NGV is a landmark exhibition – rich, dazzling and profoundly visually exciting
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222685/original/file-20180611-191947-lzzxfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Salvador Dalí (Spanish, 1904–1989), The Persistence of Memory, 1931, Oil on canvas, 9 1/2 x 13" (24.1 x 33 cm).
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Given anonymously © 2016 Salvador Dalí, Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 15th Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/moma-at-ngv/">MoMA at NGV: 130 Years of Modern and Contemporary Art</a>, is the gallery’s biggest, grandest event in this series - and is almost guaranteed to be the most popular.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222684/original/file-20180611-191954-iqja5u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222684/original/file-20180611-191954-iqja5u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222684/original/file-20180611-191954-iqja5u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222684/original/file-20180611-191954-iqja5u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222684/original/file-20180611-191954-iqja5u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222684/original/file-20180611-191954-iqja5u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1075&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222684/original/file-20180611-191954-iqja5u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1075&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222684/original/file-20180611-191954-iqja5u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1075&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Frida Kahlo Mexican 1907–54, Self-portrait with cropped hair 1940 oil on canvas.
40.0 x 27.9 cm</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gift of Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., 1943</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is an exhibition where all of the big names are present – Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, Lyubov’ Popova, Piet Mondrian, Salvador Dalí, Frida Kahlo, Alexander Calder, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Cindy Sherman – and represented by some of their best-known signature pieces. Arranged in eight roughly chronological-thematic sections, the first five can be negotiated without bothering with the labels as these include some of the best known and most iconic works of modern art.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.moma.org/">MoMA</a> in New York turns 90 next year and has established a dominant position in its construct of Modernism in the western art world. Many people in Australia view modern art through the MoMA historical prism. This was largely a creation of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/16/obituaries/alfred-hamilton-barr-jr-is-dead-developer-of-modern-art-museum.html">Alfred Hamilton Barr Jr.</a> (1902-1981), the inaugural director of the museum. Barr was appointed director in 1929, dumped in 1943, but allowed to stay on in an advisory capacity until 1967.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222686/original/file-20180611-191959-bzn7o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222686/original/file-20180611-191959-bzn7o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222686/original/file-20180611-191959-bzn7o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222686/original/file-20180611-191959-bzn7o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222686/original/file-20180611-191959-bzn7o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222686/original/file-20180611-191959-bzn7o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222686/original/file-20180611-191959-bzn7o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222686/original/file-20180611-191959-bzn7o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Andy Warhol, American 1928–87, Marilyn Monroe 1967, screenprint, edition of 250.
91.5 x 91.5 cm (image and sheet), Publisher: Factory Additions, New York
Printer: Aetna Silkscreen Products, Inc., New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Museum of Modern Art, New York Gift of Mr. David Whitney, 1968 © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / ARS. Licensed by Viscopy, 2018</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Barr developed a holistic view of visual culture, where industrial design, architecture, photography, film and advertising combined with the traditional fine arts of painting, sculpture and graphics. Barr’s vision involved the establishment of six different curatorial departments at MoMA: Painting and Sculpture, Drawings, Prints and Illustrated Books, Film, Photography, and Architecture and Design. This was innovative at the time. Subsequently it has become the dead hand of history with Media and Performance Art more recently slipped into the curatorial mix.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222687/original/file-20180612-191940-mokvfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222687/original/file-20180612-191940-mokvfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222687/original/file-20180612-191940-mokvfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222687/original/file-20180612-191940-mokvfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222687/original/file-20180612-191940-mokvfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222687/original/file-20180612-191940-mokvfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=934&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222687/original/file-20180612-191940-mokvfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=934&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222687/original/file-20180612-191940-mokvfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=934&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fernand Léger (French, 1881–1955), Propellers, 1918, Oil on canvas.
31 7/8 x 25 ¾</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Katherine S. Dreier Bequest © 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>MoMA is constantly involved in the process of reinventing itself but guided by Barr’s vision. MoMA exercises a certain hegemony in many international museum art circles. Whereas the founders of modernism have been enshrined in an art historical tradition, the choice of some of the more contemporary practitioners, as reflected in this exhibition, seems more arbitrary and questionable. Nevertheless, the stature of MoMA gives this selection a voice of authority and artists included in their exhibitions seamlessly slip into the canon.</p>
<p>In some ways, Barr and MoMA developed a determinist model for modern art with flow charts and somewhat simplistic ideas of cause and effect. Barr championed the “old masters” of modern art – Picasso, Braque, Matisse and Léger – but was reluctant to embrace the New York School and Abstract Expressionism. MoMA commenced purchasing Pollock, de Kooning, Kline, Motherwell and Hofmann only in the post-war period. Not a single Mark Rothko was acquired on Barr’s watch. That Barr’s name is still uttered with holy reverence at MoMA was most apparent at the exhibition’s launch in Melbourne.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222688/original/file-20180612-191943-3wgjvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222688/original/file-20180612-191943-3wgjvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222688/original/file-20180612-191943-3wgjvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=151&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222688/original/file-20180612-191943-3wgjvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=151&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222688/original/file-20180612-191943-3wgjvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=151&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222688/original/file-20180612-191943-3wgjvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=190&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222688/original/file-20180612-191943-3wgjvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=190&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222688/original/file-20180612-191943-3wgjvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=190&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jackson Pollock (American, 1912–1956), Number 7, 1950, 1950, Oil, enamel, and aluminum paint on canvas, 23 1/16.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Sylvia Slifka in honor of William Rubin © 2016 Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.elledecor.com/celebrity-style/interviews/a3247/shortlist-glenn-d-lowry-a-69501/">Glenn Lowry</a>, the director of MoMA since 1995, acknowledges the founding father with respect but has aggressively steered the museum in more contemporary directions. Lowry’s expansionist policies have opened a window of opportunity, allowing some of the museum’s permanent exhibits to come to Melbourne. I was surprised to learn from him that some of the items were secured for loan through the direct intervention of Victoria’s art-loving premier, Daniel Andrews.</p>
<p>In the opening room of the Melbourne exhibition you encounter four major paintings: Vincent van Gogh’s Portrait of Joseph Roulin 1889, Paul Gauguin’s The Moon and the Earth 1893, Paul Cézanne’s Still life with apples 1895–98 and Georges Seurat’s Evening, Honfleur 1886. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222683/original/file-20180611-191943-gtkw6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222683/original/file-20180611-191943-gtkw6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222683/original/file-20180611-191943-gtkw6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=708&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222683/original/file-20180611-191943-gtkw6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=708&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222683/original/file-20180611-191943-gtkw6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=708&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222683/original/file-20180611-191943-gtkw6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222683/original/file-20180611-191943-gtkw6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222683/original/file-20180611-191943-gtkw6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890), Portrait of Joseph Roulin, early 1889.
Oil on canvas, 25 3/8 x 21 ¾</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William A. M. Burden, Mr. and Mrs. Paul Rosenberg, Nelson A. Rockefeller, Mr. and Mrs. Armand P. Bartos, The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection, Mr. and Mrs. Werner E. Josten, and Loula D. Lasker B</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These four artists, I understand, were also included in Barr’s inaugural exhibition at MoMA. As the show continues, it opens up as a tour de force. Dalí’s most famous painting, The persistence of memory 1931, stops any viewer in their tracks, reminding them how tiny and compressed was the artist’s idea on the shape of time.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222690/original/file-20180612-182756-1t6x9jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222690/original/file-20180612-182756-1t6x9jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222690/original/file-20180612-182756-1t6x9jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=835&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222690/original/file-20180612-182756-1t6x9jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=835&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222690/original/file-20180612-182756-1t6x9jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=835&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222690/original/file-20180612-182756-1t6x9jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1049&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222690/original/file-20180612-182756-1t6x9jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1049&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222690/original/file-20180612-182756-1t6x9jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1049&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">American Steel & Wire Co., Worcester, Massachusetts, American est. 1898, Railroad car spring 1920s, painted steel, 69.2 x 39.4 cm diameter.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Museum of Modern Art, New York Gift of the manufacturer, 1934 Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2018</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Juxtaposed with these icons of modernist painting are an aluminium Outboard propeller c.1925 manufactured by the Aluminum (sic) Company of America, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a steel ring of the Self-aligning ball bearing 1907 by the Swedish engineer Sven Wingquist, and a Railroad car spring 1920s made by the American Steel & Wire Co., Worcester, Massachusetts. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222692/original/file-20180612-182756-p03av5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222692/original/file-20180612-182756-p03av5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222692/original/file-20180612-182756-p03av5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1106&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222692/original/file-20180612-182756-p03av5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1106&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222692/original/file-20180612-182756-p03av5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1106&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222692/original/file-20180612-182756-p03av5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1389&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222692/original/file-20180612-182756-p03av5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222692/original/file-20180612-182756-p03av5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1389&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paul Gauguin (French, 1848–1903)
The Moon and the Earth, 1893.
Oil on burlap, 45 x 24 ½</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Lillie P. Bliss Collection</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This rich fabric of connections between everyday architecture and design and rarefied objects deemed as fine arts is the theme that runs throughout the exhibition. Chronologically it runs from the 1880s through to the present, spread amongst its eight sections: Arcadia and Metropolis, The machinery of the Modern World, A new Unity, Inner and outer worlds, Art as Action, Things as they are, Immense encyclopaedia and Flight Patterns.</p>
<p>There are over 200 items on display, occupying the entire ground floor of the National Gallery of Victoria. The exhibition boasts an international perspective, but it is essentially a northern hemisphere construct of modern and contemporary art. The only Australian artist involved, as far as I could determine, is Martin Sharp and his design for a Cream record cover derived from Robert Whitaker’s photographs.</p>
<p>This is a landmark exhibition – rich, dazzling and profoundly visually exciting. It also plants a dissenting seed in my mind as to what a construct of modern and contemporary art would look like from the antipodes.</p>
<p><em>MoMA at NGV: 130 Years of Modern and Contemporary Art is on show until October 7.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98148/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sasha Grishin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
All of the big names are present in this show – from Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso and Frida Kahlo to Roy Lichtenstein and Cindy Sherman – and represented by some of their best-known work.
Sasha Grishin, Adjunct Professor of Art History, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/76803
2017-04-28T06:02:18Z
2017-04-28T06:02:18Z
Van Gogh and the Seasons is a sensitively curated crowd-pleaser despite a paucity of masterpieces
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167106/original/file-20170428-15102-ayeu8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A detail from Vincent Van Gogh's A wheatfield, with cypresses, early September 1889. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery, London. Bought, Courtauld Fund, 1923 (NG3861) © The National Gallery, London</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/van-gogh-and-the-seasons/">Van Gogh and the Seasons</a>, showing at the National Gallery of Victoria, is more than an opportunity for a geographically isolated Australian audience to view the works of one of the world’s best-known and beloved artists in the flesh. Our last major Van Gogh exhibition occurred one generation ago in 1993 at the NGV, moving on to Queensland in early 1994. It adopted a broad perspective on Van Gogh’s genius, placing him in the context of both his sources and his impact on the history of art.</p>
<p>With 35 paintings and 13 drawings from 20 lenders, this new exhibition is not huge in scope and does not feature Van Gogh’s most iconic works. However, it is the largest collection of his work ever to travel to Australia and the first exhibition anywhere to focus so intensively on the seasonal theme. It is the fourteenth in the series of Melbourne Winter Masterpieces and brings a welcome surge of colour and movement to a damp and bleak Melbourne.</p>
<p>Van Gogh’s total immersion in the natural world, both as the subject of his art and for its therapeutic effects, saw him observe, in minute detail, the everchanging moods and landscapes of the seasons, cyclical time through the rhythms of farming and human activity, and the qualities of light that changed with both the time of day and the time of year.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167107/original/file-20170428-15112-1gkxjwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167107/original/file-20170428-15112-1gkxjwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167107/original/file-20170428-15112-1gkxjwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167107/original/file-20170428-15112-1gkxjwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167107/original/file-20170428-15112-1gkxjwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167107/original/file-20170428-15112-1gkxjwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1143&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167107/original/file-20170428-15112-1gkxjwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1143&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167107/original/file-20170428-15112-1gkxjwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1143&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Vincent Van Gogh, Avenue of poplars in autumn, late October 1884 Nuenen, oil on canvas on wood panel 99.0 x 65.7 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam Purchased with support from the Vincent van Gogh Foundation and the Rembrandt Association (s0141M1977)</span></span>
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<p><a>Van Gogh (1853-1890)</a> was the son of a Protestant clergyman of the Groningen school and exhibited fervent religious devotion in his mid-twenties. He rejected this, to some extent, in the 1880s, as he commenced his art practice in earnest. However, a Christian outlook remained central to a worldview that also bordered on the pagan, with all of the natural world infused with a divine presence.</p>
<p>Van Gogh grew up imbued with notions of public service. In the family tradition, he studied to be a minister before undertaking preaching work in England, Holland and Belgium, often living almost as a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendicant_orders">mendicant</a>.</p>
<p>When these efforts came to nought, he turned to making art with the financial support of his younger brother, Theo. This was less a break with his former ambitions than a continuation of “Christ-like service” in a different guise, and re-connected him, through Theo, to the family’s commercial art business.</p>
<p>Van Gogh’s hope, expressed repeatedly in his letters to Theo, was to share with others the profound healing to be found in nature and in colour. The seasonal cycle promises predictability within inevitable change, and the seeds of rebirth within each death.</p>
<h2>A tour through the seasons</h2>
<p>Van Gogh and the Seasons is curated by the former Head of Collections at the Van Gogh Museum, Sjraar van Heugten, with the assistance of the NGV’s Senior Curator of International Art, Dr Ted Gott. It adopts a focused approach, highlighting the pivotal seasonal theme of Van Gogh’s oeuvre through which the artist expressed the joys, disappointments, melancholia and bleakness of his own mental landscapes.</p>
<p>The exhibition is carefully curated to play up its many strengths, while disguising some of its weaknesses. The rooms are laid out as a journey through the year, and through Van Gogh’s life as an artist.</p>
<p>A beautifully shot, atmospheric video, narrated by David Stratton with David Wenham as the voice of Vincent, sets the stage, explaining the centrality of the seasons to Van Gogh’s work. The next two rooms explore his sources of inspiration in his personal print collection and his fascination with Japanese woodblock prints. As the originals of the latter are too delicate to travel, the display is pulled together from the NGV’s own collection and introduces the seasonal layout.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167109/original/file-20170428-15121-1oxtqlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167109/original/file-20170428-15121-1oxtqlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167109/original/file-20170428-15121-1oxtqlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167109/original/file-20170428-15121-1oxtqlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167109/original/file-20170428-15121-1oxtqlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167109/original/file-20170428-15121-1oxtqlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167109/original/file-20170428-15121-1oxtqlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167109/original/file-20170428-15121-1oxtqlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vincent Van Gogh, Farmhouse in Provence, June 1888 Arles, oil on canvas 46.1 x 60.9 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Art, Washington. Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection (1970.17.34)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The remainder of the exhibition is a stroll through Van Gogh’s seasons, each separated by a semi-transparent black screen in a manner reminiscent of traditional Japanese architecture. The metaphor of the journey is extended by placing almost all works on a wall of their own. This has the additional effect of making the exhibition seem larger and of downplaying the framing inconsistencies that would be distracting when hung together.</p>
<p>The first of Van Gogh’s seasons – autumn, his favourite – is the season of the sower of seeds on the bare earth. This is a recurring motif in Van Gogh’s work that derives from European painting traditions, reflects his interest in the poor and honest toiling peasantry, and is also associated with the figure of Christ.</p>
<p>It is a season for melancholy, burnt bronzes and dark autumnal shades, such as in Avenue of poplars in autumn (1884) and Autumn landscape at dusk (1885) in which a woman in mourning walks alone down an avenue of trees and long shadows.</p>
<p>By 1888 Van Gogh was introducing colour into even his autumn landscapes, depicting the bustle of the grape harvest in Arles in vivid blues, greens, purples and yellows, with just a few touches of red. From the window of his asylum room in 1989, he watched the <a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-looking-at-vincent-van-goghs-olive-grove-with-two-olive-pickers-76312">olive harvest and painted it about 30 times</a>, thinking always of Christ in the garden at Gethsemane. Unlike his contemporaries Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, Van Gogh omitted the figure of Christ, leaving the viewer to discover divinity in the landscape itself.</p>
<p>The bleakness of a snow-covered field in winter and an idle plough, alongside images of churchyards and funeral processions, speak of the harshness of existence and death, but also of the dormant seed beneath the snow, pregnant with the potential for germination in the spring.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167108/original/file-20170428-13738-1w50aae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167108/original/file-20170428-13738-1w50aae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167108/original/file-20170428-13738-1w50aae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167108/original/file-20170428-13738-1w50aae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167108/original/file-20170428-13738-1w50aae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167108/original/file-20170428-13738-1w50aae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167108/original/file-20170428-13738-1w50aae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167108/original/file-20170428-13738-1w50aae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vincent Van Gogh, The parsonage garden in the snow, January 1885 Nuenen, oil on canvas on wood panel 53.0 x 78.0 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, The Armand Hammer Collection, gift of the Armand Hammer Foundation</span></span>
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<p>Spring is the season of bulbs and blossoms, vivid greens, pinks and purples, lush growth and young green wheat. Grass spurts from nooks and crannies in gardens. Tree trunks fairly dance under clear blue skies.</p>
<p>Summer is the farmer now turned reaper, golden wheat fields ready for harvest, and the sheaths gathered in under turquoise skies. In these spring and summer paintings from Van Gogh’s last frenzied months of creativity, his mastery of colour and brushstroke are most apparent. The exhibition culminates in the iconic image of A wheatfield, with cypresses (1889) which, in a coup for the NGV, was loaned by the National Gallery of London. It was in just such a wheatfield that Van Gogh shot himself, ending his own life at the age of 37.</p>
<p>Van Gogh and the Seasons is a sensitively curated crowd pleaser that justifies the NGV’s recent ranking as the 19th most popular art gallery in the world.</p>
<p><em>Van Gogh and the Seasons is on display at NGV International, 180 St Kilda Road, Melbourne from 28 April – 9 July 2017 as part of the Melbourne Winter Masterpieces series.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76803/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anita Pisch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Van Gogh’s immersion in the natural world, for his art and for its therapeutic effects, saw him observe in minute detail the changing of the seasons.
