Masterpiece Paintings Visit The Frick Collection

Rembrandt van Rijn, A Girl at a Window, 1645, oil on canvas,
32.1 x 26 in. (81.6 x 66.0 cm), Dulwich Picture Gallery, London
Bourgeois Bequest, 1811
© The Trustees of Dulwich Picture Gallery

Masterpieces of European Painting from Dulwich Picture Gallery, the exhibition at the Frick Collection,is a gift to all those who respond to picture making at its highest level. Nine important seventeenth- and eighteenth-century paintings from the Dulwich’s renowned European painting collection are displayed in the Frick’s Oval Room and Garden Court. The Dulwich Picture Gallery, located in London, was the first public art gallery in England. Since its holdings do not often travel, this show is a special treat introducing audiences to works of art that may not be familiar. It joins a group of remarkable small exhibits the Frick has mounted from collections relatively unknown here.

The visiting paintings have received well-deserved praise in such informative reviews as “Dreamy Fantasies of Femininity and Nature” by Ken Johnson, The New York Times, and “Fresh Faces in the Family” by Lance Esplund, The Wall Street Journal. Much can be said about each paintings but I comment only on a few of the aspects that partiuclarly attracted me.

The star of the show is Rembrandt’s “Girl at a Window”, placed immediately at the entrance of the Oval Room as you approach it from the Court Garden. She brings to mind other seductive visiting beauties who in past shows occupied this central position – Parmigianino’s “Antea” from the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, in 2008 and in 2005, Rapahel’s “Fornarina” from National Gallery of Art at the Palazzo Barberini, Rome.

The "Girl at the Window" probably depicts a type or figure study rather than a specific individual. Nevertheless, she comes across as real – someone who may speak at any moment. Rembrandt’s masterly painting technique brings her life exquisitely rendering her florid cheeks, the slight tan of her left hand and lower arm and the tiny bug bites on both arms. Marvelous is the way paint describes her gold necklace, the shadowed fingers playing with this ornament and the rope-like decoration on her white blouse. She is at once absorbed in the painting and projected out of it.

In the Garden courtyard, on either side of the Oval Room entranceway, are two delightful eighteenth-century paintings: Canaletto’s “Old Walton Bridge”, and Watteau’s “Les Plaisirs du bal (Pleasures of the Dance)”. Of comparative easel size, these works invite comparison. Numerous characters narrate and animate the scenes. Especially delightful are the images of dogs: the foreground dog in the Canaletto and the four canines in the Watteau.

Sir Anthony Van Dyck, Samson and Delilah, c. 1618-20,
oil on canvas,59.6 x 90.7 in. (151.4 x 230.4 cm),
Dulwich Picture Gallery, London
Bourgeois Bequest, 1811
© The Trustees of Dulwich Picture Gallery

Sir Anthony Van Dyck’s “Samson and Delilah” and Sir Peter Lely’s “Nymphs by a Fountain”, two of my favorite works, are displayed across from each other in the Oval Room.

Peter Paul Rubens, Samson and Delilah, c. 1609-1610,
oil on wood,72.8 x 80.7 in. (185 x 205 cm),
The National Gallery, London

Van Dyck’s Samson is an early work by the artist inspired by Sir Peter Paul Rubens’s painting of the same subject. The artist had worked with Rubens and most likely knew the Rubens's Samson painting as well as an engraving of it by Jacob Matham.

Jacob Matham, Samson and Delilah, c. 1613, copper engraving,
14 x 17 in. (380 x 440 mm), Rockox House, Antwerp

Such reproductive engraving as Matham’s made works of art available to a wider public. Matham excelled in this medium. His detailed engraving of the Rubens’s Samson was completed just a few years after the painting was finished. Van Dyck most likely worked from the Matham print since the Van Dyck reverses Rubens’s composition as seen in the print. (Using the engraving technique, paper is pressed into the inked incised lines of the engraver’s plate reproducing the recorded image in reverse.)

