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Editor: D.C. Rose |
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Associate
Editors: Anne Anderson, Isa Bickmann,
Tricia Cusack, Nicola Gauld, Charlotte Ribeyrol, Sarah Turner. |
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SPRING 2010
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For the VISIONS homepage, click |
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IN THE EYE OF THE CRITIC |
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Views and Reviews
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Reviews Editor: Tricia Cusack @ |
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LEIGHTON : A little bit of everything? |
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Review by Nele Martina Putz |
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The exhibition Frederic Lord Leighton (1830-1896) – Maler und Bildhauer der viktorianischen
Zeit im Museum Villa Stuck, München (30.5. –
13.9.2009). This review
was first
published in German in VISIONS 6. |
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Frederic, Lord Leighton: Orpheus and Eurydice |
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A general renovation of the
studio house of the late Frederic Leighton has made it possible that for the first
time this outstanding Victorian artist has been acknowledged on the Continent
with a major display of his œuvre. |
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Following the Renaissance
ideal of a ‘universal artist’, Leighton excelled not only as a painter but
also as a sculptor and even as an architect.
The Englishman, whose work shows traces of the influence of Venetian
masters of the Renaissance, British Pre-Raphaelites, German Nazarenes and
French Classicists, spent an extensive amount of time in foreign
countries. His art trips to Southern
Europe and the Middle East proved to be significant for his artistic
development. |
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Leighton’s sojourns in the
artistic ‚capitals’ of the time were considerable: he did not only study in
Berlin, Florence, Rome and Paris but even attended the Städelsches
Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt between 1846-1850 where he was taught by Eduard
Jakob von Steinle. |
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His best known work
‘Cimabue’s Celebrated Madonna is Carried in Procession through the Streets of
Florence’ founded his success: The painting, created between 1853-1855, was
presented at the Royal Academy in 1855 where it soon gained a sensational
reputation. Advised by Prince Albert,
Queen Victoria decided to purchase the work and thus initiated the long-lasting
interest of the Victorian society in the art of Frederic Leighton. |
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Being a member of the Royal
Academy since 1868, Leighton was appointed the successor of Sir Francis
Grant, former President of the Royal Academy, in 1878. During this period of time he was honoured
with countless international awards, among those the membership of the
Institut de France, the Royal Academies of Scotland and Ireland as well as
the Legion of Honour. |
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In addition to that, he was
presented a first class medal for sculpture at the Salon de Paris. As the first British artist in history he
was even awarded a baronetcy in 1886.
During his presidency the Royal Academy gained a hitherto unknown
reputation within the European art institutions. |
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Leighton’s artistic
repertoire was very diverse – his humanistic education as well as the
international influence are omnipresent in his works. Besides biblical topics, on which the
Victorian artist mainly concentrated during his early period when he was
inspired by medievalism, he extensively focused on historical subjects like
the lives of artists of the early Renaissance. Since the 1860s, Greek antiquity became his
centre of attention as far as artistic objects as well as philosophical
aspects were concerned. |
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Elizabeth Prettejohn’s essay
‘Frederic Leightons Klassizismus’, published in the exhibition catalogue,
leaves no doubt about the fact that Lord Leighton of Stretton’s classicism
recalls academic traditions but is also related to Hegel’s art philosophy. |
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The visitor to the exhibition
was overwhelmed by the accuracy and refinement of craftsmanship which
characterise Leighton’s artistic production: a great number of preliminary
sketches and studies prove his excellent understanding of body and movement. An amazing perfection of the surface,
brilliant colours and a very distinct use of light and shadows underline the
outstanding sensuousness and absorption of Leighton’s figures. |
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Apparently the aim of the
exhibition had been to present Frederic, Lord Leighton as a Victorian painter
and sculptor – at least an accentuation of any kind was not implied by the
title. When traversing through the rooms,
the visitor could not help but wonder if the greater part of the paintings
had actually been hung according to their measures rather than to a thematic
coherence. Thus, the ‘Greek Girls
Playing at Ball’(1889) received extraordinary attention since they were
positioned most prominently in the entrance hall of the exhibition whereas
the early portraits were rather neglected and had to fit into much less
accessible corners. Consequently, this
conveyed an impression of the portraits’ lacking importance which by no means
reflects their actual quality. Hence
it is not surprising at all that the accompanying exhibition catalogue
focuses on Leighton’s classicism (one of the two articles covers this
topic). What in fact rather irritates
the reader is the choice of the works of art being dealt with in the
article. Obviously the classicist
objects presented to the Munich audience cannot be seen as major milestones
