Met Museum: The Tale of Genji

The current exhibit at the Met Museum, The Tale of Genji: A Japanese Classic Illuminated, celebrates the eleventh century novel authored by Murasaki Shikibu that has for over a thousand years been considered the greatest single work of Japanese literature.  As such, Genji monogatari has over time become so central to the development of Japanese culture that it is impossible to overestimate the importance it holds for the people of Japan.  The book has inspired countless works of art, only a selection of which could be fitted into this exhibit.

As one might expect, a large number of items on display are devoted to the calligraphy with which the novel was written.  In the Heian period, the use of written Chinese characters was reserved exclusively for men.  Accordingly, Genji was written in native Japanese kana script.  Although the text written by Murasaki herself has long since been lost, there are numerous early examples of handwritten manuscripts notable for their fine calligraphy and artwork.  These were painstakingly inked on mulberry paper and bound into booklets, each containing a single chapter of the vast work.

The large number of artworks shown consists of handscrolls, folding screens, ukiyo-e (including two by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi taken from his masterpiece One Hundred Aspects of the Moon) and even twenty-first century manga prints by Yamoto Waki, all of which illustrate famous scenes from the novel.  In addition, there are handicrafts such as lacquered writing boxes, tea bowls, incense burners, kimonos, and even an authentic bridal palanquin, though almost all these are of much more recent date.

While all the works shown at the exhibit are worthy of attention, if I had to choose a single work for closer examination it would be a 1631 pair of six-panel folding screens entitled Miotsukushi ("Channel Markers") and Sekiya ("The Barrier Gate"), both of which are National Treasures, by renowned Edo artist Tawaraya Sōtatsu. As the museum's website states:

"This pair of screens has long been considered a masterpiece within the history of Japanese art. Most notably, they reveal an artist freely reinterpreting the tradition of Genji painting, not merely by adapting miniature-style painting to large-format screens but also by transforming the visual language of Genji illustration through simplification, clear-cut geometry, and an emphasis on materiality. Each episode represents a chance encounter between Genji and a former lover, and both scenes employ gates related to travel and pilgrimage, which perhaps led to their pairing here. Recent research shows that the screens were made in 1631; as one of only two securely dated works by Tawaraya Sōtatsu, they are crucial for understanding the artist’s still relatively enigmatic biography."

As for the novel itself, I reviewed it as follows last summer on the Goodreads site:

"If of the thousands of novels I've read I had to put together a list of the 10 best Genji monogatari would be at the top. It's not only the world's first major novel but also the most beautiful. This is the third time I've read it and am more deeply impressed than ever. Murasaki Shikibu is among the literature's greatest stylists. In describing the doings of an elite aristocracy over a period of decades she clearly anticipates Proust. Like the French author, she is not only capable of handling a large cast of characters but is also able to demonstrate convincingly the manner in which the passage of time transforms their various personalities as well as the interrelationships that exist among them. 

"The book actually consists of two novels. The second part is really a sequel to the first and was almost definitely written by a different author, most probably Murasaki's daughter Daini no Sanmi who authored several romances of her own that are now lost. Clearly there is a different style and sensibility at work in the second section. Not only are there fewer principal characters in the later chapters but the stately elegance of the first part is replaced by a more melodramatic approach that at times comes perilously close to that of a modern romance novel. Nevertheless, several of the characterizations, such as that of Kaoru, are psychologically penetrating. And the final chapters contain a plot twist worthy of any modern author, though Western readers may find the ending a disappointment. One wonders if the author had really intended to stop at that point. 

"At the heart of the book is the concept of mono no aware, a phrase Murasaki employs more than 1,000 times in the course of the novel and which is usually translated as 'the pathos of things' but more closely signifies a melancholy resignation to the transience of life itself. It's this pervading sentiment that gives the book its ineffable beauty. It is most often expressed in conjunction with the change of seasons or in imagery taken from nature, as in my favorite line from the book: 'Why to my heart must things be ever dearest that vanish more swiftly than the morning dew?' The literary device of furukoto (literally, 'old words') that contains allusions to old poems, both Japanese and Chinese, enhances the emotional impact."

The exhibit continues through June 16, 2019.

Met Museum: The Daguerreotypes of Girault de Prangey

For those with an interest in early photography the current exhibit at the Met Museum, The Daguerreotypes of Girault de Prangey, is absolutely a "must see." Barely three years after the invention of the problematic daguerreotype process, Girault set off to record the architecture of the eastern Mediterranean, a subject that had always been of interest to him.  His journey lasted three years at the end of which time he returned to France with more than 900 photographs made under the most trying conditions imaginable.  Of those, some 120 are included in this exhibit along with a selection of the photographer's paintings and graphic works.

Though I've read several histories of early photography, I had not been familiar with the work of Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey prior to viewing this exhibit.  That's not entirely surprising since Girault's daguerreotypes were only discovered in the 1920's, some thirty years after his death, in a storeroom on his estate and did not become widely known to the public until after the turn of the twenty-first century when they were put on sale by the current owners of his estate.  The Met exhibit is actually the first devoted to Girault to be held in the United States.

The quality of the daguerreotypes on display is nothing short of amazing.  Though Giraud was the first, there were other photographers who were also pioneering travel photography at approximately the same time and in the same locations as Girault.  The Egyptologist John Beasely Greene, for example, completed an extensive photographic record during his field trips to North Africa beginning in 1854.  Many of the architectural scenes he photographed were eerily similar to those captured by Girault.  Greene, however, was not working with daguerreotypes but with the rival process unveiled by Henry Fox Talbot in 1839, the same year Daguerre announced his own invention.  As Talbot's process allowed for an unlimited number of prints to be made from a single negative, it offered an incredible advantage over the daguerreotype, which it soon supplanted, and became the basis of photographic practice until the arrival of digital imaging in the late twentieth century.  But in the early days of photography there was a great drawback inherent in Talbot's process.  Salt prints made from calotype negatives were not nearly as sharp as daguerreotypes.  Seen today, these salt prints, even those made by master photographers, invariably appear "fuzzy" and charmingly old fashioned.  Daguerreotypes, on the other hand, possessed from the very beginning a sharpness and tonal range that modern photographs are hard put to match.  As a result, Greene's photographs, though made a dozen years after Girault's, seem downright primitive in comparison to the latter.

In viewing Girault's daguerreotypes it's important to remember that he did not think of his photographs as ends in themselves.  Instead, Girault used the daguerreotypes for reference in creating other works of art.  He was an accomplished painter and graphic artist who used his photographs at the basis for paintings and lithographs.  It was most likely for this reason that he used non-standard size plates and often took a number of photos of the same subject from different points of view.  For example, Girault took several different views of the minaret and dome of Khayrbak Mosque in Cairo.  His purpose does not become clear until one looks at the excellent lithograph of the same scene that he derived from them.  In like manner, Girault's watercolor of the Ramesseum in Thebes follows closely his daguerreotype of the same subject.

Girault, an intensely private person, did not see himself as primarily a photographer but rather as a scholarly expert on Mideast architecture.  Accordingly, he never attempted to exhibit his daguerreotypes during his lifetime.  One suspects he may have been embarrassed to acknowledge that he used them as sources for his artwork and feared that they may have cast doubt on the originality of the paintings and lithographs.  It's impossible to know then what he actually thought of the photographic medium.  Did he see it as an art form in itself or only as a mechanical means of recording a given scene?  One can only speculate on the importance he attached to the invaluable historical record he created.  Adding poignancy to his daguerreotypes is the unhappy realization that some of the architecture he photographed, such as the Umayyad Mosque in Syria, no longer exists, or else has been so altered that it is no longer recognizable.

The Met deserves a great deal of credit for the presentation it has created for this exhibit.  Daguerreotypes are notoriously difficult to view due to the mirrorlike surface of the plate on which the image has been fixed.  Seen from an angle, the photograph seems to vanish altogether.  Much care has been put into the proper lighting that enables the viewer to see the image as intended.  Even so, it is probably better to plan one's visit for a time when the museum is not overcrowded so that one can stand directly before the daguerreotype and view it properly.

The exhibit continues through May 12, 2019.