Anita Pisch, Visiting Fellow, School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/74076
2017-03-08T19:24:11Z
2017-03-08T19:24:11Z
Here’s Looking at: Brook Andrew’s Sexy and dangerous
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159718/original/image-20170307-14976-rr00ue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Detail of Brook Andrew, Sexy and dangerous 1996. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">courtesy National Gallery of Victoria</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The young warrior looks out at us, his gaze averted. Dressed in his elegant headgear, a rod through his nose and his hair braided, he is photographed naked to the waist. His body decorations in bold white, suggestive of war paint – including one ominously encircling his neck – delineate his strong torso and arms. On his chest are two tattooed inscriptions. One in English reads “Sexy and dangerous,” the other in Mandarin loosely translates as “female cunning” or “shifty femininity” or “mischievous girl.” Who is he?</p>
<p>Brook Andrew appropriated this image of an unnamed “Aboriginal Chief,” a Djabugay man from North Queensland, from the archive of photographs made by Kerry & Co. in the first decade of the 20th century. The Kerry & Co. studio produced images of Aboriginal men and women, often posed in tableaux in front of a painted backdrop and with props of branches and undergrowth to situate them in the landscape. </p>
<p>These photographs on glass plate negatives were reproduced as <a href="http://blog.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/find-out-when-a-photo-was-taken-identify-a-carte-de-visite/">Cartes de visite</a> (photographs glued onto visiting cards, the forerunner of postcards) to document the “exotic” inhabitants of Australia for the tourist trade. Sometimes named, though in this case only identified as a person of authority, he is dislocated from any sense of locale by judicious cropping of the studio tableau in the background.</p>
<p>Comparing Andrew’s Sexy and dangerous with the <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/518.2014/">original Kerry & Co. photograph</a> there are obvious variances. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159934/original/image-20170308-24187-sk4a5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159934/original/image-20170308-24187-sk4a5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159934/original/image-20170308-24187-sk4a5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=948&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159934/original/image-20170308-24187-sk4a5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=948&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159934/original/image-20170308-24187-sk4a5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=948&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159934/original/image-20170308-24187-sk4a5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1191&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159934/original/image-20170308-24187-sk4a5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1191&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159934/original/image-20170308-24187-sk4a5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1191&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aboriginal chief, 1901-1907, Unknown photographer, Kerry & Co, Australia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the Art Gallery of New South Wales</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Firstly, the rendering in colour of the sepia original brings this man to life, and the enhanced scale to larger than life size underscores his physical presence. He is depicted as a powerful man whose authority is evident in his demeanour, rather than suggested by the anonymous cipher, “Aboriginal Chief.” </p>
<p>The reworked image is designed to hang from the ceiling so as viewers we must confront this man individually, rather than control him in the palm of our hand. We walk around him in the space he occupies in the gallery, he is alongside us, and we are encouraged to engage meaningfully with him.</p>
<p>However, Andrew subverts our encounter by over-painting his body markings, beaded necklet, and armbands so that they seem to slice through the image, segmenting his torso and severing his head. This aggressive rendering of his body echoes a history of brutality inflicted upon Aboriginal people in this country.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brook Andrew, Sexy and dangerous 1996.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">courtesy National Gallery of Victoria</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The body painting as recorded in the Kerry & Co. version would have likely acted as a means of communicating status or belonging, but in Andrew’s work, it is used to rupture his image. The physical fracturing further reinforces this man’s displacement from country, which is removed in both versions but more obviously erased in Andrew’s painted-out surround. In Andrew’s rendering of the image, this anxious warrior occupies no clearly defined place and the detached sections of his body merely hover in space.</p>
<p>Most intriguing though is the addition of the two texts: “sexy and dangerous” and “female cunning”. Through this overlay, Andrew fuses together the multiple readings he has already chronicled visually with additional inferences about sexuality and otherness. </p>
<p>In the smaller font English text, the sitter’s humanity is established forcefully as erotically charged but also threatening. We see him through the lens of our humanity. He is much more powerful and hence potentially more to be feared than in the Kerry & Co. original. He is the epitome of “rough trade,” who simultaneously evokes dread and desire.</p>
<p>The second and larger font text in Mandarin further complicates our reading of an image that has already engrossed us completely. Its suggestion of queer sexuality may reinforce the notion of rough trade, or it may be that Andrew is reminding us that Australia is now a part of Asia as much as it is a far-flung colony of Britain. </p>
<p>Andrew created Sexy and dangerous around the time of the confrontation in Tiananmen Square, and hence it can be read as underscoring the need for resistance in the face of oppression. Is Andrew urging us to readjust our understanding of what it means to occupy a country whose sovereignty is made manifest in this image of the Aboriginal Chief?</p>
<p>So who is he, this young man photographed over 100 years ago? We are told he is an Aboriginal man from North Queensland whose name was not recorded. He is now dead: all that remains is his image, yet through his act of re-presentation, Andrew gives him life. </p>
<p>As with much of the artist’s work, this image is also a conduit for exploring the slippage in identity by examining how we construct ourselves and how we are constructed through the gaze of others. Depicted with the slick production values of global media culture this Djabugay man is once again made visible.</p>
<p>His presence is palpable; he has iconic status in the gallery, in the media, and on our screens. In his ubiquity, he focuses our attention on the crimes of the past, on the failures of the present and urges us to work toward a just and accountable future.</p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em><a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/brook-andrew/">Brook Andrew: The Right to Offend is Sacred</a> is at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia until June 17.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74076/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ted Snell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A 20th-century image of an anonymous ‘Aboriginal Chief’ becomes an investigation of power, colonialism and queer sexuality in the hands of Brook Andrew.
Ted Snell, Professor, Chief Cultural Officer, Cultural Precinct, The University of Western Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/61081
2016-06-23T20:03:54Z
2016-06-23T20:03:54Z
Friday essay: When Manet met Degas
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127486/original/image-20160621-13012-1762aq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Degas and Manet's stormy relationship is expressed in a portrait Degas painted of Manet and his wife, which has been slashed, presumably by Manet himself. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Detail of Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet and Mme. Manet (1868-69) Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art, via Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In January 1862 two young painters started talking about their craft as they copied Velázquez’ masterpiece, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Meninas">Infanta Margarita</a>, in the Louvre. Édouard Manet was just 30 years of age, the son of a wealthy family of diplomats and judges. He was impressed by the skill of the 27-year-old Edgar Degas, who – <a href="http://www.cambridgescholars.com/mapping-degas">as the story goes</a> – was etching his copy directly onto an engraving plate.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127499/original/image-20160621-13008-1d7wv1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127499/original/image-20160621-13008-1d7wv1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127499/original/image-20160621-13008-1d7wv1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127499/original/image-20160621-13008-1d7wv1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127499/original/image-20160621-13008-1d7wv1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127499/original/image-20160621-13008-1d7wv1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=981&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127499/original/image-20160621-13008-1d7wv1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=981&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127499/original/image-20160621-13008-1d7wv1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=981&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Edgar Degas, Self portrait or Degas Saluant, 1863.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">via Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Degas too was from a bourgeois family, although less conventional than Manet’s: his mother Célestine was a creole from New Orleans and much of the family’s wealth came from the cotton industry in the southern United States. At the moment of their encounter, Degas’ family was receiving reports of the heavy impact on the cotton trade of the American Civil War, which had erupted in 1861.</p>
<p>The two men became friends, despite their contrasting personalities and artistic interests. Degas’ relationship with Manet and Impressionism was to be a stormy one, but the encounter was a turning-point in Degas’ career.</p>
<p>Degas had rebuffed his family’s pressures to practice law and in his early 20s had met the master portraitist and historical painter <a href="http://www.britannica.com/biography/J-A-D-Ingres">JAD Ingres</a>, who was to remain Degas’ point of reference for artistic greatness.</p>
<p>Degas’ own training, and three years of study in Italy between 1856 and 1859, equipped him to follow in his master’s footsteps. At the time of his encounter with Manet, he had begun several <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_painting">history paintings</a> drawing on biblical and classical themes in the style of the epic historical canvases of the early-19th century.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Edgar Degas, Scene of War in the Middle Ages (1865).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Musée d'Orsay via Wikiart</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In contrast, when Manet met Degas, he had just started on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_d%C3%A9jeuner_sur_l%27herbe">The Luncheon on the Grass (Le déjeuner sur l'herbe)</a>. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Salon">Paris Salon</a> rejected it for exhibition in 1863 but Manet exhibited it at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon_des_Refus%C3%A9s">Salon des Refusés</a> (Salon of the Rejected) later in the year, established after the official Paris Salon had rejected almost 2,800 paintings. </p>
<p>The painting’s juxtaposition of fully dressed men and a naked woman was profoundly controversial, as was the confronting gaze of the prostitute in Manet’s <a href="http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/search/commentaire_id/olympia-7087.html">Olympia</a>, also completed in 1863.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Edouard Manet, Olympia,1863.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Degas did not exhibit at the official Salon until 1865, when his painting Scene of War in the Middle Ages attracted little attention. He never again submitted a history painting to the Salon: his next exhibit was his Steeplechase — The Fallen Jockey (1866). </p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Edgar Degas.
Édouard Manet seated, turned to the right (Édouard Manet assis tourné vers la droite) 1864–65</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, courtesy of the NGV</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Manet’s brilliance and success may have convinced Degas to <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=NZt2oj5S-wQC&pg=PA177&dq=%E2%80%98Manet+and+Degas:+a+never-ending+dialogue%E2%80%99&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiqgqXglqvNAhUJ7GMKHdH-DBgQ6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%98Manet%20and%20Degas%3A%20a%20never-ending%20dialogue%E2%80%99&f=false">leave behind historical genre paintings</a> and to embark instead on the studies in painting and sculpture of movement which were to create his historic stature: ballet dancers and their admirers, working-class women, and the world of horse-racing.</p>
<p>Among the superb portraits in this NGV exhibition are two of Manet, done in Degas’ home in 1864-68. Sometime in 1868, Degas then painted a portrait of Manet reclining on a couch and his wife Suzanne seated at a piano.</p>
<p>Controversy surrounds the portrait because the painting has been slashed from top to bottom, right through the likeness of Suzanne. The supposition is that Manet slashed the painting, perhaps simply because he did not like the way Suzanne was painted, or because he was feuding at the time with Degas or his wife.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Édouard Manet and Mme. Manet (1868-69), Edgar Degas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art, Japan</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When Degas later saw the damage to his painting he demanded its return. He claimed that he intended to re-paint the likeness of Suzanne but he never did so. For whatever reason, Degas kept the damaged painting on his wall: a photo of him in his apartment around 1895 shows it hanging behind him. It remains in its slashed state in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitakyushu_Municipal_Museum_of_Art">Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art</a> in Japan.</p>
<p>Degas, like other artists resentful of the florid “academic art” approved of by the Salon, took the lead in establishing an independent society following the Salon des Réfusés. The group, soon known as the Impressionists, mounted eight shows between 1874 and 1886, known as the Impressionist or Independents Exhibitions. Degas played a leading role in organising them, and showed his work in all but one of them, but was constantly at loggerheads with others in the loose band.</p>
<p>Degas kept his distance from Impressionism, mocking what he dismissed as its pretensions at painting <em>en plein air</em> (painting outside) and its lack of respect for the exactitude of the earlier masters; he never used the Impressionist colour fleck.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Edgar Degas, Out of the paddock (Racehorses) c. 1871–72, reworked c. 1874–78.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the NGV</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Degas <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/O/bo3623246.html">himself explained</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>no art was ever less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and of the study of the great masters; of inspiration, spontaneity, temperament, I know nothing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Manet was a much more inclusive personality than Degas, who seems to have been temperamentally suspicious of fashions and notoriety, and a notorious “grincheux” (curmudgeon). He was not attracted to the left-wing politics of the avant-garde Paris art world.</p>
<p>Degas was conservative in his social attitudes, and disliked the scandal created by the exhibitions, as well as the publicity and advertising that his colleagues sought. </p>
<p>He was mistrustful of labels and exclusions, and insisted that exhibitions included non-Impressionist artists such as <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/jean-louis-forain-1103">Forain</a> and <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/artist/6297/">Raffaëlli</a>, one reason why the loose group disbanded in 1886.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Edgar Degas, Dancers on the stage c. 1899.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Lyon MBA – Photo RMN / Ojeda, Le Mage, courtesy of the NGV</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The friendship between Manet and Degas was never again as close as it had been in the 1860s. In his forties, in the 1870s, Manet contracted syphilis, for which he received no treatment. In the years before his death, he developed side-effects of syphilis which caused him considerable pain. </p>
<p>In April 1883, his left foot was amputated because of gangrene, and he died eleven days later in Paris.</p>
<p>Degas’ own financial situation improved with the sales of his own work, and he was able to indulge his remarkable passion as a collector, in particular of old masters such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Greco">El Greco</a> and his personal masters from earlier in the century: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Auguste_Dominique_Ingres">Ingres</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Delacroix">Delacroix</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor%C3%A9_Daumier">Daumier</a>.</p>
<p>But he also purchased work by contemporaries such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camille_Pissarro">Pissarro</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_C%C3%A9zanne">Cézanne</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Gauguin">Gauguin</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Gogh">Van Gogh</a>. Nor did he neglect Édouard Manet, and had purchased the fragmented <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/edouard-manet-the-execution-of-maximilian">Execution of Maximilian</a> (1868). After Degas’ death in 1917, the art world was staggered at the size of his private collection, dispersed at massive prices despite the surrounding war.</p>
<p>Degas preferred to be called a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realist_visual_arts">realist</a>, although he was close to the milieu of Manet and the Impressionists. But he was above all a superb draftsman with a particular skill of capturing movement in the human form.</p>
<p>His enduring greatness lies in the fusion of his deep respect for the traditional methods of his masters with the change of his focus to contemporary society, particularly ballet dancers, women at work, female nudes, and the world of race-courses. We may owe that captivating fusion to his meeting and subsequent friendship with Manet.</p>
<p><br></p>
<hr>
<p><em><a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/degas/">Degas: A New Vision</a> opens at the National Gallery of Victoria on June 24.</em></p>
<p><em>Professor Peter McPhee will present floor talks on the relationship between Degas and Manet as part of the after-hours event series Friday Nights at NGV, on 8 July, 12 August and 9 September.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61081/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter McPhee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Edgar Degas’ relationship with Impressionism was to be a stormy one, but his encounter with Edouard Manet in 1862 was a turning-point in his career. Degas went on to paint a portrait of Manet and his wife - later slashed in mysterious circumstances.