of Leighton’s classicist art because not one of the canvases (apart from a
brief reference to ‘Orpheus and Eurydice’ (ca. 1864)) is mentioned in Prettejohn’s very
convincing reasoning. |
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The later portraits of the
1860s and 1870s were not treated any better than their predecessors – their
extraordinary realization and societal content were somewhat suppressed since
the beholder kept their room in mind for being the base camp for a
disappointing mountain ascent. Having
climbed the spiral staircase to the top floor, one found dozens of studies
which outnumbered by far the canvases in oil and thus created a
disproportion. |
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What was the intention of
this hanging? Was the eye of the
beholder supposed to transform into an X-ray and return to the origins of the
paintings seen downstairs? Needless to
say, it would have been much more helpful and convincing to present the works
in a different order. |
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This last floor showed
landscapes, studies of the body, drapes as well as garments, depictions of
plants, houses and even sketches for Leighton’s own residence and later
photographs of the latter. |
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The works concerning Leighton
House were the second main focus of the exhibition suggested by the
catalogue, namely paying homage to the creation of the studio house which
disposes of a unique concept of construction highly influenced by the artist
himself. |
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On the one hand, the
reference to the remarkable and astoundingly preserved studio house in London
pays tribute to the relation between Leighton and the former owner of the
Villa Stuck, in whose residence Leighton’s works of art should have found an
adequate place to dwell. On the other
hand, this characterises the stage on which Leighton presented himself to the
public. |
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Furthermore, the
architectural sketches make evident that Leighton actually did excel in every
artistic discipline. |
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Generally speaking, it would
have been desirable if the exhibition had been stronger in profile – be it a
specialization on the presentation of Leighton House, be it a focus on the
portraits or mythological subjects.
According to the hanging of the paintings one would not have imagined
the priorities conveyed by the articles as the hanging gave the impression as
if the aim had been to ‘show a little bit of everything’. Could this even be a certain
misinterpretation of the topos of the universal artist? |
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To present this prominent
Victorian academician to a German audience deserves the utmost
appreciation. British art of the 19th
century has long been neglected in favour of the French contemporaries. It is time to question the ever-present paradigm
of the superiority of French artistic production and the museum Villa Stuck
has taken a very welcome step into the right direction. Unfortunately it is even more regrettable
if such a chance is not fully explored, especially when taking into
consideration that Frederic Lord
Leighton (1830-1896) – Maler und Bildhauer der viktorianischen Zeit had
to compete with such a witty and intellectually stimulating exhibition like
the one about Honoré Daumier
(Provocation et Finesse) that took place at the opposite side of the
Villa Stuck. Obviously the beholder
could not but compare both presentations. |
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Joseph Maria Olbrich Architect and pioneer of modern design |
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Review by Isa Bickmann |
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Darmstadt, Mathildenhöhe
Darmstadt, Germany 7th February – 24th May 2010 |
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The Mathildenhöhe Institute
in Darmstadt/Germany, known for its focus on fin-de-siècle-topics, is
dedicating a comprehensive exhibition to the Austrian Joseph Maria Olbrich
(1867-1908), which gives consideration to his legacy as an architect as well
as to his activities as an universal artist.
Olbrich is a good example how influential fin-de-siècle artists were
for the arts in the 20th century. |
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Otto Wagner’s student and
‘chief-designer’ Olbrich, was one of the founder members of the Vienna
Secession and created the Vienna Secession building in 1898 (fig. 1), an early ‘White Cube’ of exhibition
design. |
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fig. 1: Joseph Maria Olbrich,
Vienna Secession Building, 1897/98, Foto: akg-images/Erich Lessing |
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The letterbox (fig. 2), looking like a frog’s face, fashioned
by Olbrich for the private home of the poet and art critic Hermann Bahr was
chosen by the curators for the poster of this retrospective. In Bahr’s home, famous Vienna artists and
poets met: Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Arthur
Schnitzler, Otto Wagner and Olbrich.
But this design should not mislead to commit Olbrich to ‘Jugendstil’
alone, but doubtless it is the best image to advertise this exhibition. |
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fig. 2: Joseph Maria Olbrich,
Letterbox, ca.1899, maplewood, brass plate, white glass, 33 x 36 x 8 cm, |
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Olbrich’s rise began in 1898
and stopped abruptly in 1908. At the
peak of his national and international success and shortly after establishing
a second office in Düsseldorf he fell fatally ill and died of leukaemia. |
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In only ten years this artist
produced an unrivalled œuvre. At the
Paris World Exposition 1900 Olbrich represented two countries at the same
time with two interior decorations: Austria and the state of Hesse. Through its fair presence Hesse tried to
introduce itself as business location.
The Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig von Hessen had recruited Olbrich in 1899
to be founder member of the Künstlerkolonie (colony of artists) Mathildenhöhe
Darmstadt. Both collaborations proved
to be very fruitful: Being leader of the Künstlerkolonie Olbrich was able to
work unrestricted, among the artists Peter Behrens, Hans Christiansen, Rudolf
Bosselt among others. |
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Olbrich was responsible for
the overall urban planning of the Mathildenhöhe, which led to the exhibition
‘Ein Dokument Deutscher Kunst’ (A document of German Art) in 1901 (fig. 3), a
localization of determined and temporary buildings, ‘entire houses, ready to
use from basement to attic, with all accessories, all modern, no unused
square centimeter, to every nut, bolt and screw, to chair and dishes ...’
(Hermann Bahr, cit. after Cat., p. 164). |
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fig. 3: Joseph Maria Olbrich,
poster for the exhibition of the Künstlerkolonie, 1901, Lithography,
multi-coloured; |
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82,5 x 50 cm, Institut Mathildenhöhe, Städtische Kunstsammlung Darmstadt,
Photo: Institut Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt |
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Today some of his main works
can still be visited: for example the Vienna Secession Building, the
Ernst-Ludwig-Haus and the Wedding Tower (fig. 4) at Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt
or the former departement store Tietz (today Kaufhof) in Düsseldorf. His own house on the hill of the
Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt was destroyed in World War II, today it looks
quite different. |
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Olrich was the co-founder of
the Bund Deutscher Architekten in 1904, corresponding member of the American
Institute of Architects in 1905, honorary member of the Accademia di Belle
Arti in Milan 1906 and founder member of the Deutscher Werkbund 1907. |
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fig. 4: Joseph Maria Olbrich, Wedding Tower,
1908, Institut Mathildenhöhe, Städtische Kunstsammlung Darmstadt, Photo: Rühl
und Bohrmann |
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The exhibition – the first
one since the retrospective 27 years ago – comes up with an abundance of
worth seeing drawings by Olbrich (main lender is the Kunstbibliothek der
Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin), plans, blueprints, newly constructed models,
original pieces of furniture and fitments.
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fig. 5: exhibition view,
Institut Mathildenhöhe, Photo: Günzel/Rademacher |
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The tremendous productivity
of this short artist life is impressively presented in Olbrich’s form finding
and idiosyncratic design, partly Jugendstil ornamentation, partly
expressionistic creation or anticipating conceptions of the Bauhaus. This made him one of the most important
architects of the 20th century. |
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The weighty catalogue, edited
by Ralf Beil and
Regina Stephan with 456 pages and 450 coloured figures with important
and fundamental articles shedding light on various aspects of Olbrich’s
œuvre, his sources in historism, the early work in Austria and the reception
of his works through Ernst May, Erich Mendelsohn, Bruno Taut and Le
Corbusier. |
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A
filmed glimpse is on the website (in German) http://www.mathildenhoehe.info/www/presse/olbrich.html
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Darmstadt, Mathildenhöhe
Darmstadt, Germany 7th February – 24th May 2010 |
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SEURAT
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Georges Seurat: The Figure in
Space, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 4th February–9th May, 2010. www.schirn.de
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Although our focus has been
set on symbolists, decadents, literary inspired artists in the Wildean
periphery, we also have to take a look at contemporaries like the
neo-impressionist George Seurat (1859-1891), at least if they had moved in or
near symbolist circles. The exhibition organized by Christoph Becker at the
Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland, 2.10.2009-17.1.2010 is now shown from February
until May in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. |
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Although not including
Seurat’s main works, the presentation surprises with a lot of works on paper,
in Crayon Conté, a synthetic crayon, Seurat’s favourite drawing instrument
which he uses on coarse-grained paper. Only the chief work ‘Le Cirque’
(1890/91) has been lent by the Musée d’Orsay. The other five – famous works
like ‘Un Dimanche à la Grande Jatte’ – have not been loaned through
considerations of conservation. Well, this first exhibition of Seurat in
Germany for 30 years presents mostly landscapes, studies, croquetons (small
oil sketches in 16 x 25 cm) and drawings, but in a beautiful, elegant hanging
on deep blue walls (fig. 1). It is a pleasure to see the drawings, which come
particularly from private collections. Anyway they are worthwhile visiting
this exhibition. |
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Fig. 1 Georges Seurat. Figure in Space,
Exhibition view, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt 2010, © Photograph: Norbert
Miguletz |
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Seurat, born in 1859 in
Paris, died very young at the age of 31 leaving a big œuvre. The bequest contained over 400 drawings, 6
sketchbooks, 170 croquetons and 60 canvases. |
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His work is most famous for
the dropping of colour-spots, called pointillism or neo-impressionism.