Met Museum: Edo Paintings from the Fishbein-Bender Collection

The subtitle shown above from the current exhibit at the Met, The Poetry of Nature, is a bit misleading in that not all the works shown are from the Edo period and not all are paintings.  Nor, for that matter, are they all taken from the Fishbein-Bender Collection, magnificent as it is.  But this is only a small quibble.  The exhibit succeeds brilliantly in transporting the viewer to Japan at the time of the Tokugawa shogunate (1603-1868) whose sense of aesthetics was so vastly different from our own that it might as well have belonged to another world.

The large exhibit, which stretches through several galleries in the museum's Asian wing, contains too many items to properly discuss in so short a space; I'll limit myself to those that were of the greatest personal interest.

First, there are a large number of representations of Shinto and Buddhist iconography on view, many of these pieces pre-dating the Edo period by centuries.  Among them are two likenesses of Kannon Bodhisattva - Willow Kannon (hanging scroll, c. 1810) by Sakai Hōitsu and an anonymous lacquered wood sculpture from the 17th or 18th century - that suggest the profound influence of Mahayana Buddhism on the Japanese people.  These formal representations stand in marked contrast to a deliberately informal depiction of the Buddhist monks Kanzan and Jittoku (hanging scroll, late 18th century) by Itō Jakuchū, Hotei Pointing at the Moon (hanging scroll, c. 1650) and a portrait of Daruma (hanging scroll, early 17th century), both by Fūgai Ekun.

As the exhibit's title would indicate, most of the works on display are given over to depicting scenes of nature.  Of these there are two that that are especially noteworthy.  The first is an extremely simple, even austere, image -  Winter Scene with Ducks and Pine Trees (hanging scroll, late 1790's) by Matsumura Goshun - but I know of few other works that evoke so well the bleak emptiness of the winter landscape.  The other is Lions at the Stone Bridge of Mount Tiantai (hanging scroll, 1779) by Soga Shōhaku.  The scene of a mother lion tossing her cubs from the top of the mountain into a deep chasm may have been intended as an analogy of the Buddhist master who similarly shocks his students into sudden enlightenment (satori), but whatever its inner meaning the image is filled with dramatic tension set against the mountain's natural majesty. 

The Edo period was renowned for its elegant portrayals of women.  Something of their graceful manner can even be detected in the Willow Kannon mentioned above, but it is far more apparent in the hanging scrolls of Sakai Hōitsu and Hishikawa Moronobu and in the ukiyo-e prints of Chōbunsai Eishi and Ichirakutei Eisui.  The languid poses of these courtesans are in startling contrast to the ferocious vigor of the lengendary goddess Jingū in two hanging scrolls from the mid-19th century, one by Kōsai Hokushin and the other from the studio of the legendary ukiyo-e artist Katsushika Hokusai.

The two most dramatic works at the exhibit are not from the Edo period, but the Meiji.  These are The Fury of Monk Raigō (hanging scroll, 1900) by Kobayashi Kiyochika that depicts the monk raging against the Emporer Shirakawa over a perceived slight, and Fudō Myōō Threatening a Novice (polychrome woodblock print, 1885) by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, whom I've always considered the greatest of all ukiyo-e artists, that depicts the Buddhist deity, one of the Five Wisdom Kings, attempting to force a novice to swallow a sword as a means of attaining enlightenment.  Although these works portray mythical rather than historical scenes, I don't think it's accidental that they both contain extremely violent imagery.  Instead, it could be argued that they reflect the turmoil Japan underwent in the Meiji era when centuries old tradition was cast aside in favor of a disastrous process of Westernization.

There are two other works from later periods, the Shōwa and Heisei respectively, that demonstrate strikingly the continuation of Edo period traditions in the work of contemporary Japanese artists.  These are Kegon Waterfall (lithograph from a gelatin silver print in the form of a hanging scroll, 1976) by Hiroshi Sugimoto and Shrine of the Water God (six-panel folding screen, 2015) by Hiroshi Senju.  Not only are both these works masterful in technique but they also display the same love of nature that has characterized Japanese art throughout its history.

The exhibit continues through January 21, 2019.

Happy Holidays!!

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season and great health and happiness in 2019.

(I shot the above photo in 2016.  It's unfortunate I didn't have a more recent photo, bit there hasn't been any snow yet in New York City this December.)

Met Museum: Delacroix Paintings and Lithographs

After having seen in September the Met Museum's exhibit of Delacroix drawings (see my October 1 post) entitled Devotion to Drawing, I returned to last week to see the even larger exhibit of paintings and lithographs entitled simply Delacroix.  To call the show immense is an understatement; it stretches through multiple galleries and contains representative masterpieces from all phases of the artist's long career.  Only the large mural paintings, such as the iconic Liberty Leading the People, are missing as these were too fragile to travel from the Louvre.  The show was obviously intended to be the blockbuster exhibit of 2018, and it succeeds admirably in its aim.

There are over 150 works on view at the exhibit and their very abundance in so many different genres can bewilder the viewer.  As one proceeds through the galleries, however, certain themes and motifs become apparent.  The first and most apparent of these is of course Romanticism, the movement that had begun in the artist's youth and was still a powerful force in the arts at the time of his death in 1863.  One has only to look at Delcroix's youthful self-portrait as the character Ravenswood, from the Walter Scott novel The Bride of Lammermoor, to see the influence Romanticism had upon him and how closely he identified with it.  It informed not only his choice of subjects, many of them taken from the works of legendary Romantic writers, but also his manner of painting in which he rejected Classical academic formulae in favor of broad sweeping brushstrokes and a dazzling array of colors.

A large number of works at the exhibit were inspired by Delacroix's journey to Morocco in 1832 as part of the official French diplomatic mission to the court of Sultan Abd er-Rahman.  Though the mission itself was a failure and could not prevent the outbreak of the Franco-Moroccan War several years later, the locale did provide Delacroix with a wealth of imagery that was to form the basis of some of his most satisfying paintings.  Viewing works such as Street in Meknes and Women of Algiers in Their Apartment, it can readily be seen that it was Delacroix rather than his rival Ingres or the academician Gérôme, who was the true father of Orientalism in the early nineteenth century.

So much attention has been given to Delacroix's Romanticism that the utter naturalism of his technique has often been overlooked.  The artist's absolute fidelity to nature can be seen most clearly in his depictions of animals.  There are several studies of tigers at this exhibit, and it's obvious the artist spent quite a bit of time observing these powerful animals.  The best is the 1830 Young Tiger Playing with its Mother in which the playfulness of the young cub is in sharp contrast to the stately bearing of the adult female.  Much more dramatic is the 1828 lithograph Wild Horse Felled by a Tiger that is absolutely devoid of sentimentality as it depicts the ruthless struggle of animals in the wild to survive.  Horses themselves were another favorite subject of Delacroix, and were often shown in battle scenes such as the action filled 1826 oil on canvas Combat of the Giaour and Hassan whose subject was taken from an 1813 poem by Byron.  It is an indoor scene of two horses alone, however, that is most stirring in its compact rendering of a life and death struggle.  The late 1860 oil on canvas Arab Horses Fighting in a Stable must certainly represent a scene Delacroix had actually witnessed almost thirty years before in Morocco and had never been able to put from his mind.

One cannot discuss the corrent show without mentioning Delacroix's seventeen lithograph illustrations for a new edition of Goethe's Faust.  Seen here together for the first time, they provide an illustrated narrative as compelling as Goethe's own.  In fact, upon seeing Plate No. 16 in which Faust and Mephistopheles gallop past the scaffolds on Walpurgis Night, Goethe is said to have remarked that Delacroix had thought out the scene better than had the poet himself.  There's more than a touch of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique here, though the musical work was not composed until several years after Delacroix had completed his series.  And Plate No. 15, in which Marguerite's ghost appears to Faust, is a truly Gothic vision whose macabre elements reveal Romanticism taken to its ultimate extent.  This plate, like the others displayed here, is not in its final state and has doodles to the side of the frame that were later removed in the final version.  The offhand drawings provide a fascinating insight into the artist's creative process.

The exhibit continues thtough January 6, 2019.

Met Museum: Delacroix Drawings

There are currently two major exhibits at the Met Museum featuring the work of the nineteenth century French artist Eugène Delacroix.  The most recent to have opened, entitled simply Delacroix, features the paintings and has drawn all the attention; but it was the other, a display of the artist's drawings entitled Devotion to Drawing, that I decided to visit first.  Not only did many of the drawings serve as studies for the paintings, but the genre itself provides much better insight into the development of any artist's style as it's stripped it down to its essentials.