Peter McPhee, Emeritus professor, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/54526
2016-02-11T01:23:09Z
2016-02-11T01:23:09Z
Ai Weiwei has pulled his work from Denmark – should Melbourne be next?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111056/original/image-20160211-29202-19jxu1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Weiwei has taken Denmark to task for its asylum-seeker policy. Australia, for now, is another issue.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Filip Singer</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On ArtsHub last week, a grants manager for “a significant Australian arts organisation” <a href="http://www.artshub.com.au/news-article/opinions-and-analysis/grants-and-funding/artshub/why-this-week-means-i-would-refuse-catalyst-funding-250426?utm_source=ArtsHub+Australia&utm_campaign=3cf8626ad3-UA-828966-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2a8ea75e81-3cf8626ad3-304021401">wrote anonymously</a> that, should his or her organisation be a successful applicant to Catalyst – the Federal Government’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/out-with-the-npea-in-with-catalyst-expert-response-51026">new arts funding agency</a> – he or she would recommend to the Board that it not accept the funds in protest at the Australian government’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/glimmers-of-hope-for-detained-asylum-seekers-in-the-high-courts-nauru-decision-54036">plans to return</a> 267 asylum seekers to Nauru.</p>
<p>Drawing inspiration from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/sydney-biennale-boycott">artists’ boycott</a> of the 2014 Sydney Biennale, and perhaps emboldened by the new cultural activism epitomised by last year’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/beyond-the-inquiry-some-notes-on-effective-strategy-to-free-the-arts-43386">#freethearts campaign</a>, the grants manager raised the question of whether Ai Weiwei should end <a href="https://theconversation.com/andy-warhol-ai-weiwei-the-american-and-chinese-centuries-meet-in-melbourne-52288">his current exhibition</a> at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in protest:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I wonder If Weiwei will follow through by pulling his work from the NGV’s Andy Warhol | Ai Wei Wei blockbuster? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Weiwei, of course, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/jan/27/ai-weiwei-shuts-danish-show-in-protest-at-asylum-seeker-law">did something similar</a> in late January at the ARoS Aarhus Art Museum and Copenhagen’s Faurschou Foundation in response to a recently-passed bill that allows Danish authorities to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/26/danish-parliament-approves-plan-to-seize-assets-from-refugees">seize assets</a> from asylum seekers.</p>
<p>The anonymous grants manager also bemoaned the fact that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Given the bipartisan determination to wipe asylum seeker rights from the national conscience I doubt Australia’s latest move will reach [Weiwei’s] ears.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But, of course, the world is much smaller than that.</p>
<p>Weiwei follows my company NYID on Twitter and on Friday we tweeted him the question:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Would you consider pulling your exhibition from the NGV Melbourne? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>His response was to re-tweet the tweet:</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"695484829169635328"}"></div></p>
<p><br></p>
<p>Weiwei is an adept user of social media. I think of him as a social media artist. Whether Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or blog, he has embraced social media as both a distributor of his work and opinions, and as a new aesthetic terrain.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=hHjmSreDRzkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Hans+Ulrich+Obrist+weiwei+interview&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiq5_nrvO7KAhVRC44KHcRXDvUQ6AEIJTAA#v=onepage&q=Hans%20Ulrich%20Obrist%20weiwei%20interview&f=false">an interview</a> with curator Hans Ulrich Obrist in 2011, the “blog” is referred to as “social sculpture”. Elsewhere in that same interview, <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=hHjmSreDRzkC&pg=PT45&lpg=PT45&dq=obrist+weiwei+The+blog+is+the+modern+drawing&source=bl&ots=Fghz5Ukj-O&sig=35BGj67UBoLsKHHsO6g8V5r4028&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiIlI6gvO7KAhVJB44KHdfwCC8Q6AEIGzAA#v=onepage&q=obrist%20weiwei%20The%20blog%20is%20the%20modern%20drawing&f=false">Weiwei states</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The blog is the modern drawing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>His high online visibility has also given him a degree of international fame as a dissident that has proved invaluable when subject to the various confinement strategies of the Chinese government. </p>
<p>It is well-known his passport was confiscated for <a href="http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-ai-wei-wei-passport-20150722-story.html">more than four years</a> and only returned last July, a situation that had prevented him from leaving China.</p>
<p>His new-found freedom has allowed him to behave globally as, in <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=hHjmSreDRzkC&pg=PT59&lpg=PT59&dq=%E2%80%9Csomebody+who+triggers+or+initiates+things%E2%80%9D+weiwei&source=bl&ots=Fghz5UjsSP&sig=7ItY9oAglwCx-LcjMgjW_VBPBiI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjosujFu-7KAhXJC44KHbywDuQQ6AEIGzAA#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9Csomebody%20who%20triggers%20or%20initiates%20things%E2%80%9D%20weiwei&f=false">his own words</a>, “somebody who triggers or initiates things”. </p>
<p>Last week Weiwei triggered a controversy when a recreation of the 2015 photograph of drowned Syrian refugee infant <a href="http://time.com/4162306/alan-kurdi-syria-drowned-boy-refugee-crisis/">Alan Kurdi</a> on the Greek island of Lesbos went viral. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"694326467711406080"}"></div></p>
<p><br></p>
<p>In the storm of <a href="http://observer.com/2016/02/photo-of-ai-weiwei-aping-drowned-refugee-toddler-draws-praise-ire/">criticism</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/01/30/chinese-artist-ai-weiwei-poses-as-a-drowned-syrian-refugee-toddler/">support</a> that met the image and its circulation, <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/02/01/arts/ai-weiwei-alan-kurdi-syria/">Weiwei asserted</a> that the photograph had come about spontaneously during his research on Europe’s refugee crisis.</p>
<p>Iranian-American academic Hamid Dabashi, writing for Al Jazeera on February 4, went as far as declaring the image <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/02/portrait-artist-dead-boy-ai-weiwei-aylan-kurdi-refugees-160204095701479.html">signalled the death</a> of Weiwei’s artistic career. </p>
<p>While that’s unlikely, the incident draws attention to the ethical conundrum Ai Weiwei faces as an artist in the thrall of the aesthetics of social media.</p>
<p>Dabashi conflated the indifference suffered by the protagonist of Franz Kafka’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/141352.A_Hunger_Artist">The Hunger Artist</a> with Ai Weiwei’s efforts:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Like Kafka’s Hunger Artist, there is nothing beyond a passing internet curiosity about even a world-renowned artist who may even fake death to stage a colossal human tragedy, but alas the public that he wishes to convince of something or another has always already scrolled down the page of history to the next atrocity.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>How can you create profound artistic meaning when the frame of reception moves on a cursor click?</p>
<p>Weiwei’s conundrum is no less problematic in the offline world. In announcing the closure of his show at Faurschou Foundation, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/jan/27/ai-weiwei-shuts-danish-show-in-protest-at-asylum-seeker-law?CMP=share_btn_link">he stated</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The way I can protest is that I can withdraw my works from that country. It is very simple, very symbolic – I cannot co-exist, I cannot stand in front of these people, and see these policies. It is a personal act, very simple; an artist trying not just to watch events but to act, and I made this decision spontaneously.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Weiwei has nailed his colours to the mast. He has taken Denmark to task for its asylum-seeker policy and so, as was <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/feb/06/there-are-better-ways-for-ai-weiwei-to-take-a-political-stand-than-posing-as-a-drowned-infant">pointed out</a> in The Guardian last weekend, he can be rightly accused of inconsistency if he fails to pull his contribution to the double-feature Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei at the NGV.</p>
<p>Art critic Toby Fehily offers a solution. Alluding to the Letgo Room at the NGV exhibiting 20 faux-Lego portraits of Australian activists, Fehily suggested in The Guardian <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/feb/06/there-are-better-ways-for-ai-weiwei-to-take-a-political-stand-than-posing-as-a-drowned-infant">last Sunday</a> that Weiwei:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>boycott Australia’s offshore detention policy, tear that NGV installation down, and donate the bricks instead to the children in detention.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But can he pull down just one part of his contribution to the exhibition? Is that enough?</p>
<p>As I’ve <a href="https://theconversation.com/circles-of-context-giving-a-work-of-art-its-meaning-29401">argued previously</a> on The Conversation, in regard to the artists’ boycott of the 2014 Sydney Biennale:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Whether economic, philosophical, social or cultural, the context in which an artwork is created and the complicity of the artist within that context is intrinsic to its meaning.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>By withdrawing his work from the Danish museum and gallery, Weiwei has created a context of his own making which is framed by his ethical position on the asylum-seeker issue. </p>
<p>And for this reason his complicity is rather more complicated than that faced by the artists of the 2014 Sydney Biennale, whose context was created externally by the producing company’s direct relationship to a sponsor.</p>
<p>The question is: does Weiwei’s art lose its meaning if, in the face of the Federal Government’s decision to return 267 asylum-seekers to Nauru, he fails to act as he did in Denmark?</p>
<p>Only Ai Wei Wei can make the call.</p>
<p>Trending, tweeting, blogging.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54526/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Pledger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Weiwei has taken Denmark to task for its asylum-seeker policy. Given Australia’s decision to return 267 asylum seekers to Nauru, he should surely consider pulling his current Melbourne exhibition.
David Pledger, Artist, PhD Student, School of Architecture, RMIT University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/52288
2015-12-14T19:26:58Z
2015-12-14T19:26:58Z
Andy Warhol – Ai Weiwei: the American and Chinese centuries meet in Melbourne
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105612/original/image-20151213-30712-1a5yw1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The NGV's summer blockbuster packs a double whammy.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Ai Weiwei; Andy Warhol artwork © 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The National Gallery of Victoria’s (NGV) International’s summer blockbuster <a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/andy-warhol-ai-wei-wei/">Andy Warhol – Ai Weiwei</a> packs a double whammy, with both an immediate wow factor and a lasting impact, that will leave you pondering new insights for days. The exhibition is curated to create a dialogue between the two artists, and this conversation operates on multiple levels on a variety of themes, and across time and space. </p>
<p>The show, developed with <a href="http://www.warhol.org/">The Andy Warhol Museum</a>, Pittsburgh (it will travel there in June 2016) and with the participation of Ai Weiwei, presents more than 300 works from the two artists and includes major new commissions, such as <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/dec/11/ai-weiwei-donates-lego-human-rights-artwork-to-national-gallery-of-victoria">Letgo Room</a> (2015): a room-scale installation featuring portraits of and quotes from Australian advocates for human rights and freedom of speech and information, constructed from <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-building-blocks-of-dissidence-chinese-artist-ai-weiwei-and-legogate-49798">knock-off Lego</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105614/original/image-20151213-30740-12n076a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105614/original/image-20151213-30740-12n076a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105614/original/image-20151213-30740-12n076a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105614/original/image-20151213-30740-12n076a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105614/original/image-20151213-30740-12n076a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105614/original/image-20151213-30740-12n076a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105614/original/image-20151213-30740-12n076a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105614/original/image-20151213-30740-12n076a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Letgo Room honours Australian human rights activists, such as Rose Batty and Gillian Triggs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Tracey Nearmy</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Works span a broad spectrum of media including paintings, screen prints, sculpture, film and video, photography, publishing and social media. </p>
<p>Warhol, the iconic figure of 20th-century modernity, the epitome of American capitalist culture and the cult of celebrity, represents the last century, “the American century”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105618/original/image-20151214-29732-d603d0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105618/original/image-20151214-29732-d603d0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105618/original/image-20151214-29732-d603d0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105618/original/image-20151214-29732-d603d0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105618/original/image-20151214-29732-d603d0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105618/original/image-20151214-29732-d603d0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105618/original/image-20151214-29732-d603d0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105618/original/image-20151214-29732-d603d0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ai Weiwei. Coloured Vases, 2006. Neolithic vases (5000-3000 BC) and industrial paint dimensions variable.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Ai Weiwei</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ai, conceptual artist and iconoclast, product of and rebel against Chinese communist culture, is the iconic artist/ activist of the 21st century, a century that Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz dubbed “<a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/01/china-worlds-largest-economy">the Chinese century</a>”.</p>
<p>Although Ai never actually met Warhol, he was living in New York in the 1980s where Warhol was one of the focal points for the contemporary art scene, and the first book he bought in the English language on his arrival in America was <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31818.The_Philosophy_of_Andy_Warhol">The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (from A to B and Back Again)</a> (1975). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105621/original/image-20151214-30728-xlpzoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105621/original/image-20151214-30728-xlpzoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105621/original/image-20151214-30728-xlpzoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105621/original/image-20151214-30728-xlpzoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105621/original/image-20151214-30728-xlpzoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105621/original/image-20151214-30728-xlpzoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105621/original/image-20151214-30728-xlpzoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105621/original/image-20151214-30728-xlpzoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Andy Warhol. Screen Test: Edie Sedgwick [ST308],1965. 16mm film, black-and-white, silent, 4.6 minutes at 16 frames per second.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© 2015 The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA, a museum of Carnegie Institute. All rights reserved.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Both artists were strongly influenced by <a href="http://www.theartstory.org/artist-duchamp-marcel.htm">Marcel Duchamp</a>, who makes an appearance in the exhibition in Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests (1966) and as a profile crafted from a wire coathanger in Ai’s Hanging Man (2009). </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105629/original/image-20151214-9591-j7bbz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105629/original/image-20151214-9591-j7bbz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105629/original/image-20151214-9591-j7bbz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105629/original/image-20151214-9591-j7bbz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105629/original/image-20151214-9591-j7bbz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105629/original/image-20151214-9591-j7bbz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1087&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105629/original/image-20151214-9591-j7bbz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1087&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105629/original/image-20151214-9591-j7bbz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1087&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Steve Schapiro. Andy Warhol Factory Portrait, New York, 1963.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Steve Schapiro</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A self-portrait taken at the Museum of Modern Art in 1987 shows Ai assuming a Warholian pose in front of Warhol’s multiple <a href="http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/education/teachers/lessons-activities/self-portraits/warhol.html">Self-Portrait</a> of 1966 (see main article image).</p>
<p>Warhol’s was an almost ubiquitous presence in the age of mass media on both the New York art scene and among the American celebrity set, <a href="http://www.wired.com/2015/07/andy-warhols-celebrity-polaroids-like-retro-instagrams%E2%80%A8/">exhaustively documented</a> in Polaroids, candid shots, on film, on his television show, and through what Warhol referred to as his “wife”, his beloved Norelco tape recorder.</p>
<p>He can be seen as a forerunner to Ai’s saturation of social media. Ai blogged extensively, until the Chinese government <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/apr/09/ai-weiwei-writings-interviews-review">shut him down in 2009</a>, and currently uses video and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/aiww/?hl=en">Instagram</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/aiww?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">Twitter</a> to document his own experiences, to draw attention to repression and injustice, and to advocate for freedom of expression. </p>
<p>Both men are characterised by large lives, and an artistic practice that spans multiple media and in which their own lived experience becomes part of their body of work. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105625/original/image-20151214-9591-1241znj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105625/original/image-20151214-9591-1241znj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105625/original/image-20151214-9591-1241znj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=806&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105625/original/image-20151214-9591-1241znj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=806&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105625/original/image-20151214-9591-1241znj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=806&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105625/original/image-20151214-9591-1241znj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1013&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105625/original/image-20151214-9591-1241znj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1013&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105625/original/image-20151214-9591-1241znj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1013&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ai Weiwei. Mao (Facing Forward), 1986. Oil on canvas, 233.6x193.0cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Ai Weiwei</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Warhol’s studio became known as <a href="http://www.biography.com/news/andy-warhol-and-the-factory-20750995">The Silver Factory</a> and he aimed to make art that could be created by anyone, although was frequently involved in the <a href="http://www.mariabuszek.com/kcai/PoMoSeminar/Readings/WarholIntrvu.pdf">processes of production himself</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The reason I’m painting this way is that I want to be a machine (1963).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ai’s factory in Beijing, called <a href="http://artasiapacific.com/Magazine/64/AiWeiweiChallengesChinasGovernmentOverEarthquake">FAKE Design</a>, which in Chinese characters can be translated as “class development”, is in fact a real factory in which Ai, despite excellent draughtsmanship and artisanal skills, delegates the labour of production to a host of appropriately skilled workers: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I wanted to do some art works where I would not put any effort or skill into it (2003).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Despite Warhol’s somewhat disingenuous claim to be emptying the subject matter of his art of all meaning, there is implicit social criticism in much of his work, such as in the <a href="http://www.sothebys.com/en/news-video/blogs/all-blogs/21-days-of-andy-warhol/2013/11/andy-warhol-death-disaster-series-prestige.html">Death and Disaster</a> series which includes his well-known screen prints of the electric chair (1967), and in which he examines the spectacle of death in American mass media culture. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105626/original/image-20151214-31235-1yfda25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105626/original/image-20151214-31235-1yfda25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105626/original/image-20151214-31235-1yfda25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105626/original/image-20151214-31235-1yfda25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105626/original/image-20151214-31235-1yfda25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105626/original/image-20151214-31235-1yfda25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105626/original/image-20151214-31235-1yfda25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105626/original/image-20151214-31235-1yfda25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Andy Warhol. Electric Chair, 1967. Synthetic polymer paint screenprinted onto canvas. 137.2x185.1cm. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Purchased 1977.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ai’s overt political activism can be both shocking and wholly engrossing. He has witnessed the dead with powerful works such as <a href="http://www.theartwindow.org/new-page/">Names of the Student Earthquake Victims Found by the Citizens’ Investigation 2008-2011</a> and <a href="http://aiweiwei.com/projects/5-12-citizens-investigation/name-list-investigation/">4851</a> (2009), in which he lists the names of the more than 5,000 children who died due to shoddy school construction during the Sichuan earthquake of 2008, and <a href="http://www.zueccaprojectspace.com/?udt_portfolio=slider-portfolio&lang=en">Straight</a> (2012), in which a team of workers painstakingly use manual labour to straighten thousands of twisted rebars from the schools hit by the quake.</p>