“Hermaphrodite endormi”,

2nd c. AD (Roman copy of Greek statue 2nd c. BC),
marble, 169 in. (169 cm), Musée du Louvre, Paris

The Samsons of Rubens and Van Dyck derive from a classical sculpture of the sleeping Hermaphroditus, a mythological being which combines a female head, breasts, and body with the sexual part of a man. Roman copies of the original Greek Hellenistic statue survive. Rubens could have seen one in Italy before painting his Samson. The Rubens and Van Dyck Samsons are manly and muscular but curiously allude to a figure of ambivalent sex.

Sir Peter Lely, Nymphs by a Fountain, c. 1650, oil on canvas,
50.7 x 57 in. (128.9 x 144.8 cm), Dulwich Picture Gallery, London
Fairfax Murray Gift, 1911
© The Trustees of Dulwich Picture Gallery

Sir Peter Lely’s “Nymphs by a Fountain”, displayed across from Van Dyck’s Samson, portrays the near recumbent nymph in a similar hermaphroditic pose. Lely’s nymph is also based on the same ancient source. I spent time in front of this work looking at this nude’s back. At first glance I thought it was male but discerned a slight swelling under the left arm indicating a mammary gland. I posed the question to several viewers, is the figure a male or female? The initial reaction of all in my small sample was a male. Whatever your thoughts, it is a tantalizing work.

By the way, take note of the prominent chafed soles of both the Lely nymph and the Van Dyck Samson. This is superb painting. Such quality painting you will find in all the works of this visually and intellectually splendid exhibition.

One further point: the fully illustrated catalogue by Xavier F. Salomon, Arturo and Holly Melosi Chief Curator of the Dulwich Picture Gallery, is excellent. Pithy explanatory notes illuminate and enhance enjoyment.

Masterpieces of Euopean Painting from Dulwich Picture Gallery
The Frick Collection
1 East 70th Street
Monday - Saturday 10 am to 6 pm
Sundays 11 am to 5 pm
Through May 20, 2010.

Asia in New York - Koichi Yanagi Exhibit Still Here

Kano Tanshin Morimasa, Tamagawa River at Ide,
Edo period, 17-18th century,
Left screen of pair of six-panel folding screens,
ink, color, gold, and gold leaf on paper,
51.6 x 135.8 in. (131.0 x 345.0 cm) each screen

Asia Week New York 2010 officially ended March 28 but plenty of Asian art remains. Still on view until April 15th is the outstanding gallery exhibit at Koichi Yanagi. This six piece show entrances the visitor with the artistry of Japanese art and aesthetic. On display are a pair of folding screens, a painted fan, a pair of male and female Shinto wooden deities, a hanging scroll, a treasured piece of Zen calligraphy framed by rich fabrics, and a Chinese ceramic dish in the shape of Mount Fuji made for Japanese tea masters. Each work is unique and rarely on view.

Tamagawa River at Ide is the theme of a painting on a pair of Edo period six-panel folding screens. It is an exquisite spring landscape with blossoms and animated birds. From every angle, the scene is beautiful. Individualized birds fly about flowers in full bloom. Golden clouds fill the sky. Looking at the work imparts a sense of bliss.

Back of left screen of pair of six-panel folding screens:
Young Bamboo Plants,
ink on gold leaf,
55.7 x 135.8 in. (141.5 x 354.0 cm) each screen

On the back of the screens, delicate bamboo plants are set against a gilded ground. The shoots have much variety. Some are erect, others bend, some are alone, and others are in groups as if communicating. To see this, a friendly gallery assistant had folded one screen panel to reveal the back to me. Ask and I am sure it will be done for you.

The screens are going to a private collection so now is the opportune time to see them.

Suzuki Kiitsu, A Slumber Party at Ōhara,
Edo period, 19th century,
Hanging Scroll,
ink, color, and gold on silk,
22.5 x 33.6 in. (57.2 x 85.3 cm)

In the gallery's second room, a nineteenth-century hanging scroll depicts an unusal subject, Slumber Party at Ōhara. The painting illustrates a legend-based story concerning villagers who sought protection at a shrine to escape a man-eating snake. To pass the night, they engaged in play and lovemaking. The participants, dressed in fashionable clothing, are similar to the pleasure district visitors in ukiyo-e scenes or fête galante attendees in western imagery. Their bright colors, which contrast with the gray wash of the surrounding evening landscape, draw the viewer’s attention. The scene enchants as do all the pieces in this exhibit. Go see for yourself.