The exhibit is contained in three galleries, the first of which is labeled "Formation Through Drawing."  The work here is generally from the earliest part of Delacroix's career when he was still learning technique.  Like any student of the École des Beaux-Arts, he began his studies by copying famous works and by drawing the live model.  In Delacroix's case, however, this basic approach did not end when he ceased to be a student.  All through his career he always made time to copy works he found of interest, perhaps because in so doing he gained insight into the vision of the artists who provided him inspiration.  It's worth noting that in his choice of sources Delacroix did not use models from classical antiquity as was the custom in the nineteenth century but instead favored those of Renaissance artists, even less famous painters such as Paolo Veronese from whose Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian Delacroix copied several figures in an 1820's pen and brown ink drawing, though not that of Saint Sebastian himself.  Another example would be a pen and brown ink drawing from the same period in which Delacroix faithfully copied Raphael's Combat of Nude Men.  But it was not only artists from the past who interested Delacroix.  He also copied figures intended as studies for The Raft of Medusa, itself derived from a work by Rubens, by his good friend and mentor Théodore Gericault.  So great was Gericault's influence on the younger artist that the authorship of one of the drawings on display at this exhibit cannot be definitively determined.

As for the "live" models that Delacroix sketched, the most interesting were actually cadavers.  While viewing these drawings, one is reminded irresistably of similar anatomical studies in Leonardo's notebooks.  The same precise delineation of musculature can also be seen in studies of living models in such pieces as The Backs of Two Seated Figures, a red and black chalk drawing that shows perfectly the play of muscles involved in the simple act of sitting.

The second gallery is labeled "The Application of Drawing" and demonstrates the manner in which Delacroix's original drawings were used as preparation for their appeanance in other media.  The most noteworthy examples are products of the artist's visit to Morocco in 1832 as part of the French diplomatic delegation.  It was the perfect destination for an artist whose work was so imbued with the spirit of Romanticism, and Delacroix's emostionally charged depictions of this exotic locale did much to promote the fashion of Orientalism in European art.  Still, Delacroix was meticulous in recording Near Eastern dress and manners in his quest for authenticity.  In spite of this, the artist did not hesitate to adapt his vision when it came time to prepare his work for reproduction in other media.  This can clearly be seen in a series of drawings depicting the Sultan Abd er-Rahman on horseback.  In the first, a rough brush and brown ink completed in situ in 1832, the sultan is seen surrounded by his advisors while meeting with the French envoy Charles-Edgar de Mornay.  There is almost no detail here, only the barest outlines of the figures.  In a much more studied 1845 graphite drawing Delacroix removed the figure of the French envoy, the failure of whose mission had led directly the Franco-Morrocan War twelve years later.  This drawing, a preparatory study for a large painting, is far more detailed than the 1832 version even if devoid of the original's political significance.  Finally, an 1856 graphite drawing of the same scene done in preparation for yet another painting again makes major changes, here replacing the sultan's advisors with a group of servants tending to his comfort.  The process of historical revision, here laid out so clearly before the viewer, is fascinating in itself.

Though one does not normally think of Delacroix as an illustrator, there were several literary works that had a profound influence on his Romantic nature.  A lithograph from the period 1836-1842  entitled The Wounded Goetz Taken in by the Gypsies is one of seven that illustrate scenes from Goethe's Goetz von Berlichingen.  In style it constrasts sharply with a blue and brown wash over graphite from 1836 that depicts the same subject.  Another great literary influence was Shakespeare, and there are several drawings here illustrating various scenes from Hamlet.  For pure action, though, nothing can compare with The Giaour on Horseback, an 1824-1826 drawing that depicts a violent encounter taken from Byron's 1813 poem The Giaour whose Middle Eastern setting may have furnished the principal attraction for Delacroix.

The third and final gallery, labeled "Medium and Invention," contains some of the artist's finest drawings. While Delacroix usually worked with simple graphite, the drawings in this section demonstrate his mastery of other media including watercolor, not then in common use among French artists.  A splendid example, one that shows Delacroix's fine eye for color, is Three Arab Horsemen at an Encampment (1832-1837) in which watercolor has been applied over graphite to stunning effect.  Even more impressive are two nearly monochromatic washes from 1829-1831, A Tomb and Studies of Windows in the Church of Valmont Abbey and Interior of the Church of Valmont Abbey.  The command Delacroix here exhibits over the difficult wash process is extraordinary, and these are to me the finest works in the show.

The exhibit continues through November 12, 2018.

Met Breuer: Nudes by Klimt, Schiele and Picasso

The title of the Met's current exhibit, Obsession: Nudes by Klimt, Schiele and Picasso, is somewhat ambiguous.  It's not clear (to me at any rate) whether the term "obsession" refers to the artists whose work is displayed or to Scofield Thayer, editor of legendary literary magazine Dial, from whose collection the works are all taken.  Even by today's standards these paintings and drawings are quite shocking; how much more so must they have appeared when first created.  Nevertheless, the female nude has been an accepted genre throughout art history, and I don't see any basis for the term "obsession" simply because a small group of early twentieth century artists chose to depict the subject in a radically new manner.

The show is divided into three parts - Klimt's pieces blend harmoniously into those by Schiele while PIcasso's are placed by themselves in a rear gallery.  That Klimt's and Schiele's works should be juxtaposed is proper enough since the former was the young Expressionist's mentor throughout his abbreviated career (the two died only months apart in 1918) while Picasso's belong to another world altogether.

Although Gustav Klimt is often referred to as an Expressionist, I've never been able to see this in his work.  If I were going to apply a label to him, it would be late Symbolist.  Even that would be misleading, however, since his landscapes (none of which are shown here) have more in common with the pointillist style of such post-Impressionists as Seurat.  The drawings on display are lightly drawn - in fact, several drawings such as Two Reclining Nudes (colored pencil, 1905-1906) are so faint that they can barely be made out - and are primarily studies for paintings.  What most sets them apart from Schiele's, though, are the generally formal poses of the models.  Even in such an obviously erotic work as Reclining Nude with Drapery (graphite, 1912-1913) there is a sense of restraint that makes it seem as if the artist were deliberately seeking to maintain his distance from the model.

Certainly no such restraint exists in the work of Egon Schiele.  In pieces such as Observed in a Dream (watercolor and graphite, 1911) and Reclining Nude (crayon, 1918) the artist fairly revels in the sensuality of his models.  Only in certain later works such as Standing Nude in Black Stockings (watercolor and charcoal, 1917) is there a sense of objectivity.  In that piece form is given precedence over eroticism.  Though unfortunately not usually viewed as such, Schiele was one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century and fully the equal of Picasso and Matisse.  Only his untimely death and the later vilification by the Nazis have prevented him from receiving the recognition due him.

While the works of Klimt and Schiele were all quite familiar, the real surprises came in the section devoted to Picasso.  As Thayer had no use for Cubism, the works shown here were primarily from the period immediately before that phase commenced when the artist visited the Catalan town of Gósol with Fernande Olivier in 1906 and then, skipping forward, from the neoclassical period of the early 1920's.  It was at Gósol that Picasso moved away from the nineteenth century aesthetics that had informed his Rose period and turned definitively toward modernism.  This can be seen most clearly in his portrait of Josep Fondevila (oil on canvas, 1906) at whose establishment Picasso sojourned.  There is something new and startling in this painting that clearly shows the artist breaking with past styles.  As for the neoclassicism, the most startling work is the large Head of a Woman (chalk on paper, 1922), the only piece Thayer acquired directly from Picasso.  The museum documentation rightly notes the influence on it of Renaissance art.

Set apart from the other works is one by Picasso with which I had previously been unfamiliar, his Erotic Scene (La Douceur) (oil on canvas, 1903).  This is not a particularly great work - indeed, to the end of his life Picasso denied having painted it - but is notable for its shocking content in which a mature woman performs oral sex on a barely pubescent boy.  Whether or not this represents the young Picasso's sexual initiation at a Spanish brothel, as the museum's documentation suggests, it has no parallel in the remainder of his oeuvre.

Missing from the exhibit, and presumably from Thayer's collection, are any of Auguste Rodin's late erotic watercolors.  One feels they would have fit in perfectly at this show.