<p>Other works, such as <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2355569/combined">One Recluse</a> (2010), the video in which the trial and death sentence of <a href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-10/20/content_10222954.htm">Yang Jia</a> is investigated to reveal the questionable nature of independent justice in China’s state-controlled judicial system, are sobering statements of political protest. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105627/original/image-20151214-31235-w6sdcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105627/original/image-20151214-31235-w6sdcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105627/original/image-20151214-31235-w6sdcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105627/original/image-20151214-31235-w6sdcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105627/original/image-20151214-31235-w6sdcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105627/original/image-20151214-31235-w6sdcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105627/original/image-20151214-31235-w6sdcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105627/original/image-20151214-31235-w6sdcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ai Weiwei. Illumination, 2014. Digital lambda print. 126.0x168.0cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Ai Weiwei</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But there is also much at the NGV that is highly entertaining. Ai’s interpretation of the Gangnam Style phenomenon, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upxHmG05Ke0">Caonima Style</a> (2012), both protests censorship in China and makes one smile. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105617/original/image-20151214-30725-1ve040x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105617/original/image-20151214-30725-1ve040x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105617/original/image-20151214-30725-1ve040x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105617/original/image-20151214-30725-1ve040x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105617/original/image-20151214-30725-1ve040x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105617/original/image-20151214-30725-1ve040x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1264&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105617/original/image-20151214-30725-1ve040x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1264&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105617/original/image-20151214-30725-1ve040x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1264&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Andy Warhol. Campbell’s Soup II: Tomato-Beef Noodle O’s 1969. Screen print on paper, 88.9x58.4cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>His raincoat with a condom attached at waist height, <a href="http://sciencesparksart.tumblr.com/post/87033501298/safe-sex-1986-ai-weiwei-the-brooklyn-museum-is">Safe Sex</a> (1986), draws attention to the culture of fear surrounding the AIDS epidemic, while also conjuring up the classic image of the flasher in the park, naked under his raincoat. </p>
<p>Warhol’s Polaroids and screen tests induce even the most hardened cynic to indulge in some vicarious celebrity spotting. Both Warhol’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65obeVlgD9E">Silver Cloud Pillows</a> helium balloon installation (1966), and Ai’s 21st-century interpretation, <a href="http://fadmagazine.com/2015/12/10/221331/">Bird Balloon</a> (2015), which features golden alpacas and red Twitter birds, provide good interactive fun.</p>
<p>Warhol’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BS0vAkMt8k">Exploding Plastic Inevitable</a> gallery, with pounding music, live performance footage and stills projected onto all four walls, is an immersive experience which can be enjoyed supine from a beanbag on the floor and serves to remind one of just how ahead of his time Warhol was.</p>
<p>Whether or not you are accompanied by a child who provides a convenient excuse, do not miss the <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/studio-cats-andy-warhol-ai-weiwei-for-kids/">Studio Cats</a> section of the exhibition (free entry) which is primarily targeted at children. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105619/original/image-20151214-30728-1dcyv2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105619/original/image-20151214-30728-1dcyv2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105619/original/image-20151214-30728-1dcyv2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105619/original/image-20151214-30728-1dcyv2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105619/original/image-20151214-30728-1dcyv2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105619/original/image-20151214-30728-1dcyv2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105619/original/image-20151214-30728-1dcyv2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105619/original/image-20151214-30728-1dcyv2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ai Weiwei. Ai Weiwei with cat, @aiww, Instagram, 2006.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Ai Weiwei</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is a joyous interactive space in which everything feline is celebrated – Andy Warhol had 25 studio cats, Ai Weiwei has about 30 – and in which children can create their own clever image captions and videos using a multimedia platform and build sculptures from Warhol’s iconic <a href="http://www.warhol.org/ArtCollections.aspx?id=1708">Brillo Soap Pads</a> and <a href="http://www.warhol.org/ArtCollections.aspx?id=1642">Heinz Ketchup</a> boxes. </p>
<p>This huge exhibition spans most of the ground floor of the gallery and is best encountered on a day in which you have plenty of time to browse.</p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em>Andy Warhol – Ai Weiwei is at the NGV International, Melbourne, until April 24, 2016. Details <a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/andy-warhol-ai-wei-wei/">here</a></em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52288/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anita Pisch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The NGV’s summer exhibition is curated to create a dialogue between Ai Weiwei and Andy Warhol, and this conversation operates on multiple levels on a variety of themes, and across time and space.
Anita Pisch, Visiting Fellow, School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/51240
2015-12-09T03:54:30Z
2015-12-09T03:54:30Z
Lurid Beauty: Australian Surrealism and its Echoes – reviewed
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104231/original/image-20151203-27413-y6t14h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The viewer is asked to suspend disbelief and journey through the realms of the unconscious.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">James Gleeson. We inhabit the corrosive littoral of habit 1940. Oil on canvas. 40.7x51.3cm. © Courtesy of the artist’s estate</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As you enter the sliding doors to <a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/lurid-beauty/">Lurid Beauty: Australian Surrealism and its Echoes</a>, currently showing at the Ian Potter Centre, NGV Australia, it is clear that you have entered an alternate universe, confronted simultaneously by <a href="http://ocula.com/artists/alex-vivian/">Alex Vivian</a>’s unsettling sculptures in which soiled domestic objects emerge from the walls, <a href="http://www.savill.com.au/barryhumphries.html">Barry Humphries</a>’ absurd and whimsical Dadaist accessories, <a href="http://www.mca.com.au/collection/artist/stuart-ringholt/">Stuart Ringholt</a>’s upended armchair, and the stomach-turning video of a ring being extracted from beneath hair and a skin-like membrane in <a href="http://www.videoartchive.org.au/lhubbard/boreme.html">Lou Hubbard’s Bore Me</a>.</p>
<p>Lurid Beauty, which takes its name from a <a href="http://www.nla.gov.au/sites/default/files/theangrypenguin.pdf">1940 poem by Max Harris</a>, presents more than 250 surrealist and surrealist influenced works by more than 80 artists from major collections across Australia in a variety of mediums. It is the first major examination of Australian Surrealism and its profound impact on Australian art from the 1930s to the present day. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104383/original/image-20151204-29711-8kbroj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104383/original/image-20151204-29711-8kbroj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104383/original/image-20151204-29711-8kbroj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104383/original/image-20151204-29711-8kbroj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104383/original/image-20151204-29711-8kbroj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104383/original/image-20151204-29711-8kbroj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104383/original/image-20151204-29711-8kbroj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104383/original/image-20151204-29711-8kbroj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Barry Humphries. Siamese shoes, 1958, remade 1968 leather, silk scarves. 26.0x10.5x54.0cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Barry Humphries</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The viewer is asked to leave the rational world, suspend disbelief and journey through the realms of the unconscious and the uncanny. The journey begins, as in Freudian psychoanalysis, with the infancy of Surrealism, with works from the 1930s and 1940s by the movement’s earliest Australian proponents, including <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/atyeo-samuel-laurence-sam-12154">Sam Atyeo</a>, <a href="http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/artists/gleeson-james/">James Gleeson</a>, <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/thake-eric-prentice-anchor-15671">Eric Thake</a>, <a href="http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/max-dupain">Max Dupain</a>, <a href="http://www.mca.com.au/artists-and-works/mca-collection/about-mca-collection/jw-power-collection/">JW Power</a>, <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/de-maistre-leroy-leveson-roy-5949">LeRoy de Maistre</a>, <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/cant-james-montgomery-12291">James Cant</a>, <a href="http://www.portrait.gov.au/portraits/2003.74/geoffrey-graham">Geoffrey Graham</a> and <a href="http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/OA39.1960/">Peter Purves Smith</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104373/original/image-20151204-29685-vg8cs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104373/original/image-20151204-29685-vg8cs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104373/original/image-20151204-29685-vg8cs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=791&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104373/original/image-20151204-29685-vg8cs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=791&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104373/original/image-20151204-29685-vg8cs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=791&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104373/original/image-20151204-29685-vg8cs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=994&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104373/original/image-20151204-29685-vg8cs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=994&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104373/original/image-20151204-29685-vg8cs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=994&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Max Dupain. Surrealist study 1938. Gelatin silver photograph. 45.9x35.5cm (image).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Growing out of the Dada of the war years and informed by Freudian and Marxist theory, Surrealism appeared to some as ephemeral, but by the 1930s the movement had spread across the globe. It reached Australian shores through expats working in Paris and New York, and through the lavish, avidly-read art publication <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minotaure">Minotaure</a> (1933-1939), founded in Paris and featuring works commissioned by artists including Pablo Picasso, René Magritte, Man Ray and Salvador Dalí.</p>
<p>The movement not only survived but thrived, and impacted radically on the nature of art in the 20th century. Collage, photomontage, assemblage, sculpture and digital technology found a place in everyday Australian public life through their manifestation in graphic design, advertising, fashion photography and commercial illustration. </p>
<p>June 1939 saw the first exhibition of the <a href="http://www.contemporaryartsociety.org.au/home/history">Contemporary Art Society</a> (CAS) in Melbourne which included surrealist works by Gleeson, Thake, <a href="http://www.australianbiography.gov.au/subjects/tucker/">Albert Tucker</a> and <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hester-joy-st-clair-10493">Joy Hester</a> and surrealist influenced works by artists such as <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/drysdale-sir-george-russell-12439">Russell Drysdale</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104370/original/image-20151204-29706-1lv2dk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104370/original/image-20151204-29706-1lv2dk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104370/original/image-20151204-29706-1lv2dk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104370/original/image-20151204-29706-1lv2dk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104370/original/image-20151204-29706-1lv2dk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104370/original/image-20151204-29706-1lv2dk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104370/original/image-20151204-29706-1lv2dk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104370/original/image-20151204-29706-1lv2dk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Albert Tucker. Image of modern evil: Woman and clown 1943. Oil on canvas on composition board. 51.8x72.5cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© The Estate of Barbara Tucker</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In September of the same year, the <a href="http://www.nla.gov.au/ojs/index.php/ras/article/viewFile/629/697">Herald Exhibition of French and English Contemporary Art</a>, featuring several European surrealist works, toured Australia’s capital cities. By the 1940s, with Australia involved in a second World War and the aftermath of the Depression years, young artists sought new means to express a growing sense of chaos, alienation and dispossession, and to bring to the surface the horror and absurdity lurking just beneath the civilised social facade. </p>
<p>The NGV exhibition places the pioneering photographic work of Max Dupain and the early experimental collages of <a href="http://www.sidneynolantrust.org/about/sidney-nolan">Sidney Nolan</a> and <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/plate-carl-olaf-11403">Carl Plate</a> alongside photographic images by contemporary artists, such as the hybrid images of <a href="http://www.dainesinger.com/zoe-croggon/">Zoë Croggon</a>, the cluttered collages of <a href="http://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/david_noonan.htm">David Noonan</a> and the dream-like fluid images of <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/melbournenow/artists/day.html">Christopher Day</a>. </p>
<p>It also features a number of strong, haunting and disturbing video installations. <a href="http://21cblog.com/gabriella-mangano-silvana-mangano-if-so-then-2006/">If…So…Then…</a> (2006), is a mesmerising work by Queensland-born identical twins <a href="http://www.gabriella-mangano-silvana-mangano.com/biography/">Gabriella and Silvana Mangano</a>, tracing each other’s outlines with repetitive staccato movements like cloned automatons.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104382/original/image-20151204-29727-1cp6du7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104382/original/image-20151204-29727-1cp6du7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104382/original/image-20151204-29727-1cp6du7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104382/original/image-20151204-29727-1cp6du7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104382/original/image-20151204-29727-1cp6du7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104382/original/image-20151204-29727-1cp6du7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104382/original/image-20151204-29727-1cp6du7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104382/original/image-20151204-29727-1cp6du7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano. if…so…then 2006 (still) single-channel video, 4:3, black & white, stereo sound, 7 min 44 sec.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Courtesy of the artists and Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne and Sydney</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Czech immigrant Dušan Marek’s <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/10601229?q&versionId=12364958">Cobweb on a parachute</a> (1967), a one-hour “live action” film which was never resolved as intended due to a dispute with his employer, Fontana Films, presents a murky world of shadow and uncertainty, as the protagonist is relentlessly pursued by a creature with unidentifiable features which he eventually comes to accept as the unconscious aspect of his own psyche. </p>
<p>Melbourne video artist <a href="http://scanlines.net/person/james-lynch">James Lynch</a>’s series of short animations explore dream consciousness through a dramatisation of dreams of friends and family about the artist. Viewers are seated on grubby mismatched chairs amid the debris of personal life – a bathroom sink, suitcases, mattress and string of lights and there is a feeling that one has strayed into a private world that may be better left unexplored. </p>
<p>Surrealism speaks loudest in times of uncertainty and chaos, and one of the strengths of the Lurid Beauty exhibition lies in its demonstration of the breadth of the influence of the movement across all genres of contemporary art. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104380/original/image-20151204-29706-gr3582.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104380/original/image-20151204-29706-gr3582.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104380/original/image-20151204-29706-gr3582.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104380/original/image-20151204-29706-gr3582.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104380/original/image-20151204-29706-gr3582.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104380/original/image-20151204-29706-gr3582.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104380/original/image-20151204-29706-gr3582.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104380/original/image-20151204-29706-gr3582.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anne Wallace. Talking cure 2010. Oil on canvas. 83.0x99.0cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Courtesy of the artist and Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although women artists were not present in large numbers at the inception of the Surrealist movement, and surrealist works by male artists have often been characterised by violence to and distortion or dismemberment of the female form, female artists today have embraced surrealist forms to express a feminine and feminist perspective, and are well represented in Lurid Beauty.</p>
<p>Particularly powerful is the video by <a href="http://jillorr.com.au/p/biography">Jill Orr</a> from a 1980 performance, <a href="https://www.accaonline.org.au/sites/default/files/1989_Jill%20Orr_catalogue.pdf">She had long golden hair</a>. </p>
<p>Entering the room to a repetitive male chant of “witch, bitch, mole, dyke”, Orr attached her hair to a series of suspended chains, then invited members of the audience to cut off each section as she recited narratives of women having their hair forcibly cut. </p>
<p>This is reminiscent of the public shaming of women for adultery or who were accused of sleeping with the enemy during wartime.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.mca.com.au/collection/artist/rrap-julie/">Julie Rrap</a>, whose extensive body of work spanning more than three decades focuses on the image of the female body in society and the media, responds to the notion of woman as castrated male by casting the negative space between her legs as a solid presence, for the <a href="http://www.julierrap.com/work/vital-statistics">Vital Statistics</a> installation (1997), the photographs depicting a distorted and objectified torso in which Rrap appears almost like a pinned biological specimen. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/110967/">Shhh men at work I</a> (2013) Melbourne-based sculptor <a href="http://www.sarahscoutpresents.com/web/claire-lambe/">Claire Lambe</a> uses a splayed foam cushion, a sockette and dainty bronze human feet to suggest female genitalia, sliced through with a sharp polymer resin sheet to depict the fetishisation of the female form.</p>
<p>Lambe draws on her memories of the experimental Manchester (England) music scene in the 1970s to create works in which notions of sexual liberation, exhibitionism, naughty humour and undercurrents of violence collide.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104360/original/image-20151204-29711-1ovndhf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104360/original/image-20151204-29711-1ovndhf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104360/original/image-20151204-29711-1ovndhf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104360/original/image-20151204-29711-1ovndhf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104360/original/image-20151204-29711-1ovndhf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104360/original/image-20151204-29711-1ovndhf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104360/original/image-20151204-29711-1ovndhf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104360/original/image-20151204-29711-1ovndhf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Voicing 2001, from the Gentle series 2001, digital colour print. 56.2x76.1cm (image) 93.4x127.4 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Pat Brassington, courtesy Stills Gallery, Sydney, Arc One Gallery, Melbourne and Bett Gallery, Hobart</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hobart-based photo media artist <a href="http://www.greenaway.com.au/Associated-Guests-Special-Exhibits/2012-PatBrassington.html">Pat Brassington</a>’s ambiguous and uncertain soft biological forms hover unnervingly at the edges of recognition in the photographs from her <a href="https://www.accaonline.org.au/exhibition/pat-brassington-gentle">Gentle series</a> of 2001. The terrible beauty of Louise Hearman’s luminous, yet dark, painted landscapes of pearlescent teeth is the stuff of nightmares and the psychiatrist’s couch. </p>
<p>The exhibition also displays strong work by some of the most notable names in Australian art from the 1930s to the present day, including <a href="http://www.bridgetmcdonnellgallery.com.au/bayliss-clifford/">Clifford Bayliss</a>, <a href="http://www.sculpture.org/documents/scmag04/april04/WebSpecials/Klippel.shtml">Robert Klippel</a>, <a href="http://www.thecommercialgallery.com/artist/tim-schultz/biography">Tim Schultz</a>, <a href="http://www1.rmit.edu.au/rmitgallery/a-head-in-a-hive-of-bees">Peter Ellis</a>, <a href="http://robingibson.net/artists/erwin-fabian">Erwin Fabian</a>, and <a href="http://www.savill.com.au/artist_arthurboyd.html">Arthur Boyd</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104362/original/image-20151204-29733-k98q93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104362/original/image-20151204-29733-k98q93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104362/original/image-20151204-29733-k98q93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104362/original/image-20151204-29733-k98q93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104362/original/image-20151204-29733-k98q93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104362/original/image-20151204-29733-k98q93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104362/original/image-20151204-29733-k98q93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104362/original/image-20151204-29733-k98q93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Erwin Fabian. Noon 1941-(c. 1946). Monotype. 31.8x40.0 cm (image) 33.6x41.2cm (sheet).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Erwin Fabian</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The exhibition unfolds like a journey through the corridors of the mind, with works clustered by associative themes entering into dialogue with each other – one room a darkened landscape of twisted sculptural forms, another an alarmingly garish orange with green tinged works leaping from the walls. </p>
<p>Although many of the artists featured in the exhibition would not identify as surrealist in their practice, the exhibition successfully highlights the pervasive relevance of surrealist principles of juxtaposition, the dream and the collective unconscious throughout contemporary Australian art. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104384/original/image-20151204-14451-13nxtcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104384/original/image-20151204-14451-13nxtcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104384/original/image-20151204-14451-13nxtcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104384/original/image-20151204-14451-13nxtcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104384/original/image-20151204-14451-13nxtcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104384/original/image-20151204-14451-13nxtcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104384/original/image-20151204-14451-13nxtcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104384/original/image-20151204-14451-13nxtcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Greatest Hits, Melbourne, est. 2008, Gavin Bell, Jarrah de Kuijer, Simon McGlinn. Untitled 2012. Taxidermied cat, electronic components. 40.0x21.7x34.0cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Greatest Hits</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The journey through the exhibition finishes with a farewell from the taxidermied Maneki-neko, an unlucky black cat wishing you luck as you leave the stage through a black curtain. </p>
<p>A quick trip through the gallery of pioneering works brings the viewer back out to the entry, the final glimpse being of oneself surrounded by the absurd, the uncanny, the disturbing and the uncertain, reflected in the opening doors. </p>
<p><br></p>
<p>_<em>Lurid Beauty: Australian Surrealism and its Echoes</em> is on display at The Ian Potter Centre, NGV Australia until January 31 2016. Details <a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/lurid-beauty/">here</a>_.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51240/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anita Pisch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Lurid Beauty is the first major examination of Australian Surrealism and its profound impact on Australian art from the 1930s to the present day. So how does it all hang together?