Gottfried Boehm writes in his excellent text for the exhibition-catalogue,
that Seurat’s art can be understood as a ‘radicalisation of impressionism’. The disciplining of the brush can be seen as
the way out of the problem of integrating light and moment in the fixed
construction of a composition. Seurat has always been seen as a scientific
artist who had found a system to analyse light and colour presenting a
specific form of reality by considering painting as a cosa mentale. |
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The exhibition offers a
chance to study the works on paper in which the painter resolves lines by
favouring painterliness. He condenses blackness; he interweaves the traces of
crayon creating a clair-obscur. The majority of the pictured figures are
isolated. They are preparations for future paintings, in which persons are
positioned like patterns. The profound catalogue essay by Wilhelm Genazino, a
well-known German writer, speaks of the isolated lying, sitting, standing
around of Seurat’s figures. |
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But sometimes theses figures
act very lost in reverie – an enchanted world! |
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Fig. 2 Lecture, 1886-1888,
Crayon Conté and gouache on paper, 31 x 24 cm, Henry Moore Family Collection,
photo: catalogue |
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People reading or hearing
music were popular motifs in the 19th century, especially for symbolist
artists. Seurat gives his ‘Lecture’ (fig. 2) a clear composition of light and
darkness, but in the same time an effect of sublimation and inarticulateness.
It is not astonishing that Seurat attended the salon of Robert Caze, ‘Les
Lundis’, where writers like Jean Moréas (publisher of the symbolist
manifesto), Paul Adam, Gustave Kahn, Felix Fénéon, Joris-Karl Huysmans joined
painters like Pissarro and Signac. Seurat also was a friend of Edmond
Aman-Jean since their education at the École des Beaux-Arts. They shared a
studio. Seurat also was acquainted with Odilon Redon, co-founder of the
Société des Artistes Indépendants, where he has exhibited, too. |
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Fig. 3 La Lampe, 1882/83, Crayon Conté on paper,
30,5 x 24 cm, Henry Moore Family Collection, photo: catalogue |
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‘La Lampe’ (fig. 3) shows a
head with nose and eyes behind a lamp. It comes across as an apparitional
face or as if it is fading away. This work could be made by Odilon Redon and
if we look through the black and white works (‘Noirs’) of the latter made in
the eighties we will find some drawings e.g. ‘The Convict’, 1881 (The Museum
of Modern Art, N.Y., see Cat. The Prince of Dreams, p. 147) or several
Severed Heads looking like Seurat’s drawing.[1] The sfumato of that face, bearing
the invisible in it is produced not by daylight but by an artificial light
during darkness. Whereas Redon uses the strong and drawing effects of charcoal
Seurat scrawls, intensifies, giving a texture like powder. |
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The drawings also show people
working in the country, earlier works before 1884 with rhythmic brushstrokes
and landscapes - motifs we know from Millet or from van Gogh. The small
painting (24,1 x 15,2 cm) of the Tour Eiffel (fig. 4), 1889 still under
construction, in orange colour in a blue sky interspersed with yellow-orange
spots is used for invitation card and posters and was hung in the entrance of
the exhibition. |
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Fig. 4 Georges Seurat, La Tour
Eiffel, ca. 1889, Oil on wood, 24,1 x 15,2 cm |
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Considering the costs of
publishing a catalogue and in view of the huge number of publications on
Seurat, Zürich and Frankfurt have made a small book with images of the
exhibited works, a biography, the above mentioned texts by Genazino and Boehm
and an article by Michelle Foa on Seurat and physicist Hermann von Helmholtz
(1821-1894). Foa brings important ideas on the benefits of Helmholtz’
‘Optique physiologique’, translated into French in 1867, especially his
research on stereoscopic depth perception which Seurat used for the marine
painting he made on the north coast of France. This is an well written
addition to the known lecture of Chevreul’s, Charles Blanc’s, Ogdon N. Rood’s
and Eugène Delacoix’s theories of light, colour and their physics which inspired
Seurat so much. There is no need to print thick catalogues, but one wonders
why the curators did not have included a text on Seurat’s sources, e.g. the
work of the Renaissance master Piero della Francesca or Fernand Khnopff’s
‘Memories’ (Lawn Tennis) from 1889 (Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique,
Bruxelles), to explain Seurat’s perception of composition. |
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You can take a look into this
exhibition on youtube (with subtitles in English). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLA1ZrYQQY0.
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Note
1. By far I am not the first one
who recognized this. Robert L.
Herbert, in: Seurat. Drawings and Paintings, New
Haven/London 2001, pp. 34, 59, 62, 63, compares Seurat’s drawing with Redon’s
Noirs, but rather believes that there are more connections to Goya. Paul Smith examines Seurat’s nearness to
Wagnerian aesthetics, although the artist did a lot to be classified as an
Impressionist. Paul Smith: Seurat and
the Avantgarde, New Haven/London 1997, i.a. p.67.
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