The exhibit continues through October 7, 2018.  Note the caveat on the museum's website: "Visitors are advised that some images in this exhibition contain explicit erotic content."

Met Museum: Public Parks, Private Gardens

The current exhibit at the Met Museum, Public Parks, Private Gardens: Paris to Provence, consisting of dozens of paintings, graphic works and photographs, is a wonderful evocation of summer's luah beauty staged ironically in windowless galleries that afford no view of the world's most beautiful park situated immediately outside their walls.

The late nineteenth century works on display, entirely drawn from the museum's extensive collections, are all by French artusts (with the exception of the American expatriate Mary Cassatt and Vincent Van Gogh, the Dutch artist who created his most important work while living in Provence), most of them prominent members of the Impressionist school.  In fact, the best represented artist is Claude Monet, a number of whose masterpieces are here on view - The Path through the Irises (oil on canvas, 1914-1917), Bridge over a Pond of Waterlilies (oil on canvas, 1899), and Garden at Sainte-Adresse (oil on canvas, 1867) - as well as several lesser known works, such as Jean Monet on his Hobby-Horse (oil on canvas, 1872).  Édouard Manet is represented by Madame Manet at Bellevue (oil on canvas, 1880), Peonies (oil on canvas, 1864-1865) and The Monet Family in Their Garden at Argenteuil (oil on canvas, 1874).  There are two excellent paintings by Camille Pissaro on view - The Garden of the Tuileries on a Winter Afternoon (oil on canvas, 1899) and The Public Garden at Pointoise (oil on canvas, 1874).  And certainly the exhibit would not have been complete without the post-Impressionist Georges Seurat's final 1884 study for A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, an oil on canvas of much smaller dimensions than the famous mural-size painting but using the same pointillist technique.

There are also a number of works by artists one would not normally associate with the theme of parks and gardens.  These include Odilon Redon's portrait of Madame Arthur Fontaine (pastel on paper, 1901) and Bouquet of Flowers (pastel on paper, 1900-1905), Berthe Morisot's Young Woman Seated on a Sofa (oil on canvas, 1879) and A Woman Seated at a Bench on the Avenue du Bois (watercolor over graphite, 1885), Pierre Bonnard's From the Balcony (oil on canvas, 1909), Auguste Renoir's Bouquet of Chrysanthemums (oil on canvas, 1881) and Versailles (oil on canvas, 1900-1905), Henri Matisse's Pansies (oil on paper, 1903) and Lilacs (oil on canvas, 1914), Mary Cassatt's Lilacs in a Window (oil on canvas, 1880-1883) and Edgar Degas's A Woman Seated beside a Vase of Flowers (oil on canvas, 1865).  Those who've read Curtis Cate's biography of George Sand will enjoy seeing Eugène Delacroix's 1843 oil on canvas view of the novelist's garden at Nohant, a truly dark masterpiece.

One would not expect to see many works by the father of modernism, Paul Cézanne, at an exhibit such as this, but there are actually several seminal masterworks on display.  These include Madame Cézanne in the Conservatory (oil on canvas, 1891), The Pool at Jas de Bouffan (oil on canvas, 1885-1886) and Entrée de Jardin (watercolor over graphite, 1878-1880).

By far, the most spectacular work on view is Van Gogh's Sunflowers, an 1887 oil on canvas that once belonged to Paul Gauguin, given to him by the artist himself.  Done in Van Gogh's heavy impasto style there is something monstrous in this flower's beauty that makes the painting much more than a mere study done from nature.  Though the canvas is not particularly large (17" x 24"), it overwhelms the viewer with its power and takes on the majesty of a force of nature.  On view beside it is the artist's Irises, an 1890 oil on canvas whose black outlines owe much to Japanese ukiyo-e and whose stark grey background was once pink before having faded over time.  Fortuitously placed nearby is Monet's Bouquet of Sunflowers (oil on canvas, 1881) that highlights the differences between Van Gogh and the Impressionists when approaching the same subject.  Although Van Gogh and Monet painted their versions of sunflowers only a few years apart, the Dutch artist's work strikes one as more properly belonging to a far later era.

As a photographer, I was especially pleased to see so many classic prints on display.  These included two salt prints by Gustave Le Gray, Oak Tree and Rocks at the Forest of Fontainebleau and Chêne dans les rochers à Fontainebleau, both c. 1849-1852.  There were also several albumen prints by Eugène Atget, that great chronicler of fin de siècle Paris - Jardin du Luxembourg (1902), Versaille - Cour du Parc (1902) and the magnificent Le Château, fin Octobre, le soir, effet d'orage, vue prise du Parterre du Nord (1903).  There was also a wonderful flower study, Rose of Sharon (albumen print, 1854), by Adolphe Braun as well as Charles Nègre's portrait of Lord Brougham and his family at Cannes (albumen print, 1862).

The exhibit continues through July 29, 2018.

Met Museum: American Painters in Italy

Tucked away on the American Wing's mezzanine, the Met Museum's current exhibit, American Painters in Italy, is a delightful reminder of the era before World War I when American artists still found it de rigueur to make a pilgrimage to Europe in order to study and copy the works of the old masters, thereby acknowledging that however wealthy the United States may have been at the turn of the twentieth century it still lacked any real confidence in its own art and culture.

As one looks at the works by John Singer Sargent (who was actually born in Italy), George Henry Smillie, George Inness, and William Stanley Haseltine one is reminded irresistably of the novels of Henry James.  There is about these paintings the languor of Americans making the Grand Tour, staying at the finest hotels and mingling with the best society while forever painting and sketching their picturesque surroundings.  And it's this glimpse of a vanished world that gives to their works a strong sense of nostalgia.  Though Picasso and Matisse were already active in this period, other than in the works of Maurice Prendergast there is little sense here of the modernist revolution that was about to engulf twentieth century art.  Even the single work on display by James McNeill Whistler, Note in Pink and Brown (charcoal and pastel, c. 1880), is thoroughly picturesque.

As the museum's website notes, the show has been divided into three parts:

"American Painters in Italy begins with views of the landscape around Rome, the Campagna, and southern Italy. The second section features images of Venice, which was a particularly popular destination for artists in the late nineteenth century. The final section focuses on works in which the artists copied Italian art as an educational exercise or to signify their sophistication and worldliness."

By far the most imteresting works art are those by Sargent to whom the lion's share of the exhibit has rightfully been devoted.  His watercolors are not detailed but rather evocative, and it is their suggestiveness that captures the viewer's attention as the scenes depicted are vividly brought to life.  Among these are the Venetian street scenes which eschew studies of the major monuments in favor of  more intimate glimpses of backwater canals and alleyways not frequented by tourists.  The best of these is Venetian Canal (watercolor and graphite, 1913) that contains a distant view of the Church of San Barnaba.  In subject matter and style it stands in marked contrast to Prendergast's Rialto Bridge (watercolor and graphite, c. 1911-1912) whose bright colors fail to mask the trite choice of subject matter.

Perhaps the finest work at the exhibit is Sargent's Tiepelo Ceiling, Milan (watercolor and graphite, c. 1898-1900), a brilliantly colored phantasmagoria that is not so much a study of the palazzo's ceiling as a reimagining of it.

There are several other works - such as Jasper Francis Cropsey's Torre dei Schiavi, The Roman Campagna (white gouache and graphite, 1853) and William Stanley Haseltine's Baths of Trajan (watercolor, gouache and charcoal, c. 1882) - that are most interesting for the views they provide of nineteenth century Italy before it was forever ruined by modern day tourism.

The exhibit continues through June 17, 2018.

Galerie St. Etienne: Expressionist Art

The full title of the current exhibit at the Galerie St. Etienne is Drawing the Line: Realism and Abstraction in German Art, and it's accompanied by a scholarly essay that makes excellent reading for anyone with an interest in Expressionist art.  I have to admit, though, perhaps because it was such a delightful spring day when I visited, that I was far less interested in observing the distinctions between the "intensive" and the "extensive" than in the simple aesthetic pleasure of viewing so many masterpieces gathered at a single venue.  Altogether, the works of some eighteen artists, a veritable Who's Who of twentieth century German art, are on display.