Anita Pisch, Visiting Fellow, School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/49884
2015-11-12T03:08:15Z
2015-11-12T03:08:15Z
Feeling blue? Get acquainted with the history of a colour
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101395/original/image-20151110-21211-42101n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A new exhibition examines the meaning and enduring influence of the colour blue. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We’re used to thinking about the colour blue symbolically. We might have the blues, see ourselves as blue-collar workers, or receive unsettling news as a bolt from the blue. But the colour’s historical significance predates those associations by a long stretch. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/blue/">Blue: Alchemy of a Colour</a>, currently showing at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in Melbourne, examines Asian and European works of art employing the colour blue from the 7th century AD to the present. </p>
<p>Comprising more than 60 ceramics, paintings, prints and textiles the exhibition focuses on cobalt blue and indigo, two of the most distinctive and influential colourants employed worldwide. And yet, in their raw states, neither substance is actually blue. Cobalt is a silvery-white mineral; indigo is a greenish plant extract. </p>
<p>It is only through complex processing, requiring considerable technical knowledge, that both substances assume the brilliant blue hues beloved of ceramicists and textile artists the world over. So let’s look a little closer. </p>
<h2>Indigo</h2>
<p>Indigo blue is used as a dye for textiles and a pigment for paintings and prints. It is sourced from a range of plants, the best known of which is <em><a href="http://www.motherherbs.com/indigofera-tinctoria.html">Indigofera tinctoria</a></em> (“True” indigo), which has been used to dye textiles in India from before 2000BC. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101659/original/image-20151112-9400-b5664d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101659/original/image-20151112-9400-b5664d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101659/original/image-20151112-9400-b5664d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101659/original/image-20151112-9400-b5664d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101659/original/image-20151112-9400-b5664d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101659/original/image-20151112-9400-b5664d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101659/original/image-20151112-9400-b5664d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101659/original/image-20151112-9400-b5664d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Indigofera tinctoria.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The use of indigo dye to colour cloth blue is a worldwide phenomenon, reflecting both the widespread availability of plants that contain indigotin, the active ingredient in indigo dye, and the dye’s colourfastness. Although indigo was available in Europe in the form of woad (<em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isatis_tinctoria">Isatis tinctoria</a></em>), the far more potent <em>Indigofera tinctoria</em>, used in India and across tropical Asia, was imported into Europe in enormous quantities from the beginning of the 16th century. </p>
<p>The NGV’s exhibition explores techniques employed to pattern indigo-dyed cloth in textiles from Egypt, Japan, China, Central Asia, India, Indonesia and Italy. Patterning with printed, painted and tied resists, such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batik">batik</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_handicrafts">yuzen</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikat">ikat</a>, which produce a white pattern on an indigo blue field, are contrasted with positive blue patterns produced by printing or weaving.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101655/original/image-20151112-9381-1usxndn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101655/original/image-20151112-9381-1usxndn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101655/original/image-20151112-9381-1usxndn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101655/original/image-20151112-9381-1usxndn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101655/original/image-20151112-9381-1usxndn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101655/original/image-20151112-9381-1usxndn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101655/original/image-20151112-9381-1usxndn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101655/original/image-20151112-9381-1usxndn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indigo blue textiles often have particular symbolic resonances. </p>
<p>Central Asian Turkmen women wear a distinctive garment in the form of an embroidered mantle with long vestigial sleeves called a <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1999.141">chyrpy</a>. The colour of the ground fabric indicates the wearer’s age: a young woman wears a dark blue chyrpy, a middle-aged woman wears yellow, and a woman aged over 60 wears white. </p>
<p>Elsewhere in Central Asia, in the towns along the silk road where sumptuously patterned fabrics were produced using the ikat resist technique, garments in dark blue indigo dyed silk and cotton fabric (adras) with white patterns were thought appropriate for older women and those in mourning. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101658/original/image-20151112-9385-16qjoqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101658/original/image-20151112-9385-16qjoqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101658/original/image-20151112-9385-16qjoqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101658/original/image-20151112-9385-16qjoqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101658/original/image-20151112-9385-16qjoqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101658/original/image-20151112-9385-16qjoqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101658/original/image-20151112-9385-16qjoqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101658/original/image-20151112-9385-16qjoqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The ubiquity of indigo dye has resulted in blue becoming the colour of the everyday <a href="https://theconversation.com/fashioning-blue-collars-chambray-shirts-and-indigo-dyed-workwear-24603">clothes of the working class</a> in Europe and Asia. But predominantly blue textiles and garments are also some of the most prestigious textiles, imparting status to the wearer and worn on important ritual occasions. </p>
<p>Their prestige may be signified by the of valuable materials such as gold and beads, the incorporation of extra colours, patterns and techniques, or special finishes. </p>
<p>In China the colour blue generally signifies the natural world, springtime, youth and immortality. The emperor wore a blue court garment at annual ceremonies associated with the heavens and crops, and indigo blue was the most common ground colour of Manchu clothing during the <a href="http://www.britannica.com/topic/Qing-dynasty">Qing dynasty</a> (1644–1912AD). </p>
<p>Deceptively simple blue cloths may also convey status through their association with important rituals. Indigo dyed <em><a href="http://the-arts-collection.blogspot.com.au/2011/08/ulos-sibolang.html">ulos sibolang</a></em> are probably among the oldest textile types woven by the <a href="http://www.britannica.com/topic/Batak">Toba Batak</a> people of north Sumatra, Indonesia.</p>
<p>They are important ceremonial cloths given by the bride, and are also given as gifts at funerals and were worn as a headcloth by widows and used to cover the corpse. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101656/original/image-20151112-9396-2a3949.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101656/original/image-20151112-9396-2a3949.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101656/original/image-20151112-9396-2a3949.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101656/original/image-20151112-9396-2a3949.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101656/original/image-20151112-9396-2a3949.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101656/original/image-20151112-9396-2a3949.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101656/original/image-20151112-9396-2a3949.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101656/original/image-20151112-9396-2a3949.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Cobalt</h2>
<p>Cobalt was also used in Babylonia, an area rich in cobalt deposits, as early as the 6th century BC to produce blue-glazed stonewares. The first evidence for Chinese use of cobalt to produce blue-decorated ceramics is found during the <a href="http://www.ushistory.org/civ/9d.asp">T’ang dynasty</a> (618–906AD). </p>
<p>The succeeding <a href="http://www.britannica.com/topic/Song-dynasty">Song dynasty</a> showed little interest in cobalt blue, preferring ceramics in subtle monochrome colours inspired by the love of jade. It is with the <a href="http://www.britannica.com/topic/Yuan-dynasty">Yuan dynasty</a> (1278–1368AD) that white porcelain decorated with underglaze cobalt blue began to be produced in quantity.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101660/original/image-20151112-9385-xzzwu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101660/original/image-20151112-9385-xzzwu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101660/original/image-20151112-9385-xzzwu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101660/original/image-20151112-9385-xzzwu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101660/original/image-20151112-9385-xzzwu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101660/original/image-20151112-9385-xzzwu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=954&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101660/original/image-20151112-9385-xzzwu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=954&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101660/original/image-20151112-9385-xzzwu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=954&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tomb of Safi-ad-din, in Ardabil, Iran.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It appears that the impetus for producing those ceramics probably came from outside China’s borders. The Persians greatly admired Chinese porcelain but were unable to produce this high-fired ceramic body themselves. </p>
<p>Their own ceramic tradition, heir to the knowledge of the Babylonian ceramicists, employed cobalt blue decoration on stonewares. Evidence suggests that the Persians began commissioning and importing blue-and-white porcelain from the Chinese kilns; it is probably no coincidence that today one of the largest collections of Yuan blue-and-white porcelain is to be found at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardabil">Ardabil shrine</a> in Iran. </p>
<p>It is also likely that the cobalt used in Yuan blue-and-white wears was imported from Iran. China had access to cobalt sources of its own, but these were generally of poorer quality than the imported “Islamic blue”, as it was called in Chinese documents. </p>
<p>Both Yuan China and Ilkhanid Iran were ruled by Mongolian dynasties; trade and cultural exchange between the two regions was intense and constant. It has been suggested that the blue and white palette would have appealed greatly to the Mongolians as a symbol of their power uniting heaven (blue) and earth (white). </p>
<p>That the birth of the Chinese blue-and-white porcelain tradition was the result of complex cross-cultural interactions is further suggested by the fact that many of the motifs employed on Yuan blue-and-white ware appear related to Uighur and Mongol textile designs. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101657/original/image-20151112-9388-sims65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101657/original/image-20151112-9388-sims65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101657/original/image-20151112-9388-sims65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101657/original/image-20151112-9388-sims65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101657/original/image-20151112-9388-sims65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101657/original/image-20151112-9388-sims65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101657/original/image-20151112-9388-sims65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101657/original/image-20151112-9388-sims65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By the advent of the <a href="http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/history/ming.htm">Ming dynasty</a> (1368–1644AD) blue-and-white porcelain was being produced in enormous quantities at the kilns of Jingdezhen. Imports of cobalt from Persia could not match the growing demand for the mineral and Chinese cobalt sources began to be exploited with ever greater intensity. </p>
<p>It was this Ming blue-and-white that began to reach Europe in small quantities, igniting a European passion for these marvellous ceramics and stimulating the quest to discover the secret of their production. </p>
<h2>Out of the blue</h2>
<p>It is one of history’s great coincidences that, at the same time that true indigo was introduced to Europe from India in the 16th century, Chinese blue-and-white porcelain was also beginning to arrive there in significant quantities. The craze for Chinese porcelain saw the striking blue-and-white colour palette become the height of European fashion. </p>
<p>Chinese porcelain also provided Europeans with an entirely new visual vocabulary of patterns, motifs and compositional principles, and these very quickly migrated from ceramics to influence the decoration of artworks executed in other media, including textiles. </p>
<p>The two colourants – cobalt and indigo – undoubtedly reinforced each other’s popularity. The textiles and ceramics produced with these colourants were the objects of trade and artistic exchange which has seen them traverse the whole of the globe.</p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em>Blue: Alchemy of a Colour is at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, until March 2016. Details <a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/blue/">here</a></em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49884/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Martin is Curator of International Decorative Arts at the National Gallery of Victoria and the co-curator of the exhibition Blue: Alchemy of a Colour. </span></em></p>
Blue crops up in all sorts of idioms and registers. But, as a new National Gallery of Victoria exhibition demonstrates, there’s more to the colour, and its long history, than meets the eye.