Max Beckmann is represented by several graphic works, the most interesting of which, I thought, was the pen and pencil drawing Reclining Woman (1945) that shows a fully clothed woman lying on a couch with her legs drawn up and her face covered by one hand.  Was she ashamed to be drawn in such a pose?  The other Beckman work to catch my attention, and for that matter one of the  highlights of the exhibit, was the 1924 oil on canvas Portrait of Irma Simon that shows a modestly dressed young woman seated on a wicker chair.  I had never before heard of Irma Simon but, after having done some online research, found reference to her (if indeed it is the same woman) in Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany by Marion A. Kaplan that describes a horrific struggle to survive as a Jew in Nazi German.

Otto Dix, the only major German artist to have served all four years of World War I on the front lines, has several graphic works in the show, including two lithographs from 1923,  The Madam and Mediterranean Sailor that are notable for the extreme naturalism with which these two disturbing characters have been delineated.  Also by Dix is a drawing entitled Madonna.  Completed in 1914, it gives the viewer a rare glimpse of Dix's pre-war style.  It's interesting to speculate how his art would have evolved if it had not been so traumatically interrupted by the war.

Aside from a gorgeous black crayon drawing, Female Nude, Back View, and his poster for the 49th Secession exhibition, both from 1918, there are also on view two early works by Egon Schiele.  These are Two Peasant Women (colored crayon, 1908) and Study for a Never Executed Painting (watercolor, 1912) that have no parallels in his later oeuvre

Among the other works that most struck my attention were, in no particular order: Nude in Garden (oil on canvas, 1908) by Richard Gerstl, who only recently had his first one-man American show at the Neue Galerie; Reclining Female Nude with Upraised Head (pencil drawing, 1927) by George Grosz; Fanny in Armchair (lithograph, 1916) by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner; two wonderful pen and ink drawings, St. Christopher (c. 1912-1915) and Witches' Sabbath (1918) by Alfred Kubin; Nude Girl in Front of a Mirror (lithograph, 1924) by Otto Mueller; Christ and the Sinner (etching, 1911) and Prophet (woodcut, 1912) by Emil Nolde; and finally, if only because I'd heard the week before performances of Mahler's No. 9 and Das Lied von der Erde, Oskar Kokoschka's 1913 red crayon drawing of Alma Mahler, Sleeping Woman in Deck Chair.

There are, of course, many other works at this show that are well worth viewing and it is only the lack of space that keeps me from mentioning them all.

The exhibit continues through July 6, 2018.

Edwynn Houk Gallery: Erwin Blumenfeld

Despite his many accomplishments - he holds the record for most Vogue covers - and the tremendous influence he exerted on younger fashion photographers, Erwin Blumenfeld has never received the wide public recognition that is his due.  Even his Wikipedia biography is little more than a stub.  Partly this was an accident of history - like many other German artists of his generation, Blumenfeld was forced to flee the Nazis and to live the life of an expatriate.  A more recent complication was the division of his archive, amounting to some 30,000 negatives and 8,000 prints according to the British Journal of Photography, distributed among family members following his death in 1969.

In addition to his talent with a camera, Blumenfeld was also a superb darkroom technician who was not afraid to experiment with innovative techniques such as the Sabatier Effect.  These, combined with his proclivity for using mirrors, veils and painted backgrounds in his photoshoots, allowed him to create a truly unique body of work.  Already while in Amsterdam in the 1920's, he had begun to explore Dadaism and his photographs were shown there in a group show beside the work of George Grosz (a lifelong friend), Man Ray and Moholy-Nagy.  It was upon moving to Paris in 1936 that he began his career as a fashion photographer.  By the time he emigrated to New York in 1941 he already had an international reputation and was immediately put under contract at Harper's Bazaar by Carmel Snow.

The current exhibit at the Edwynn Houk Gallery, while hardly qualifying as a major retrospective, does contain a number of Blumenfeld's most important works, enough to make this one of the most important photo exhibits of the year.  It opens with one of the photographer's most iconic images, a superb 1939 shot of a model in a billowing white dress perched precariously on the Eiffel Tower high above the streets of Paris.

Most of the photos shown at the current exhibit are untitled prints that feature female models photographed in the most imaginative ways possible.  Just looking at them should be sufficient to provide photographers with a lifetime of inspiration.  Perhaps the best is a photograph of a model, nude but for a cloth twisted about her waist, lying prone on her back.  It's a fine an example of the Sabatier Effect as I've seen.

There are two self-portraits in the show, one from 1937 where the photographer in his Paris studio shot himself in a mirror surrounded by his prints.  In the foreground is a sculpture of a torso with a photo of a model's face where the head would be.  It captures Bluemenfeld's entire world in a single image.  The second is a much more conventional portrait (except for the solarized printing) from 1950 in which the photographer wears a bow tie and looks more a Midwestern dentist than an artist.

There's also a portrait of Cecil Beaton from the 1940's that shows only one side of the famous photographer's face while the other is left in silhouette.  The eerily lit backdrop gives the print a definite Surrealist aura.

It wouldn't serve any real purpose to describe any more of the photos on display.  They really have to be seen in order for their originality to be appreciated.  For those unable to attend the show, there's a monograph by William Ewing, a copy of which I have in my library, that contains excellent reproduction's of Blumenfeld's work.

The exhibit continues through June 2, 2018.

Japan Society: Hasegawa Tōhaku

I went on Friday for the second time to the Japan Society on East 47th Street to see the current exhibit of works, most of them magnificent pairs of folding screens, by Hasegawa Tōhaku, an artist of the Momoyama period.  The exhibit of Japanese art, entitled A Giant Leap: The Transformation of Hasegawa Tōhaku, was only one of several I've viewed in past weeks but was certainly among the most rewarding.

One of the most fascninating aspects of Hasegawa's life was the mystery surrounding his true identity.  Although he was the period's most significant painter following the death of his chief rival Kanō Eitoku, very little was known of his early life.  It was only in 1964 that art historian Tsugiyoshi Doi, then director of the Kyoto National Museum, speculated that Hasegawa might in fact be the same individual as Hasegawa Nobuharu, a much less renowned painter of the same era who specialized in Buddhist iconography.  There were many objections to this hypothesis, however, as there were strong stylistic differences between the two artists.  Most telling was the fact that while Tōhaku was a master at painting on gilded surfaces, an extremely difficult process, there were no known examples by Nobuharu that involved a similar use of this technique.  The "missing link," at least according to documentation provided at the exhibit, is the screen Flowers and Birds of Spring and Summer (ca. 1580) that was only definitively attributed to Nobuharu in 2009.  This dazzling work is the centerpiece of the current exhibit and the basis for its title.

The Momoyama period was one of the most tumultuous in Japanese history as various warlords vied for control of the country; it only ended in 1600 with the decisive Battle of Sekigahara that saw the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate and the beginning of the Edo period.  None of this turmoil, however, is evident in the works of Hasegawa.  His works instead are almost entirely devoted to scenes of nature.  Indeed, his forte may be his highly stylized treatment of trees.  This is readily apparent in the first work one encounters upon entering the exhibit, Pine Grove (c. 1595).  Like the majority of works on view, Pine Grove consists of a pair of six-panel folding screens that when placed end to end extend over twenty feet in length.  The large monochromatic screens take up the entire length of a gallery and are absolutely mesmerizing.  The subject itself couldn't be simpler - a stand of pine trees partially enshrouded in fog.  So artfully has the screen been painted that as one sits and contemplates the ghostly scene it seems to the viewer that trees previously hidden by the mist gradually make themselves apparent.  It's an astonishing illusion.  One of the Society's guides explained to me that the work had been completed shortly after the death of the artist's son.  One can sense the intense emotion behind this tranquil scene as one's eyes strain to penetrate the fog and see the hidden world beyond it.

Another monochromatic work depicts Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers.  The work clearly shows Chinese influences, most especially in the stylization of the mountains at the extreme left of the screen.  As in other works, large portions of the scene have not been painted in but rather left blank to suggest to the viewer a mist covered landscape.  This technique that can be traced back at least as far as Ma Yuan's "one-corner school" of painting in the Southern Song dyansty and is a distinguishing characteristic of Asian painting; it presents a contrast to Western styles in which every inch of the canvas is meticulously painted over in detail.

Herons on Willow, Crows on Pine is yet another example of Hasegawa's monochromatic technique.  At the far left of one set of screens a pair of white herons perch gracefully on willow branches while on the far right of the accompanying set of screens a pair of black crows are shown on the branches of the pine.  The contrast between the birds' coloring and character creates an exceptionally balanced composition.

Also in monochrome are the set of folding screens comprising Cranes and Bamboo.  As soon as I saw this work I recognized the crane on the left hand panel.  It's an almost exact duplicate of the left hand panel of the Kuan Yin triptych by the Chinese artist Mu'chi (Mokkei), one of the finest painters of the Southern Song dynasty.  The documentation accompanying the exhibit suggests that Hasegawa had access to Mu'chi's painting; that certainly seems likely considering the similarity in iconography.  I've always had the highest regard for the Kuan Yin triptych ever since having seen a reproduction many years ago in D.T. Suzuki's Zen and Japanese Culture and it was deeply moving to see that it had also served as a source of inspiration for so great an artist as Hasegawa.

In another gallery were the screens comprising Willows in Four Seasons, a subtly colored study of the trees viewed from summer on the right to winter on the left.  This is an extremley understated work and yet I could not help but feel I was seeing a panorama of the seasons spread out before me.

The pieces I most enjoyed viewing at the exhibit were the brightly colored screens of Willow Bridge wherein a golden bridge surrounded by willows and with a water wheel at one end extends over the Uji River in Kyoto.  This was a favorite subject of Momoyama artists.  Here the twisting trunks of the willows, almost black against the bright gold background, become design elements that snake through the composition and offset the regularly curved diagonal formed by the bridge itself.  The bridge was a famous scenic spot in Kyoto as early as the eighth century when it was first described in the poetry of the Man'yōshū ("Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves"), and its depiction here irresistably brings to mind the world of Genji monogatari during the Heian period.

The exhibit is being shown in two rotations.  The first ended on April 8th while the second continues through May 6, 2018.  Some of the works described above were shown in the first rotation and have since been returned to Japan where they are considered National Treasures.

Hans P. Kraus Jr.: Facing the Camera - Selected Portraits

Those with an interest in early photography and what are now referred to "alternative processes" cannot do better than to view the selection of portraits currently on view at the Hans P. Kraus Jr. Gallery at Park Avenue and 82nd Street.  One has here an opportunity to study the manner in which the earliest photographers apporached the venerable tradition of portraiture and employed the new medium not only to build on that tradition but also to create innovative effects quite distinct from those acheieved by painters.

First there are prints by the famous names from the very dawn of photography.  Henry Fox Talbot is represented by Bust of Patroclus (1842), a salt print from a calotype negative.  In choosing an immobile sculpture as his subject, Talbot found a means of dealing with the inordinately long exposures required by the early processes. Thus Talbot was able to achieve a degree of sharpness that is highly unusual in a salt print and is testament to his emerging skill with a camera.  That he photographed the sculpture from different angles (this one is more full face than the better known profile in the collection of the Met Museum) demonstrates that he was making a conscious effort to master the intricacies of portraiture.

Perhaps the finest photography to have been created in the medium's first decade was that of the Scottish team of David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson.  Though their photographs of Edinburgh citizens going about their business appear quite spontaneous, the poses were carefully orchestrated and then frozen for the length of the exposure. Hill's knowledge of painting was indispensable in allowing the pair to imbue everyday scenes with a sense of authenticity. At this exhibit they are represented by two works, one of women fishsellers hawking fresh herring and the other of young women gathered by a bird cage (the latter is a modern carbon print made from an original calotype negative).

Though long unrecognized, Julia Margaret Cameron was one of the greatest portraitists of the Victorian era.  This can clearly be seen in her study of her niece Julia Duckworth, mother of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell and a favorite model of the pre-Raphaelite painters.  The photo has an otherworldly quality as the sitter's eyes seem to stare heavenward at some vision only visible to her.

Lewis Carroll (the pen name of Charles Dodgson), best known as the author of Alice in Wonderland, was also an accomplished photographer whose finest works, not surprisingly, were depictions of children.  This can easily be seen in his 1873 Xie Kitchin as a "Dane," an albumen print from a collodion negative.  In contrast to this portrait of a young girl in costume a nearby profile of a seated man, also by Carroll, seems lifeless even if technically correct.

The most fashionable portraitist in nineteenth century Paris was inarguably Nadar (pseudonym of Gaspard-Félix Tournachon) who in the course of his long career photographed virtually every important French writer, painter, and composer.  The reason for his success can easily be seen in his portrait of Alexandre Dumas, père.  Although the novelist stands motionless, the sitter's volcanic personality blazes forth in this 1865 photograph and brings him vividly to life.

Edgar Degas was not a professional photographer and worked with the medium for only a relatively short period late in his career.  As described in Edgar Degas, Photographer, a Met Museum catalog that accompanied its 1998 exhibit of the artist's photographs, Degas's methods were totally unorthodox and yet the knowledge he had gleaned from his years as a painter allowed him to achieve some stunning effects with only minimal lighting.  At this exhibit he is represented by a portrait of one of the Halévy family.  Degas was close to the Halévys during the time he worked at photography, and much of the information we have concerning his technique is derived from the correspondence of Daniel Halévy.  The Halévys, however, were Jewish and Degas a virulent anti-Dreyfusard so that a rift between them was inevitable.

The surprise at this exhibit was something of an anachronism - a 1929 portrait of an old man in Taos by Ansel Adams.  Taken long before Adams cofounded the f64 School, the portrait, printed on warm tone matte paper, is almost soft focus - or at least shot with the lens aperture wide open - and all the more engaging for that.  I've never cared for Adams's supersharp Yosemite landscapes printed on glossy paper that in my opinion aren't anything more than well crafted calendar art, but this atypical portrait is engaging and conveys very well the sitter's personality as well as giving a strong sense of wisdom acquired through age.  It's a shame Adams didn't create more work in this vein; he would have been a much more interesting photographer.

The exhibit continues through April 11, 2018.

Japanese Art Dealers Assciation at the Ukrainian Center

On both Sunday and Monday afternoons I walked across the Park to view the 2018 Japanese Art Dealers Assciation exhibit at the Ukrainian Center on 79th Street and Fifth Avenue, an annual three-day event, now unfortunately ended, at which one had a rare opportunity to see classic Japanese artworks outside the confines of a museum. Although the show was relatively small compared to the Edo Painting exhibit currently on view at the Met, it more than mde up in quality what it lacked in quantity.

The largest works at the exhibit were the six-panel folding screens that extended the entire length of a gallery.  Most impressive of these was Hawk and Geese by Soga Chokuan from the Momoyama Period.  The painter was known for his realistic renderings of hawks; but it struck a Western viewer, accustomed to more naturalistic effects in art, as strange that the geese should have shown no alarm at the predator's close proximity.  The other three screens - Birds and Flowers by Maruyama Oryū, Cranes by a Meandering Stream from the Kano School, and Flowers of the Four Seasons from the Rinpa School - were all from the Edo Period and so well displayed the Japanese love of nature that one felt one was outdoors when looking at them.

There were also a sizeable number of ukiyo-e prints on display at the exhibit.  These vividly colored woodblock prints have always been the most accessible form of Japanese art for Westerners, and it was their sudden appearance in Europe in the nineteenth century that gave rise to japonisme and an early appreciation of Asian art in general.  Two of the best known ukiyo-e artists were each represented by several prints.  Not only was a particularly fine example of The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Katushika Hokusai on display but so too were two of his lesser known works, Mishima Pass in Kai Province and Suspension Bridge between Hida and Etchū.  Among the works by the equally illustrious Utagawa Hiroshige were White Rain, Shōno (from The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō) and Sudden Shower over Shin-Ohashi Bridge and Atake (from One Hundred Famous Views of Edo), the latter of which inspired van Gogh's 1887 Bridge in the rain.  In both of these images by Hiroshige the falling rain was described by slanting straight lines that ran through the entire image.  Also by Hiroshige were A Fine Evening on the Coast, Tsushima Province with its wonderful depiction of a gigantic rainbow and Naruto Whirlpools, Awa Province that showed the artist could stylize the movement of waves equally as well as his rival Hokusai.