Matthew Martin, Research fellow at the Melbourne University of Divinity, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/50189
2015-11-09T19:19:47Z
2015-11-09T19:19:47Z
Lego shouldn’t brick it over Ai Weiwei – refuting the censorship argument is child’s play
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101199/original/image-20151109-16231-19lhxb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A standard trope suggests this is a war between art and commerce – it isn't.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/ Facundo Arrizabalaga</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Unless you’ve been playing with your building blocks for the past couple of weeks you’ll know the internet is abuzz with news that Lego refused to sell Chinese contemporary artist Ai Weiwei a large number of its toy bricks for <a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/andy-warhol-ai-wei-wei/">his latest art installation</a>, to be unveiled on December 11 at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. </p>
<p>When the news first broke, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/oct/24/artist-ai-weiwei-banned-by-lego-to-build-artwork-australian-exhibition">commentators suggested</a> that this was connected to the announcement that Lego had recently signed a deal to open its first theme park in China.</p>
<p>Ai Weiwei is a remarkable artist and provocateur, known for his brilliant attacks on the Chinese government via his art. Despite Lego’s protestation that it’s just avoiding controversy, Weiwei, in concert with numerous media outlets, has <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/ai-weiwei-lego-refusal-censorship-347819">claimed</a> that Lego is <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/ai-weiwei-lego-refusal-censorship-347819">engaging in heavy-handed</a> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/oct/25/artist-ai-weiwei-accept-offers-lego-around-world">censorship</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101204/original/image-20151109-16255-cafnlf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101204/original/image-20151109-16255-cafnlf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101204/original/image-20151109-16255-cafnlf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1069&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101204/original/image-20151109-16255-cafnlf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1069&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101204/original/image-20151109-16255-cafnlf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1069&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101204/original/image-20151109-16255-cafnlf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1343&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101204/original/image-20151109-16255-cafnlf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1343&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101204/original/image-20151109-16255-cafnlf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1343&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">chopshopimages</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A standard trope suggests that this is a <a href="http://www.citylab.com/design/2015/10/why-lego-wont-sell-its-bricks-to-artists/412597/">war between art and commerce</a>. </p>
<p>There are so many things wrong with those arguments it’s hard to know where to begin responding. The main thing to note is that Lego’s actions aren’t censorship – they don’t even <em>resemble</em> censorship. It’s not like Weiwei is now unable to buy Lego bricks to express his artistic vision. </p>
<p>If he wants, he can get his assistants to wander down to the local toy store and buy any number of sets; and if that’s too much like hard work he can order from the numerous <a href="http://www.ebay.com/sch/Toys-and-Hobbies-Wholesale-Lots/40149/bn_1862259/i.html">wholesale Lego merchants that populate eBay</a>, or <a href="http://stuccu.com/so/Bulk%2520Lego%2520Bricks">any one</a> of myriad online <a href="http://www.ebricksonline.com">wholesalers and retailers</a>.</p>
<p>Lego can’t put a worldwide ban on the sale of bricks to Weiwei, and wouldn’t do so even if it could. Instead, the company <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/ai-weiwei-lego_562cfc9ee4b0443bb5643dd1?section=australia&adsSiteOverride=au">has merely said</a> that it doesn’t get involved in political statements using the bricks, commenting last month that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>as a company dedicated to delivering creative play experiences to children, we refrain – on a global level – from engaging in or endorsing the use of LEGO bricks in projects that carry a political agenda. Individuals may obtain LEGO bricks in other ways to create their LEGO projects if they so desire, but in cases where we receive requests for donations or support for projects – such as the possibility of purchasing LEGO bricks in very large quantities – and we are aware that there is a political context, we uphold our corporate policy and decline the request to access LEGO bricks directly.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This would be a smart and reasonable approach for a company such as Lego, no matter what had happened to it in the past. But Lego has a history of difficulties with its users; and so its concern is more understandable.</p>
<p>Lego has created a general-purpose technology that can be used to make all sorts of things the company has no control over. And it has confronted a range of problems as a result, usually from so-called “Adult Fans of Lego” who don’t play with Lego in the same way as kids. These users <a href="https://www.nostarch.com/legoguns.htm">create models of guns and weapons</a> that can be used to take out an eye, they produce YouTube videos of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oU9mj-opIT0">battle on the Star Wars iceplanet of Hoth</a>, or create <a href="http://io9.com/5931903/seven-foot-long-minifig-scale-serenity-model-is-a-lego-masterpiece">models of the Serenity spaceship from Firefly</a>, without approval from the film studios that own the intellectual property rights. Much to the consternation of the company. </p>
<p>Generally Lego executives have realised they’re on safest ground when they don’t take a position on the things that their users create; otherwise they will be seen as endorsing them. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101202/original/image-20151109-24388-mhzs7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101202/original/image-20151109-24388-mhzs7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101202/original/image-20151109-24388-mhzs7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101202/original/image-20151109-24388-mhzs7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101202/original/image-20151109-24388-mhzs7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101202/original/image-20151109-24388-mhzs7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101202/original/image-20151109-24388-mhzs7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101202/original/image-20151109-24388-mhzs7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A car parked next to the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin serves as a donation point for Lego bricks with which Ai Weiwei will recreate the portraits of prominent civil rights activists.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/ Sophia Kembowski</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So no wonder Lego doesn’t want to sell Weiwei bricks. But it’s worse than that. During the mid-1990s, Lego was approached by Polish artist named <a href="http://raster.art.pl/gallery/artists/libera/libera.htm">Zbigniew Libera</a> for a donation of bricks, which the company happily agreed to. Using these bricks, Libera <a href="http://raster.art.pl/gallery/artists/libera/libera_lego.htm">created an art installation</a> of a series of fictitious Lego kits called Konzentrationslager, depicting scenes from Nazi concentration camps. </p>
<p>One set depicted <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0CAcQjRxqFQoTCNrd1dLW_MgCFUJtPgodGdwICw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fraster.art.pl%2Fgallery%2Fartists%2Flibera%2Flibera_lego.htm&psig=AFQjCNHKx5YBK4vY4225qWXB-mXQKJpHVg&ust=1446929519853926">skeletal prisoners behind barbed wire fences</a> – Libera used skeleton minifigs from the Castle theme to depict the prisoners – while another shows a minifig being hanged on a gallows. </p>
<p>A third set shows skeletons being dragged into a crematorium blockhouse under the watchful eye of a black-clad guard, with the massive crematorium chimneys, all-too-familiar from Holocaust documentaries, towering above the roofline.</p>
<p>The use of the bricks for this installation caused the company a bit of heartburn; but the genuinely troubling aspect of the installation was that Libera created sets that featured the iconic LEGO logo <a href="http://albertis-window.com/2010/03/liberas-lego-concentration-camp-2/">in the top left of the box</a>, so that the installation looks for all the world as though the company was crass enough to produce a commercial product from one of the worst examples of human suffering the world has ever witnessed.</p>
<p>The Ai Weiwei vs Lego case is an example of unfortunate corporate public relations, and the difficult intersection of a shameless artist-provocateur, a politically sensitive company, and the world’s largest police state. Weiwei last month came out with a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/10/26/lego-wouldnt-sell-bricks-to-chinese-artist-ai-weiwei-so-fans-are-donating-theirs/">position statement</a>, decrying the company’s approach:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think it’s funny to have a toy company that makes plastic pieces telling people what is political and what is not. I think it’s dangerous to have our future designed by corporate companies. They are not selling toys but selling ideas – telling people what to love and what to hate.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Perhaps Weiwei is just being naïve, or disingenuous, but I doubt it. I think he’s milking this for all it’s worth. </p>
<p>I for one won’t be donating my old Lego bricks to him, through the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/oct/27/ai-weiwei-lego-collection-car-scheme-melbourne">sunroof of his car</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50189/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dan Hunter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Many voices have united in claiming the toy giant Lego is censoring the provocative Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. There are so many things wrong with those arguments it’s hard to know where to begin.
Dan Hunter, Dean, Swinburne Law School, Swinburne University of Technology
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/46925
2015-09-03T20:08:26Z
2015-09-03T20:08:26Z
Why Catherine the Great’s ‘greatness’ doesn’t grate
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93727/original/image-20150903-24484-lesxgb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C271%2C1019%2C715&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Who, exactly, was Catherine II, Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Catherine II by Fyodor Rokotov. The Hermitage/ Wikimedia Commons. </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The current <a href="https://theconversation.com/masterpieces-from-the-hermitage-puts-the-great-in-catherine-the-great-review-45435">Hermitage exhibition</a> at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) is subtitled – quite rightly – The Legacy of Catherine the Great. As per the gallery’s blurb, it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>showcases one of the world’s greatest art collections. Featuring works by artists including Rembrandt, Rubens, Velázquez and Van Dyck, the exhibition offers a dazzling array of works including the finest group of Dutch and Flemish art to come to Australia.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But who, exactly, was Catherine II, Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia?</p>
<p>None of those titles were known, or even likely, when she was born in 1729 in Prussia. In reality, she was connected only rather remotely to Russia, through her mother’s cousin’s husband, and was named Sophie Friederike Auguste, Prinzessin von Anhalt-Zerbst. </p>
<p>But her marriage, arranged by the childless <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/elizabeth-of-russia-38006">Russian Tsarina, Elizabeth</a> (1709–1762), was to a boy who was both her own second cousin and the only living grandson of <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/peter-the-great-9542228">Peter the Great</a> (1672–1725). </p>
<p>This orphaned fiancé, Karl Peter Ulrich, was also brought up in Prussia, and stood to inherit the Russian throne as Peter III. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93723/original/image-20150903-24473-1mzvan9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93723/original/image-20150903-24473-1mzvan9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93723/original/image-20150903-24473-1mzvan9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=858&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93723/original/image-20150903-24473-1mzvan9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=858&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93723/original/image-20150903-24473-1mzvan9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=858&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93723/original/image-20150903-24473-1mzvan9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1078&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93723/original/image-20150903-24473-1mzvan9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1078&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93723/original/image-20150903-24473-1mzvan9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1078&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Portrait of Catherine II 1776–77 by Alexander Roslin 1718–93. Oil on canvas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When brought to St Petersburg in 1745, aged 14, Sophie’s charm and intelligence boded well for her future as Peter’s consort. She was also astute enough to change her name to Ekaterina, and be received into the Russian Orthodox Church; and even to note, along with many others at the court, that childish, sickly Peter constantly failed to impress as Elizabeth’s nominated heir. </p>
<p>Although the marriage went ahead, Catherine would only have to let external events take their course to see Peter abdicate, and die six months after mounting the throne in 1762. She then allowed herself to be proclaimed Tsarina in her own right.</p>
<p>By that stage her Russian was excellent, whereas Peter’s had been almost non-existent. And therein lay the first key to her popularity and her greatness. </p>
<p>It was apparent long before Elizabeth died – also in 1762 – that her long-term plans were not working. Nine years after the wedding of Peter and Catherine, the much-vaunted marriage had failed to produce a child. Why then frown upon Catherine when she discreetly acquired a lover and gave birth to a boy? </p>
<p>Elizabeth snatched the child, Paul, and brought him up as her own. Honour, so to speak, was saved. </p>
<p>In all of this, Catherine’s behaviour was never questioned. By the time Peter came to his unhappy end, she’d had three relationships, all conducted according to established protocol, and she would have several more “favourites” after taking power in 1762. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93726/original/image-20150903-24512-1g3zq32.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93726/original/image-20150903-24512-1g3zq32.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93726/original/image-20150903-24512-1g3zq32.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93726/original/image-20150903-24512-1g3zq32.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93726/original/image-20150903-24512-1g3zq32.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93726/original/image-20150903-24512-1g3zq32.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1192&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93726/original/image-20150903-24512-1g3zq32.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1192&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93726/original/image-20150903-24512-1g3zq32.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1192&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Catherine II 1773, by Jean-Antoine Houdon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But – and this is another of the reasons she was (including in the modern sense of the word) “great” – they were all in their turn sent away with a bag of money, a smile, and a promise of ongoing friendship. </p>
<p>Sometimes, as in the case of <a href="http://www.britannica.com/biography/Grigory-Aleksandrovich-Potemkin-Prince-Tavrichesky-Imperial-Prince">Grigory Potëmkin</a>, her most ambitious, powerful and passionate lover, Catherine continued to seek their advice and companionship long after she’d stopped sleeping with them. </p>
<p>Wise and generous enough to retain former lovers as valued friends, she was nevertheless too single-minded to share her power or position with any one of them. </p>
<p>Five years into her reign, she completed a huge rewriting of Russia’s inadequate legal code to present to her government. She called it her <a href="http://library.law.yale.edu/news/monuments-imperial-russian-law-nakaz-english">Nakaz</a> (1767), or Instruction. In gratitude for a labour of which they would have been incapable, her officials thought to bestow on her a new title. </p>
<p>Of the many suggestions that were put forward, “Catherine the Great” received the most votes but, though flattered, she rejected it, insisting it was unearned. Looking at the 20 chapters written in French (her secretary translated them into Russian), posterity might disagree with that modesty. </p>
<p>The Nakaz is proof both of great intellectual ability and a capacity to spend long hours combing through political, historical and philosophical treatises from all over Europe, sifting a multitude of ideas into one cohesive document. </p>
<p>A fourth aspect of Catherine’s individual greatness is visible in the fabric and contents of that part of her city whose classical green and white edifices still grace the banks of the river Neva. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93717/original/image-20150903-24464-3il6sq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93717/original/image-20150903-24464-3il6sq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93717/original/image-20150903-24464-3il6sq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93717/original/image-20150903-24464-3il6sq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93717/original/image-20150903-24464-3il6sq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93717/original/image-20150903-24464-3il6sq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93717/original/image-20150903-24464-3il6sq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93717/original/image-20150903-24464-3il6sq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hermitage Museum, the Winter Palace in Winter, St Petersburg. Photo by Andrey Terebenin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">NGV/Hermitage</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The huge <a href="http://www.saint-petersburg.com/virtual-tour/hermitage/">Winter Palace</a> in St Petersburg, completed in 1761, was baroque. Most of its buildings were there already, but Catherine had it rebuilt to harmonise with the neo-classical style she imposed on all the buildings she commissioned, and filled it with works and objects of art from all over Europe. </p>
<p>Her famous collections, both legendary and now publicly accessible, should be seen not as mere displays of her enormous wealth, but as an astute, consummate and successful effort to undo her country’s (justified) reputation for barbarism. </p>
<p>The art was only an example, comprehensible to foreigners, of more extensive projects relevant to her own people: there was also her encouragement of reading, through the distribution of printing presses which multiplied the number of books published; her setting up of Russia’s first magazine, which in turn gave rise to the “thick journals” so influential in the 19th century.</p>
<p>Her Academy of Language was founded in 1783, producing the first Russian dictionary. And she also funded many schools, including some for girls.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, she forged ahead with what many history books see as her most significant contribution to the greatness of her country: her expansionist foreign policy. Under Catherine, Russia continued every year to push out its frontiers to the East and South by acquiring tracts of territory as large as Holland.</p>
<p>Of course there were also shocking lacunae in Catherine’s program, in particular her forthright rejection of political ideas which she refused to promote because of their unpopularity with her cherished “noble landlords”. </p>
<p>Yet even the benighted peasants passively accepted her greatness, because to them, as well as to the nobility, the inequalities of the <em>status quo</em> in Russia were overwhelmingly taken as given.</p>
<p>Greatness is, after all, more like a dimension than a virtue. And Catherine had it in spades.</p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em>The main source text for this article was <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10414941-catherine-the-great">Catherine the Great, Portrait of a Woman</a> (2011), by Robert K Massie, published by Random House</em>.</p>
<p><em>Judith Armstrong will speak at the NGV on Sunday September 6 as part of a special four-part lecture series for Masterpieces from the Hermitage: The Legacy of Catherine the Great. Details <a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/program/lecture-series-philosophy-literature-and-catherine-the-great/">here</a></em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46925/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The University of Melbourne is the education partner of the current National Gallery of Victoria exhibition: Masterpieces from The Hermitage, The Legacy of Catherine the Great.
The main source text for this article was Catherine the Great, Portrait of a Woman (2011), by Robert K Massie, published by Random House.</span></em></p>
Masterpieces from the Hermitage: The legacy of Catherine the Great is currently on show at the National Gallery of Victoria. But who, exactly was Catherine II, the Empress of Russia?