Most of the paintings on display were in the form of hanging scrolls from the Edo Period.  One of the largest examples was Waterfall by Yokoyama Seiki in which the raging water at the base of the falls is portrayed simply by an expanse of empty space.  The great majority of the scrolls, however, were figurative works, many of them depicting courtesans, by artists who were equally well known for their ukiyo-e prints.  These included Beauty Writing a Poem by Tsukioka Sessai, Beauty Holding a Poetry Card while Gazing at the Moon by Utagawa Toyokuni, the monochromatic ink wash Courtesan Parading by Chōbunsai Eishi, whose work I had also seen last week at the Met Muesum's Edo Painting exhibit, and Courtesan with a Fan by Nakamura Eiryū.  But the star of the show as far as I was concerned, and for that matter the primary reason I visited the exhibit a second time, was Seated Beauty Inscribing a Poem on a Tanzaku by Kitagawa Utamaro.   Suffice it to say that no other Japanese artist captured the essence of feminine beauty in his work so well as Utamaro.  So prized are his paintings and prints that it's highly unusual to see examples outside museum walls.

Quite different from the Edo Period paintings was a modern abstract work by Dōmoto Inshō.  The representative of Kyoto's Shibunkaku Gallery with whom I spoke explained that the artist had originally painted in a more traditional style prior to a visit to Europe in the 1950's after which he began experimenting with abstraction but while still using traditional Japanese art materials.  This particular painting made abundant use of gold leaf and was brightly colored in swirling patterns.  

In addition to the paintings and prints, there were also ceramics and lacquerware on display.  Of the former, a round pot with a flared rim was definitely the oldest work at the exhibit as it dated from the Yayoi Period (c. 300 BCE - 250 CE).  The lacquer pieces I found most intriguing were two writing boxes (suzuribako), one from the Edo Period inscribed with scenes from Genji monogatari and the other from the Taisho era showing a boat in a stormy sea.  The workmanship on each was exquisite.

Met Museum: Joseph Cornell's Homage to Juan Gris

The current exhibit at the Met, Birds of a Feather, is one of those small idiosyncratic shows, usually limited to a single gallery, that the museum stages from time to time.  A visitor wanders in from a larger exhibit only to find himself or herself immersed in a self-contained and offbeat universe that offers unexpected delights.  In spite of the exhibit's subtitle, this is not so much a homage to Gris as it is an obsession on the part of Cornell, an artist who never managed to show restraint in his enthusiasms.

The backstory to the exhibit, as noted on the museum's website, is as follows:

"...on one of his frequent trips to the gallery district in midtown Manhattan, Cornell visited the Sidney Janis Gallery on East 57th Street. Among a presentation of approximately 30 works by modern artists, one alone captivated Cornell—Juan Gris's celebrated collage The Man at the Café (1914)...  This shadowy profile of a fedora-topped man immediately inspired Cornell to begin a new series: some 18 boxes, two collages, and one sand tray created in homage to Juan Gris, whom he called a 'warm fraternal spirit.'"

That pretty well sums up the essence of the show.  On one wall hangs The Man at the Café itself, and it's immediately apparent why any viewer would feel a strong attraction to it.  This is one of the masterpieces of synthetic cubism and a key component of Leonard Lauder's seminal collection.  Although I had known of the work's link to the fictional arch-criminal Fantômas, a recurrent character in Gris's pasted paper collages including the 1915 Pipe and Newspaper, I had been unaware of the hidden reference in the present painting to the work of Alphonse Bertillon.  No matter that Bertillon, who died just about the time the painting was completed, had invented the photographic mugshot and the modern technique of fingerprinting, his spurious testimony at the two Dreyfus trials in the late nineteenth century had long made him a figure of scorn and ridicule among French intellecturals.  The idea of Fantômas outwitting Bertillon would have delighted Gris.

Then we come to Cornell's series of boxes dedicated to the artist.  They are neatly arranged side by side on several tables placed at right angles to the Gris painting.  Prominently displayed in each is a representation of a white cockatoo.  The birds are backed by black silhouettes intended as their shadows (although in at least one of the boxes the silhouette has been laid on the bottom of the box) and pieces of newsprint.  While the presence of the newsprint is a clear reference to the copy of Le Matin displayed so prominently in the painting, I failed to understand what the cockatoo had to do with Gris, let alone Fantômas and Bertillon.  Rather surprisingly, the connection is nowhere explained in the documentation accompanying the exhibit, unless in the 1.5 hour video on the museum's website that I admit I hadn't had the patience to watch.

As it turns out, it's unlikely that Cornell was aware of the references contained in Gris's paintings.  According to Deborah Solomon's excellent biography, Utopia Parkway:

"From the evidence of notes he [Cornell] made in his diary, we know that he associated the Gris boxes with the nineteenth-century diva Maria Malibran.  This link has confounded art historians intent on decoding Cornell's symbolism.  Yet if we accept that the white cockatoos - like so many of Cornell's birds - are literally stand-ins for Malibran, a 'bird of song,' the intended meaning of the Gris boxes becomes clear.  They are mute arias all, bringing the sublime pleasures of music into Gris's studio.  Malibran and Gris were both Spaniards who died young; Cornell sought to unite them."

This at least provides an explanation, even if it does not appear entirely rational on Cornell's part, for the cockatoo's presence in the boxes.

The exhibit continues through April 15, 2018.

NYHS: The Vietnam War 1945-1975

How much impact the current exhibit at the New York Historical Society, The Vietnam War 1945-1975, has on attendees depends, I think, very much on the age of those viewing the display.  For those, like myself, who were in college in the late 1960's and early 1970's the exhibit is a powerful reminder of the tumult that gripped the nation during those years, one that cannot fail to rekindle the anger the war once evoked.

There are not a great many artifacts on view here, and those that are shown are of the simplest - among them a bicycle once used by the North Vietnamese to transport supplies down the Ho Chi Minh trail and an American soldier's helmet pierced in several places by bullets from an AK-47.  For the most part, the viewer follows a series of large wall-mounted placards placed in chronological order that detail the history of the conflict (technically, it was never a war as Congress never declared it such) interspersed with archived clips from televised newscasts.  In contrast to the recent World War I exhibit at the Met Museum, there isn't a single major artwork to be found, although there are a few poignant pieces created by Vietnamese artists.  For this reason, the show may seem overly dry and even pedantic to those who weren't born when America became involved in Southeast Asia.  For those who saw the original broadcasts, however, the sight of Walter Cronkite, then the most authoritative figure in American journalism, calling the situation a hopeless stalemate or of Lyndon Johnson announcing the immediate escalation of American troop strength through a higher draft call will have the same chilling effect they possessed a half century ago.  Perhaps the most moving of these clips is that of a mother discussing the death of her son five weeks after he arrived in Vietnam to begin his tour of duty.  The woman is calm and collected, but that only makes it all the more obvious how hard she's struggling not to give way to her emotions.

It was, of course, the bugaboo of Communism that led to American involvement in Vietnam.  The war was actually begun, however, by the French as an attempt to reclaim the old colonies in Southeast Asia that had been occupied by the Japanese in World War II.  The amount of assistance rendered by the US, including the gift of two aircraft carriers, to aid the French in their bid to reintroduce colonialism is staggering.  It was all useless, though, and the French were decisively defeated at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.  The rout of the French should have served as a warning to the US, but its lessons were blithely disregarded by successive administrations.  Instead, as relentlessly chronicled at the exhibit, the US made one disastrous decision after another as it became increasingly entangled in the Vietnamese politics until the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 became a pretext for outright military intervention.

The real turning point in Vietnam was the North Vietnamese Tet Offensive in 1968.  Although a great deal of space is devoted to this campaign, the exhibit fails to indicate how blindsided and shocked the American public was by the surprise attack.  For years, Americans had been assured that Vietnam was a limited conflict, little more than a police action, in which the overwhelming power of American military might made it only a matter of time until the North Vietnamese were defeated and any lingering resistance mopped up.  The Tet Offensive gave the lie to this assessment and revealed it to be little more than crude propaganda.  As the American public learned they had been systematically lied to regarding North Vietnamese strength of purpose and military ability, the antiwar movement grew dramatically stronger, and the accompanying outrage brought down the Johnson presidency.  Although America would eventually claim several months later to have won the battle, this was where the war was finally lost.

To its credit, the exhibit does not shy away from examining the split in American public opinion engendered by the war.  The growth of the antiwar movement from May 12, 1964 when twelve men burned their draft cards in New York is carefully documented.  Posters, buttons and news articles trace the growing anger that led to the first march, organized by SDS, in Washington on April 17, 1964 to the nationwide October 15, 1969 moratorium.  Attention is given not only to such major political developments as Daniel Ellsberg's release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 but also to manifestations in popular culture, such as Marvin Gaye's hit song "What's Going On" from that same year.  The backlash against protesters by the establishment and by middle class blue collar workers is also discussed.