Judith Armstrong, Honorary Associate Professor in Arts and Languages & Linguistics, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/45435
2015-08-03T20:07:07Z
2015-08-03T20:07:07Z
Masterpieces from the Hermitage puts the great in Catherine the Great: review
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90403/original/image-20150731-11809-1kbbygu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Works from the Hermitage Museum, the Winter Palace, St Petersburg, are on show in Melbourne. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: Pavel Demidov. Images courtesy of NGV. </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The selection of art <a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/masterpieces-from-the-hermitage/">from the Hermitage</a> on show at the National Gallery of Victoria can be summed up by a single word: spectacular. The loan, until November 9, consists of about 450 works and includes some of the greatest names in European art, with major paintings by Rembrandt, Titian, Anthony van Dyck, Peter Paul Rubens and Velázquez. </p>
<p>Empress <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/catherine-ii-9241622">Catherine the Great of Russia</a> (1729-1796) was both the founder of the <a href="https://www.hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/?lng=en">State Hermitage Museum</a> in St Petersburg, as well as the woman who politicised the international art market and made Russia the pariah that snapped up the great collections of art, regardless to the price.</p>
<p>When <a href="http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/walpole-hon-george-1758-1835">George Walpole</a>, the grandson of the great English art collector and Britain’s first prime minister, <a href="http://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Walpole-1st-Earl-of-Orford">Sir Robert Walpole</a>, decided to sell Granddad’s art collection to fund his extravagant lifestyle, he promptly contacted the Russian ambassador to Great Britain, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksei_Musin-Pushkin">Alexey Musin-Pushkin</a>, who had organised the purchase for Catherine for the staggering sum of £40,000 (A$85,500). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90407/original/image-20150731-11786-xej99z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90407/original/image-20150731-11786-xej99z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90407/original/image-20150731-11786-xej99z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90407/original/image-20150731-11786-xej99z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90407/original/image-20150731-11786-xej99z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90407/original/image-20150731-11786-xej99z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90407/original/image-20150731-11786-xej99z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90407/original/image-20150731-11786-xej99z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Frans Snyders, Flemish (1579–1657) – Concert of birds (1630–40). Oil on canvas. The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. Acquired from the collection of Sir Robert Walpole, Houghton Hall, 1779.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of the NGV.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The English were furious and felt humiliated: they pilloried Catherine in the thriving caricature press and secretly encouraged wars designed to drain the Russian coffers. </p>
<p>The Empress of All Russia was undeterred and continued to acquire some of the most significant art collections of her day, including those of <a href="http://www.britannica.com/biography/Heinrich-Graf-von-Bruhl">Count von Brühl</a>, the <a href="http://www.britannica.com/biography/Etienne-Francois-de-Choiseul-duc-de-Choiseul">Duke de Choiseul</a>, of Crozat de Thiers and that formed by <a href="http://www.jamesboswell.info/biography/johann-ernst-gotzkowsky">Johann Gotzkowski</a> for <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/frederick-ii-prussia">Frederick II of Prussia</a>. </p>
<p>The pattern set in place by the German-born monarch, who on one hand was a ruthless plotting despot and on the other an Enlightened autocrat with an appetite for art and lovers, was to continue in the history of the Hermitage. </p>
<p>Now, 250 years later, the State Hermitage Museum is one of the greatest art collections in the world, and is from time to time still mired in controversy.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90409/original/image-20150731-11805-14c5aqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90409/original/image-20150731-11805-14c5aqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90409/original/image-20150731-11805-14c5aqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90409/original/image-20150731-11805-14c5aqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90409/original/image-20150731-11805-14c5aqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90409/original/image-20150731-11805-14c5aqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90409/original/image-20150731-11805-14c5aqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90409/original/image-20150731-11805-14c5aqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Peter Paul Rubens and workshop, Flemish (1577–1640). The Adoration of the Magi (c. 1620). Oil on canvas. The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. Acquired from the collection of Dufresne, Amsterdam, 1770.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of the NGV.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Quite a number of these treasures were assembled by the empress herself and are generally on permanent display in the museum. In the spirit of the 250th anniversary celebrations of the Hermitage, when the British Museum controversially loaned part of its greatest treasure, the Elgin Marbles, to the Hermitage, the Hermitage has reciprocated with this breathtaking generosity to Australia.</p>
<p>While a work such as Rembrandt’s Young woman trying on earrings, 1657, (see below), one of the most famous and intimate masterpieces by the Dutch master, and Titian’s fabulous Portrait of a young woman, c1536, will attract the huge crowds, I am personally drawn by some of the quirky pieces in the exhibition. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90406/original/image-20150731-11791-s83xvp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90406/original/image-20150731-11791-s83xvp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90406/original/image-20150731-11791-s83xvp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=729&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90406/original/image-20150731-11791-s83xvp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=729&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90406/original/image-20150731-11791-s83xvp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=729&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90406/original/image-20150731-11791-s83xvp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90406/original/image-20150731-11791-s83xvp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90406/original/image-20150731-11791-s83xvp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, Dutch (1606–69) – Young woman trying on earrings (1657). Oil on wood panel. The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. Acquired from the collection of the Comte de Baudouin, Paris, 1781.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of the NGV.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As part of the Walpole collection, Catherine bought the Donna Nuda, early 16th century (see below), as an autograph painting by Leonardo da Vinci. The attribution remained unchallenged for more than a century and, although now it is disputed and is generally ascribed to the School of Leonardo, it is a most startling and haunting piece. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90412/original/image-20150731-11823-1ritt1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90412/original/image-20150731-11823-1ritt1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90412/original/image-20150731-11823-1ritt1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90412/original/image-20150731-11823-1ritt1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90412/original/image-20150731-11823-1ritt1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90412/original/image-20150731-11823-1ritt1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90412/original/image-20150731-11823-1ritt1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90412/original/image-20150731-11823-1ritt1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Leonardo Da Vinci (school of) – Female nude (Donna Nuda) (early 16th century). Oil on canvas. The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. Acquired from the collection of Sir Robert Walpole, Houghton Hall, 1779.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of the NGV</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It can be described as a close copy of the Mona Lisa except for one very significant difference: La Giaconda is shown completely naked and the beguiling smile gains a sexually provocative quality. The gaze has been reversed as she undresses the beholder with her penetrating and coquettish glance. It becomes a very contemporary, surrealist-like invention.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90410/original/image-20150731-11779-1uced62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90410/original/image-20150731-11779-1uced62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90410/original/image-20150731-11779-1uced62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90410/original/image-20150731-11779-1uced62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90410/original/image-20150731-11779-1uced62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90410/original/image-20150731-11779-1uced62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90410/original/image-20150731-11779-1uced62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90410/original/image-20150731-11779-1uced62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Diego Velazquez, Spanish (1599–1660) – Luncheon (c. 1617–18). Oil on canvas. The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. Acquired 1763–74.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of the NGV.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the drawings in the show, Hendrick Goltzius’s <a href="http://www.wga.hu/art/g/goltzius/ceres_ba.jpg">Bacchus, Venus and Ceres</a>, 1606, is a show-stopper in every respect. The great Dutch printmaker has created a pen drawing with wash using a goose quill, which is more than two metres high and of exquisite refinement. </p>
<p>Usually it is in Room 250 in the New Hermitage Building in St Petersburg in an awkward position where viewing is difficult. In Melbourne it is beautifully shown and exquisitely lit. </p>
<p>As a general observation, the display at the National Gallery of Victoria is sympathetic to that in the Hermitage, retaining much of the original colour scheme, but the lighting in many instances is vastly superior and many of the works are exhibited to an unprecedented advantage.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90404/original/image-20150731-11829-1kg153k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90404/original/image-20150731-11829-1kg153k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90404/original/image-20150731-11829-1kg153k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90404/original/image-20150731-11829-1kg153k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90404/original/image-20150731-11829-1kg153k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90404/original/image-20150731-11829-1kg153k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90404/original/image-20150731-11829-1kg153k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90404/original/image-20150731-11829-1kg153k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Frans Snyders, Flemish (1579–1657), Jan Boeckhorst, German (1605–68) – Cook at a kitchen table with dead game (c. 1636–37). Oil on canvas. The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. Acquired from the collection of Johann Gotzwoksy, Berlin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of NGV. </span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is not an exhibition of only old master paintings and drawings with a few sculptures included, but one which seriously engages with the Chinese art collection assembled by Catherine, applied arts and architectural and design drawings. </p>
<p>There is an exquisite <a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/masterpieces-from-the-hermitage/">Chinese Crab-shaped box</a>, from the mid 18th century, woven out of thousands of very fine silver filigree threads in which the empress kept her rouge makeup, as well as her Cameo Service dinner set, which she commissioned from the Sévres Porcelain Factory in France in 1778-79.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90405/original/image-20150731-11813-1opk19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90405/original/image-20150731-11813-1opk19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90405/original/image-20150731-11813-1opk19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=858&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90405/original/image-20150731-11813-1opk19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=858&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90405/original/image-20150731-11813-1opk19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=858&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90405/original/image-20150731-11813-1opk19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1078&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90405/original/image-20150731-11813-1opk19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1078&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90405/original/image-20150731-11813-1opk19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1078&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alexander Roslin, Swedish (1718–93) – Portrait of Catherine II (1776–77). Oil on canvas. The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. Acquired from the artist, 1777.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of the NGV.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is arguably the finest old master exhibition to visit Australia and should set record crowds. A dark cloud on the horizon is when politics is forced onto art and other cultural events. </p>
<p>I remember when in 1979 when the Old Master Paintings from the USSR toured Australia through the Australian Gallery Directors Council and some politicians arranged boycotts because that year the Soviet Union commenced its costly and ultimately pointless war in Afghanistan. </p>
<p>In some countries now, America and Australian are boycotted for their present and equally pointless involvement in the same country. Logic would demand that if nationalist zealots would boycott an exhibition from Russia because they disapprove of some of its foreign policies, the same would apply to China, the United States, Japan, Germany and so on. The art world would become a very lonely place.</p>
<p>One can only hope that the Australian public has attained a maturity to accept an art exhibition for what it is and celebrate what is undoubtedly a major event in the Australian art calendar.</p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em>Masterpieces from the Hermitage: The Legacy of Catherine the Great is at the National Gallery of Victoria until November 8. Details <a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/masterpieces-from-the-hermitage/">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45435/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sasha Grishin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The selection of masterpieces from the Hermitage in Russia, currently on show at the National Gallery of Victoria, can be summed up by a single word: spectacular.
Sasha Grishin, Adjunct Professor of Art History, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/41500
2015-05-10T20:08:36Z
2015-05-10T20:08:36Z
John Wolseley, artist, emerges as a lyrical poet and a prophet
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80927/original/image-20150508-1258-19tzwzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">From Siberia to Roebuck Bay – the godwits reach the mangrove swamps. John Wolseley, Western Australia (2012). </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© John Wolseley</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>John Wolseley’s exhibition Heartlands and Headwaters, which opened last month at the National Gallery of Victoria, may be the most important exhibition about art and the environment to be held in Australia for a generation.</p>
<p>Almost 40 years ago, Wolseley came to Australia and discovered a landscape which had been largely “unseen” by the eyes of European artists. This was in contrast with Europe, particularly his native England, where almost every scene had been distilled through the conventions of European art. The Australian environment invited a new and bold approach. </p>
<p>At the same time, Wolseley, through the eyes of the newly-arrived, became increasingly aware that the environment and the whole ecosystem were in a precarious state and under constant threat. </p>
<p>There are two fundamentally discrete approaches to landscape art and the difference lies in the positioning of the artist in relation to their subject. Does the artist stand behind the easel to observe the landscape, which is then rendered in the chosen medium, or is the artist an integral part of the landscape itself, viewing it from the inside? </p>
<p>Wolseley, even from his earliest work in Australia, has always adopted the latter course.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80926/original/image-20150508-1219-1o1opo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80926/original/image-20150508-1219-1o1opo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80926/original/image-20150508-1219-1o1opo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=225&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80926/original/image-20150508-1219-1o1opo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=225&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80926/original/image-20150508-1219-1o1opo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=225&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80926/original/image-20150508-1219-1o1opo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80926/original/image-20150508-1219-1o1opo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80926/original/image-20150508-1219-1o1opo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Natural history of a sphagnum bog, Lake Ina. John Wolseley, Tasmania (2013).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© John Wolseley</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is an approach which may be termed as an “anti-humanist” attitude to art. The term needs explaining. </p>
<p>Put simply, a humanist approach to art has at its core the idea that “man is the centre of all things”, in other words, the world exists to accommodate the human species and to provide for its wants, needs and desires. An “anti-humanist” approach denies the centrality of man, with man existing as part of the environment, but not the central or exclusive part, but one of many parts which have to interact and co-exist with the others. </p>
<p>Philosophically, an anti-humanist stance is neither new nor particularly difficult to comprehend, but its implementation as a strategy in art is a far more complex and challenging matter.</p>
<p>Over a number of decades, Wolseley has approached nature as an active collaborator, rather than something inanimate to be depicted by the artist. Wolseley exploits local pigments, pollens and charcoal, or uses as frottage the texture of stone surfaces, to empower nature to depict herself in her own terms. </p>
<p>Likewise he incorporates found fragments – pieces of bark, lichen, leaves, feathers, insects – into the fabric of the work. Close to his heart, I know, is <a href="http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/n2k/multiplicity/JBarret/block3.html">the following comment</a> by the novelist Italo Calvino: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Think what it would be to have a work conceived from outside self, a work that would let us escape the limited perspective of the individual ego, not only to enter into selves like our own but to give speech to that which has no language, to the bird perching on the edge of the gutter, to the tree in spring and the tree in fall, to stone, to cement, to plastic … </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In giving voice to these elements in his art, Wolseley is empowering the natural environment at the expense of the artist.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80924/original/image-20150508-1234-1gu5wv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80924/original/image-20150508-1234-1gu5wv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80924/original/image-20150508-1234-1gu5wv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80924/original/image-20150508-1234-1gu5wv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80924/original/image-20150508-1234-1gu5wv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80924/original/image-20150508-1234-1gu5wv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80924/original/image-20150508-1234-1gu5wv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80924/original/image-20150508-1234-1gu5wv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">After fire – spiny-cheeked honeyeaters at Lake Monibeong. John Wolseley (2009–11).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© John Wolseley</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Heartlands and Headwaters is Wolseley’s most ambitious project to date. Several decades ago, Sir Roderick Carnegie sponsored <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/williams-frederick-ronald-fred-15774">Fred Williams</a> to paint the Pilbara, a project which was cut short by the artist’s untimely death. </p>
<p>This time, he sponsored Wolseley for four years to examine the aquatic lifeblood of the Australian continent. The body of work produced has been acquired by the patron and forms the spectacular exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. </p>
<p>The Heartlands and Headwaters series found a focal point in landscape sites spread throughout Australia, where Wolseley sought to unite the big dynamic forms of the land, like the movement of the mountains and sand dunes, with the minutiae of natural forms, including the details of the habitats of birds, insects and plants. </p>
<p>He also set out to incorporate in his paintings geological time, going back millennia, as well as more temporal concepts of time, such as the seasonal life cycle of a swamp lily. In many of these pieces Wolseley employs numerous systems of art making – frottage, direct impressions from animal and plant parts, inserted scientific diagrams, collage and décollage, leporello (folded papers), buried paintings and “ventifacts” – all employed to break the tyranny of the artist’s authority. </p>
<p>In the world of digital imaging and sound-bites, Wolseley to some extent reasserts what Immanuel Kant termed “<em>Ding an sich</em>” (the thing in itself), as an actual tactile presence. The whole performative process of his art making, with movement through the carbonised environment and the harnessing of the wind and rain involves a kinetic element, what one could describe as a form of action painting or a performative dimension, but one where the artist is a medium and facilitator, rather than the dictator in the process, and where voice is given to the different surroundings.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80922/original/image-20150508-1245-u5u7u8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80922/original/image-20150508-1245-u5u7u8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80922/original/image-20150508-1245-u5u7u8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=152&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80922/original/image-20150508-1245-u5u7u8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=152&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80922/original/image-20150508-1245-u5u7u8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=152&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80922/original/image-20150508-1245-u5u7u8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=191&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80922/original/image-20150508-1245-u5u7u8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=191&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80922/original/image-20150508-1245-u5u7u8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=191&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Daly River creek. John Wolseley, Northern Territory (2012).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© John Wolseley</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Landscape art through the ages has also been the carrier of an ideology and reflects the zeitgeist of the society, whether it be the landscapes of possession by <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/glover-john-2102">John Glover</a> or the escapist landscapes of weekend travellers escaping the filth and pollution of city life and finding refuge in a landscape at the end of a railway line as in the case of the so-called <a href="http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/heidelberg-school">Heidelberg School</a> painters. </p>
<p>The ideology and emotional tone of Wolseley’s landscapes reflects a very different zeitgeist: it is not about possession or an escape into nature, but more of a plea for survival and the urgent need to see the earth as a “sustainable system”. </p>
<p>No artist in Australia’s history has ever attempted something so vast and holistic, as this project conceived to map the lifeblood of Australia. While earlier artists, including <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/417246/Sir-Sidney-Nolan">Nolan</a> and <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/drysdale-sir-george-russell-12439">Drysdale</a>, attempted to capture the heart of the Australian continent by showing the arid, dry interior or the red centre, Wolseley shows a vivid and pulsating image of Australia with life-giving waters pumping through its veins.</p>
<p>In this exhibition Wolseley emerges as a lyrical poet and a prophet who challenges some of the assumptions which we make about our future and our coexistence with our environment.</p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em>John Wolseley: Heartlands and Headwaters is at the National Gallery of Victoria until August 16. Details <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/media_release/john-wolseley-heartlands-and-headwaters-2/">here</a></em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41500/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sasha Grishin is the author of John Wolseley: Land Marks III.
</span></em></p>
John Wolseley’s exhibition Heartlands and Headwaters, which opened last month at the National Gallery of Victoria, may be the most important exhibition about art and the environment to be held in Australia for a generation.
Sasha Grishin, Adjunct Professor of Art History, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/31356
2014-09-15T20:31:01Z
2014-09-15T20:31:01Z
Art as Therapy? Art as Patriarchy!
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58822/original/pzyncvxt-1410483927.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jeff Wall, Untangling (1994, printed 2006), transparency in light box, AP 189.0 x 223.5 cm.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/exhibitions/ngv-collection/explore/art-as-therapy-tour">Art as Therapy</a> at Melbourne’s National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) <a href="http://media.ngv.vic.gov.au/2014/02/10/art-as-therapy/">promises to</a> “challenge visitors to examine assumptions about themselves, society, and how art is viewed in galleries”. And it would be right to call it challenging – though not in the way intended. </p>
<p>We recently visited the project, keen to see this, one of writer and philosopher Alain de Botton’s latest projects – a philosophical curation of a number of the works from the gallery’s permanent collection. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58827/original/n9f763np-1410485451.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58827/original/n9f763np-1410485451.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58827/original/n9f763np-1410485451.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=955&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58827/original/n9f763np-1410485451.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=955&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58827/original/n9f763np-1410485451.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=955&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58827/original/n9f763np-1410485451.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1200&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58827/original/n9f763np-1410485451.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1200&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58827/original/n9f763np-1410485451.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1200&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alain de Botton.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/ Hamish Hamilton</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In collaboration with Melbourne University philosopher <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/john-armstrong-730">John Armstrong</a>, the intention is to emphasise art’s therapeutic capacity, to demonstrate, according to the NGV website, what art “<a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/exhibitions/ngv-collection/explore/art-as-therapy-tour">can do for you</a>”. Like much of the work produced out of the School of Life project – a global cultural enterprise offering programmes for “<a href="http://www.theschooloflife.com/">living well</a>” – the project seeks to draw capital-P Philosophy out of the cloisters of the universities and into the public sphere and popular imagination. </p>
<p>That idea could be wonderfully productive – by placing a short philosophical commentary on a given work alongside the official gallery precis, the viewer is reminded that there is more than one way of framing or understanding a work’s importance. The new commentary has the potential to unsettle the old. </p>
<p>The Art as Therapy collection includes works as diverse as Jeff Wall’s Untangling (1994) (above) and <a href="http://www.wikiart.org/en/jan-steen/woman-at-her-toilet-1663">Jan Steen’s Woman at her Toilet</a> (1655-1660): interesting artworks. Yet, as we walked toured the collection, we became more and more frustrated by the curation. The list includes far more artworks by male artists. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58825/original/g89gnhkh-1410484184.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58825/original/g89gnhkh-1410484184.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58825/original/g89gnhkh-1410484184.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58825/original/g89gnhkh-1410484184.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58825/original/g89gnhkh-1410484184.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58825/original/g89gnhkh-1410484184.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58825/original/g89gnhkh-1410484184.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58825/original/g89gnhkh-1410484184.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Joseph Highmore, English 1692–1780, Susanna Highmore c.1740–45, oil on canvas, 91.5 x 71.1 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Perhaps that’s understandable, given our culture has attributed more “significant” artworks to male artists than female artists. But the commentaries on those selections were sometimes odd: oddly simplistic or just plain wrong. These issues niggled at us until we were faced with a set of commentaries on two adjoining works that lead to us abandoning our visit all together. </p>
<p>Joseph Highmore’s <a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/col/work/4046">Self Portrait</a> (c.1745-1747) and his portrait of his daughter Susannah Highmore (c.1740-45) (above), are hung alongside one another in the gallery. </p>
<p>In each painting the lone subject is formally and finely clothed, the body visible from table-height up. Each is turned slightly to look over their shoulder at the viewer, in the fashion of portraits of the day. While Joseph is of an august age, Susannah is somewhere between child and teenager. </p>
<p>De Botton and Armstrong provide commentary on both paintings on small placards beside the information provided by the NGV. The figure of the gentleman is described as “proud” and “having a really interesting look on his face” According to the commentary, “he has a clear sense of what he is about”. The passage about the portrait of Susannah, on the other hand, focuses on her vulnerable body, on what she might be about “underneath” her “finery”. </p>
<p>“It’s not her fault,” the commentators write in reference to her blooming sexual awareness:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Suddenly she has the power to attract men; if she displays her wrists the right way, puts some lace around her bodice, they are falling over her. She is entering the adult world.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We found ourselves doubly-distanced by this commentary through a combination of objectification and the sense of anger that accompanies the observation of that objectification when we know the people at fault ought to know better. </p>
<p>Many weeks later, we returned to the Art as Therapy exhibition, this time with the intention of viewing the curation with a more overtly feminist eye. Many of the works depicting male subjects are marked out as dealing with lofty ideas such as mortality, such as <a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/col/work/3735">St Jerome by Flanders</a> (c.1540), in which Jerome sits at a desk, an open Bible in front of him. We are told that St Jerome “had a successful career. His efforts were rewarded”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58824/original/c7946dfm-1410484097.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58824/original/c7946dfm-1410484097.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58824/original/c7946dfm-1410484097.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58824/original/c7946dfm-1410484097.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58824/original/c7946dfm-1410484097.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58824/original/c7946dfm-1410484097.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1282&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58824/original/c7946dfm-1410484097.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1282&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58824/original/c7946dfm-1410484097.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1282&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anthony van Dyck, Flemish 1599–1641, worked in Italy 1621–27, England 1632–40, Rachel de Ruvigny, Countess of Southampton c.1640, oil on canvas, wood, 222.4x131.6 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the painting he is touching a human skull, a symbol that “he is facing the brutal facts of his mortality”. Contrast this with Anthony Van Dyck’s portrait of Rachel de Ruvigny, Countess of Southampton (c.1640) (above), a painting filled with ethereal iconography – sun rays bursting behind dark clouds, the figure of a woman presumably standing in the heavens, a skull beneath her foot. </p>
<p>In their commentary, de Botton and Armstrong draw our attention to the fact that the woman “looks a bit of a snob”. We are told she is “very impressed by her own grandeur and probably in the habit of putting other people down”.</p>
<p>There is no mention of mortality; the skull beneath her foot is obviously a mere symbol of her priggishness.</p>
<p>By eschewing the historical information galleries typically provide and touching on universal themes such as – according to the exhibition app guide – Love, Nature, Death and Politics, the Art as Therapy project at the NGV seeks to make art more accessible. </p>
<p>To repeat, the project wants to “challenge visitors to examine assumptions about themselves, society, and how art is viewed in galleries”. Yet, the fact Armstrong and de Botton continue to lean on clichés, particularly around gender, means that the exhibition fails to take art out of its rarefied cultural context. </p>
<p>We were both disappointed that such a good idea fell so short. </p>
<p>So we have a challenge for the NGV: how about a feminist philosophy trail through the permanent collection? Let’s see a trail that both challenges historical assumptions about the relevance of art at the same time as making such art more relevant to all viewers. </p>
<p><br>
<em><a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/exhibitions/ngv-collection/explore/art-as-therapy-tour">Art as Therapy</a> is at the National Gallery of Victoria until September 28.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31356/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Art as Therapy at Melbourne’s National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) promises to “challenge visitors to examine assumptions about themselves, society, and how art is viewed in galleries”. And it would be right…
Natalie Kon-yu, Lecturer in Creative Writing, Literature and Gender Studies, Victoria University
Julienne van Loon, Senior Lecturer, School of Media, Culture and Creative Arts, Curtin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/26741
2014-05-20T03:01:55Z
2014-05-20T03:01:55Z
Italian masterpieces from Spain in Australia? They brush up nicely
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48851/original/dspvvj9y-1400477025.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Corrado Giaquinto, Italian 1703–1766, worked in Spain 1753–62, Allegory of Justice and Peace (Allegoria della Giustizia e della Pace) c.1753–54 oil on canvas, 216.0 x 325.0 cm.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (P00104), Spanish Royal Collection</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nationalism is not always a good thing where understanding art is concerned, but in the case of <a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/italianmasterpieces">Italian Masterpieces from Spain’s Royal Court, Museo del Prado</a> on show at the National Gallery of Victoria until August 31, this has worked to the Australian public’s advantage. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48929/original/5dpvb448-1400549470.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48929/original/5dpvb448-1400549470.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48929/original/5dpvb448-1400549470.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48929/original/5dpvb448-1400549470.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48929/original/5dpvb448-1400549470.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48929/original/5dpvb448-1400549470.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48929/original/5dpvb448-1400549470.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48929/original/5dpvb448-1400549470.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Italian 1485/90–1576, Religion succoured by Spain (La Religione soccorsa dalla Spagna) c.1572–75, oil on canvas, 168.0 x 168.0 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (P00430) Spanish Royal Collection </span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Spanish are at least as preoccupied with national identity as Australians are, and so, understandably, prioritise their national artistic heroes – Vélazquez, Zurbaran, Goya — in their permanent displays. </p>
<p>Yet the Spanish art world was a small one and Spanish rulers, both <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habsburg_Spain">Hapsburg</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourbon_Spain">Bourbon</a>, had to turn to other artistic centres, especially Italy, in order to decorate their vast palaces. Philip II employed Titian on a grand scale (there are no less than five Titians in this exhibition), while Philip IV turned to almost every good painter in Rome and Naples to furnish the Buen Retiro palace in Madrid in the 1630s. </p>
<p>As a result of those royal decorations, the Museo del Prado in Madrid (the successor to the Spanish Royal Collection) is faced with a situation that an Australian art museum can only envy: too many great Italian pictures, and not enough space to display them. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Raphael, Italian 1483–1520, Holy Family with Saint John or Madonna of the Rose (Sacra Famiglia con san Giovannino o Madonna della Rosa) c.1517 oil on canvas, 103.0 x 84.0 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (P00302) Spanish Royal Collection </span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The curators from the Prado, Miguel Falomir Faus and Andrés Ubeda de los Cobos, are joined for this exhibition by Laurie Benson of the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV).</p>
<p>While quite a few works have come off the walls of the Prado, others have long been in storage or hidden away in inaccessible places, and have been newly cleaned and conserved. As a result, this exhibition is exceptional for the quality and range of the works exhibited, many of which will come as a revelation even to specialists in the field. </p>
<p>While the works by familiar names (Raphael’s Madonna of the Rose, Correggio’s Noli me Tangere, Titian’s Religion Succoured by Spain and Portrait of Philip II, Tiepolo’s Immaculate Conception, and Batoni’s Francis Basset) will not disappoint, it is the pictures by those less well-known that cause visitors to stop in their tracks. </p>
<p>Few will have heard of Corrado Giaquinto but will wonder why they have not, given the stunning colour harmonies of his Allegory of Justice and Peace (main article image). </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48873/original/2g4gh5xf-1400481884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48873/original/2g4gh5xf-1400481884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48873/original/2g4gh5xf-1400481884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48873/original/2g4gh5xf-1400481884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48873/original/2g4gh5xf-1400481884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48873/original/2g4gh5xf-1400481884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48873/original/2g4gh5xf-1400481884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48873/original/2g4gh5xf-1400481884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Viviano Codazzi, Italian c.1606–1670, Domenico Gargiulo (Micco Spadaro) Italian c.1609/10–c.1675, Perspectival view of a Roman amphitheatre (Vista prospettica di un anfiteatro romano) c.1638 oil on canvas, 220.5x352.7cm, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (P02632).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Spanish Royal Collection, Museo Nacional del Prado</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Or Viviano Codazzi and Domenico Gargiulo, whose Perspectival View of a Roman Amphitheatre (above) is the arch-typical “Where’s Wally” picture — there is always some tiny incident to discover that you have missed. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48932/original/h3kjcqt6-1400550160.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48932/original/h3kjcqt6-1400550160.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48932/original/h3kjcqt6-1400550160.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48932/original/h3kjcqt6-1400550160.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48932/original/h3kjcqt6-1400550160.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48932/original/h3kjcqt6-1400550160.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48932/original/h3kjcqt6-1400550160.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48932/original/h3kjcqt6-1400550160.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Andrea di Lione, Italian 1610–1685, Elephants in a circus (Gli Elefanti in un circo) c.1640 oil on canvas, 229.0x231.0cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (P00091) Spanish Royal Collection</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There’s Andrea di Lione, whose Elephants in a Roman Circus (above) is both hypnotic and strangely evocative of the gaudiness of a modern circus. And Giuseppe Bonito, whose group portrait of the members of the Turkish Embassy tells us more about the diversity of the Ottoman Empire than any written account.</p>
<h2>Sheer scale and physicality</h2>
<p>The sheer size of some of these works is unexpected: the Codazzi and Giaquinto are more than three metres wide, and several other works come not far behind. According to a certain aesthetic, size does not matter; yet much contemporary art is heavily dependent on this property, and it is rare to have the opportunity in Australia to experience Baroque art (1600s-1700s) in the immersive way that the artists intended. (Thankfully, these works are hung sufficiently low for this to work.)</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48850/original/6rzzdj6w-1400476946.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48850/original/6rzzdj6w-1400476946.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48850/original/6rzzdj6w-1400476946.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48850/original/6rzzdj6w-1400476946.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48850/original/6rzzdj6w-1400476946.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48850/original/6rzzdj6w-1400476946.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48850/original/6rzzdj6w-1400476946.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48850/original/6rzzdj6w-1400476946.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jacopo Tintoretto, Italian 1519–1594, The abduction of Helen (Il rapimento di Elena) c.1578–79 oil on canvas, 186.0x307.0cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (P00399), Spanish Royal Collection </span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the case of Tintoretto’s Abduction of Helen (above) this immersiveness is provoked not only by scale but also by a topsy-turvy composition, with Helen seen from above sprawled in the lower left quadrant, while at eye level in the middle are drowning heads and the scrolled prows of battling ships.</p>
<p>The engagement strategy of the 17th-century painters relies more on conveying the sheer physicality of the objects they represent, which one can never fully appreciate from reproductions. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48863/original/xj4xkmbc-1400478451.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48863/original/xj4xkmbc-1400478451.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48863/original/xj4xkmbc-1400478451.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48863/original/xj4xkmbc-1400478451.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48863/original/xj4xkmbc-1400478451.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48863/original/xj4xkmbc-1400478451.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=990&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48863/original/xj4xkmbc-1400478451.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=990&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48863/original/xj4xkmbc-1400478451.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=990&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Guido Reni, Italian 1575–1642, Saint Sebastian (San Sebastiano) 1615–20 oil on canvas, 170.5x133.0cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (P00211), Spanish Royal Collection</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Matthias Stom’s Caravaggist Incredulity of St Matthew we are confronted at eye level with the hideous physicality of St Matthew inserting two fingers into the wound in Christ’s side, while rarely has the squishiness of a newly-landed squid been better conveyed than in Giuseppe Recco’s Still Life with Fish and a Turtle. </p>
<p>This physicality is sometimes at odds with the repressive morality of the era, as in the Pietro Negri, which is socially coded as modest by its subject (a Vanitas) and by the visual conventions employed (the Venus Pudica pose, concealing draperies), but is anything but when seen “in the flesh”. </p>
<p>Conversely, in the more overtly erotic images – Furini’s Lot and His Daughters, with its transgressive (but biblically authorised) subject, and Guido Reni’s languid Saint Sebastian, which has been a gay cult image for half a century – the sexually charged subject is kept in check by softening and idealising the forms.</p>
<h2>Art-historical diversity</h2>
<p>It is difficult to convey the range of works in this exhibition, but in terms of art-historical categories it roughly breaks down into a room with two fine High Renaissance works (Raphael and Correggio) supplemented by drawings of the period, followed by a rich selection of 16th-century Venetian works (including an intriguing Lorenzo Lotto), the Bolognese school (including a brilliant little Guercino), the Caravaggisti, Roman and Neapolitan paintings of the 1630s painted for the Buen Retiro (including an interesting Poussin), an innovative room devoted to still-life paintings, and finally the 18th century, dominated by Giaquinto. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48868/original/mqjn2npd-1400479375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48868/original/mqjn2npd-1400479375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48868/original/mqjn2npd-1400479375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48868/original/mqjn2npd-1400479375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48868/original/mqjn2npd-1400479375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48868/original/mqjn2npd-1400479375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48868/original/mqjn2npd-1400479375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48868/original/mqjn2npd-1400479375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anton Raphael Mengs, Bohemian 1728–1779, worked in Spain 1761–70, 1774–77, Study for the dead Christ (Studio per Cristo morto) 1768 pencil, white chalk and pencil grid on laid beige paper, 36.9x 49.5cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (D07826), acquired, 2006</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These are accompanied by a selection of drawings, some of which supplement the paintings and include names that would otherwise be missing. Among the best are Giorgio Vasari’s St Luke Painting the Virgin, an Annibale Carracci that may or may not be a study for the Farnese Gallery, and figure studies by Anton Raphael Mengs and Donato Creti. </p>
<p>For such a diverse selection the hang is unusually coherent: a nice touch is the inclusion in the Titian room of a mid-17th-century painting by Livio Mehus in which the artist inserts his self portrait into a scene of an infant “genius of painting” making a copy of Titian’s Death of St Peter Martyr, which sums up the attitude of many of the artists in the subsequent rooms towards the great Venetian. </p>
<p>There is a nice selection of other oddball works, such as Castiglione’s Diogenes Seeking an Honest Man and Giandomenico Tiepolo’s The Crown of Thorns. Among the drawings there is a Chimera attributed to Jacopo Ligozzi. </p>
<p>As is by now customary, works from the NGV’s permanent collection are discreetly inserted: the Ribera Saint Lawrence and the Amigoni Portrait Group. Both of these superb paintings look even better situated among friends.</p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em><a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/italianmasterpieces">Italian Masterpieces from Spain’s Royal Court, Museo del Prado</a> is on show at the National Gallery of Victoria until August 31.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26741/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David R. Marshall has contributed to the catalogue and public programs for this exhibition.</span></em></p>
Nationalism is not always a good thing where understanding art is concerned, but in the case of Italian Masterpieces from Spain’s Royal Court, Museo del Prado on show at the National Gallery of Victoria…
David R. Marshall, Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.