In the end, the Vietnam War was a turning point for America.  Never again would its citizens implicitly trust the word of any elected official.  American ideals, accepted fervently for generations, were shown to be hollow promises based in racial inequality and in intolerance for the beliefs of others.  The country has never been the same again.  In a very real sense, the Vietnam War marked the end of America's greatness and the beginning of its decline.

The exhibit continues through April 22, 2018.

Galerie St. Etienne: Käthe Kollwitz

In her biography of Edward Hopper, author Gail Levin mentions in passing that the artist and his wife in 1956 attended an exhibit of Käthe Kollwitz's work at the Galerie St. Etienne.  It was a bit strange then to visit more than sixty years later the same gallery, albeit at a different location, to view the artist's work, one half of two-woman show entitled All Good Art Is Political.  I couldn't help but wonder if the some of the works on display might not have been the same that Hopper saw so long ago.

Kollwitz was one of those individuals whose lives are given over to social concerns.  In this she was only one of many twentieth century artists whose talent was put in service of larger issues and who sought to draw attention to the plight of those who were the victims of government indifference or of totalitarian repression.  The big difference was that Kollwitz was a woman.  As such, she had to struggle not only against the far right movements she opposed but also against the chauvinism of male artists who should have been her allies.

It's not surprising that Kollwitz early on developed a social conscience.  Her father was a radical politician while her maternal grandfather was a Lutheran minister ousted from his pastoral post for his espousal of reform.  Kollwitz's husband, whom she married at age 24, was a Berlin medical doctor whose patients consisted of oppressed workers and their needy families.  As a result, the social commentary implicit in Kollwitz's art was derived more from first hand experience than from intellectual leanings or affiliation with any particular political party.  Whatever else she may have been, Kollwitz was first and foremost the artist of the exploited and downtrodden.

Kollwitz's share of the current exhibit consists of thirty four graphic works - most of them etchings, lithographs and woodcuts - that extend over the course of her career from the late nineteenth century to the Nazi era.  Some of them, such as the lithographs Free Our Prisoners! (1919) and Help Russia (1921), are poster art.  The most moving of them, however, portray touching domestic scenes.  These include Unemployment (etching, 1909) and Killed in Action (lithograph, 1919).  There are also several works from different periods depicting prisoners - e.g., The Prisoners (etching, 1908) and Prisoners Listening to Music (lithograph, 1925) - which one wishes had been supplied with sufficient documentation to enable the viewer to understand the reasons for their confinement and the identity of their captors.

Wtthout doubt, the single most harrowing image at the exhibit is Raped (etching, 1907-1908).  It's one of seven prints that comprise Peasants' War, a series that took as its source the brutality of the sixteenth century German nobility toward the peasant population.  Here a disheveled woman lies on her back in a garden, her misery only made more pronounced by the beauty of the flowers surrounding her.  The work is immediately reminiscent of Goya's The Disasters of War, but in its iconography it is also an eerie precursor of the lustmord paintings by such artists as Otto Dix and George Grosz that were to gain prominence during the Weimar period.

The pain Kollwitz endured during her long life, including the loss of both a son and grandson in the two world wars, raises her work above the level of mere artistry and endows it with an immediacy that could not otherwise have been attained.  It's ironic that even now the humanity evidenced in her prints should be overshadowed by the same petty concerns - gender and perceived leftist leanings - that hampered her career during her own lifetime.  What is happening today in our own country is proof that the struggle in which she took part is far from over and far from won.  Kollwitz in death is just as much a champion of the oppressed and disenfranchised as she was in Germany in the first half of the twentieth century.

The other woman whose work was on display at the show was the contemporary British graphic artist Sue Coe who, like Kollwitz, has devoted her life and art to protest; but her works, while excellent, did not affect me as greatly as did those of the German artist.

The exhibit continues through March 10, 2018.

Met Museum: Adolf de Meyer Photographs

After having seen the exhibit of masterpiece drawings during my visit to the Met Museum on December 26th, I then viewed an exhibit of photographs by Adolf de Meyer appropriately entitled Quicksilver Brilliance.  The small Gilman Paper gallery in which the show was set was so sparsely attended that it was difficult to believe I was only steps from the crush of holiday visitors who'd come to view the museum's Rodin exhibit in the much larger space directly outside it.

Though largely forgotten now, de Meyer secured his place in photographic history by becoming one of the world's first editorial photographers.  From 1913 to 1921 he was both Vogue's and Vanity Fair's principal photographer at a moment when technical advances in the halftone process allowed magazines for the first time to illustrate their covers and pages with actual photographs rather than with illustrations based upon them.  This in turn created a demand for skilled photographers whose work would now be viewed directly by the public without the assistance of an intermediary.  Largely by accident, de Meyer found himself in the right place at the right time.

De Meyer lived a flamboyant lifestyle in the upper echelons of early twentieth century high society.  Whether or not he was actually a baron, as he chose to style himself, he moved easily in aristocratic circles.  His enrtee to this privileged group was greatly facilitated by his marriage of convenience (de Meyer was gay) in 1899 to Olga Caracciolo, an Italian noblewoman rumored to be the illegitimate daughter of Edward VII.  With Olga at his side, de Meyer gained first hand knowledge of the sophisiticated lifestyles of the social elite as well as the couture in which they attired themselves.  This was to be invaluable to him at Vogue and later, in Paris, at Harper's Bazaar.

No matter how fortuitous the circumstances that led to his success, de Meyer was a highly accomplished photographer who well deserved the positions he held.  He had already become a member of the Royal Photographic Society in 1893 and from 1903 to 1907 had his work published prominently in Alfred Stieglitz's Camera Work.  The association with Stieglitz (whose own Spring Showers was on view at the exhibit) was particularly significant because it reinforced the pictorialist style of de Meyer's work at a time when the movement had reached its zenith during the Photo Secession.  Pictorialism's soft focus techniques proved a perfect match for the fashion work on which the photographer was soon to embark.

If there are not more original prints at the current exhibit, it's because most of de Meyer's work was unfortunately destroyed during World War II.  Enough remains, however, to attest to his skill as a darkroom technician.  That displayed here is drawn entirely from the Met's own collection.

Surprisingly, the two finest works at the exhibit, both of them photographed in 1906 and both of them platinum prints, are neither portraits nor fashion work but floral still lifes.  The Shadows on the Wall (Chrysanthemums) and Water Lilies are exquisite works, the latter also shown reproduced as a photogravure in Camera Work.  There is a sensitivity to beauty in them that makes it clear why de Meyer felt so at home in Japan, the source of a number of photographs displayed here including Ueno Tōshō-gū, View through the Window of a Garden, and Garden Pool with Waterlilies, all of them photographed while on a visit to that country in 1900.  The last is a carbon print, a notoriously difficult medium with which to work, that creates an inherently sharper print than platinum though it lacks the latter's tonal range.  It attests to de Meyer's superlative ability in printing his images.

The fashion and portraiture work itself seems extremely dated today with the exception of the portrait of Josephine Baker (direct carbon print, c. 1925-1926) in which all the performer's vitality is captured even though she is dressed in a full length gown rather than in her infamous danse sauvage banana outfit.

One item I had never before seen and found fascinating was a 1914 book of dance photographs taken of the original Ballets Russes production of L'Après-midi d'un faune.  The the book consists of fourteen collotypes of which six have been temporarily removed and hung, including the portrait of Nijinsky as the faun.  As a photographer, I wondered what film emulsion de Meyer had used that had allowed him to capture motion in low light without any blurring.  (It's also possible the photographer asked the dancers to freeze a given position for the length of the exposure.)  There were also two platinum prints showing dancers in motion on view that were not part of the book but obviously related to it, at least in theme.  The more interesting was a nude study, the only one ever taken by de Meyer, in which the dancer had donned a grotesque mask.

Once the Photo Secession had ended and Stieglitz had moved on with Paul Strand to straight photography, pictorialism became something of a lost cause.  De Meyer was just one of many talented photographers whose work fell into obscurity as tastes changed.  Perhaps one day the pendulum will swing back again and he will receive the recognition he deserves.

The exhibit continues through March 18, 2018.