Kokon Biannual Spring ‘10
March 15 - April 15, 2010
Monday to Friday, 10 am to 6 pm
Koichi Yanagi Oriental Fine Arts
17 East 71st Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10021
Tel 212 744-5577

East Comes East: Asia Week New York 2010

Shakoki Dogu, Final Jomon period, 1200–400 BC,
Tohoku region (Aomori prefecture), Japan,
Obora BC Type, 7 x 5 1/2 in. (18 x 14 cm),
Mika Gallery, New York

The focus is on Asian art during Asia Week New York 2010, March 20 – 28. More than 30 museums, galleries, and auction houses take part in 7 days of exhibitions, public lectures and other activities. New York and international dealers have collaborated to bring about Asia Week and to place on view the highest quality art from China, India, Japan, Korea, the Himalayas and Southeast Asia. Anyone with an interest in the East should celebrate.

Asia Week’s excellent Web site, http://www.asiaweeknewyork.org, includes a list of participants, calendar and detailed guide. Both map and guide are downloadable.

It is difficult to single out specific shows but I particularly look forward to the Mika Gallery’s display of early Japanese Jomon period artifacts, the Indian and Southeast works at John Eskenazi Ltd., the Chinese objects at J. J. Lally & Co. and the Korean celadons of the London Gallery Ltd. There are more exhibits on my "must see" list but I don't want to influence your choices. Look around for yourself.

Much of the art brought to New York for Asia Week 2010 is for sale. Many pieces will be purchased for private collections. Keep this in mind. The objects you see this week, you may never see again.

Damaged But Not Diminished

Pablo Picasso, The Actor, 1904-05, oil on canvas,

77.2 x 45.4 in. (196.2 x 115.3 cm),

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Last month an accident to an important Picasso painting, The Actor, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York, brought attention to works of art that have been damaged. In the case of the Picasso, a visitor fell against the work causing a six-inch vertical gash in the lower right part of the approximately six by four foot canvas. Most likely, the tear will be difficult to detect once repaired. (See Vogel, Carol, “Questions Over Fixing Torn Picasso, New York Times on the Web, 25 January 2010, Art & Design.)

Is the painting diminished? I think not. The mishap will become a somewhat amusing but cautionary addition to the painting’s history. In a way, the incident fits the interpretation of the painting’s subject.

The work is from Picasso’s romantic Rose Period and depicts a slender acrobat. It was created at the time circus performers were equated with artists. They were marginalized by society, martyrs to their art - victims of mistreatment.

In a similar manner, we can now look at the painting in the Metropolitan Museum as an object that was a victim of a society that was heedless of its protection. The work becomes a momento mori. The occurrance reminds things happen with age whether natural or random. After all, The Actor is over one hundred years old.

Rembrandt van Rijn, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Jan Deyman, 1656,
oil on canvas, cut down to 39.4 x 52.8 in. (100 x 134 cm),
Amsterdam, Amsterdams Historish Museum

A well-known example of an art work that has been marred by misfortune is Rembrandt’s 1656 The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Jan Deyman. Most of the canvas was destroyed by fire in 1723, leaving only a small section of the central area. But what remains is a powerhouse of conciseness. Painted during the highly prosperous age of the Dutch Republic, this group portrait is a startling realization of interior thought overlaid with moral implication.

The seventeenth-century Dutch had developed numerous professional organizations and lots of civic groups that commissioned portraits of their leaders and members for meeting rooms. Portraiture became the most popular and well-paid artistic category of the period. In this genre as in others, Rembrandt departed from tradition. He did not depict static representations where sitters are lined up one next to the other in unmoving compositions. His portraits have action and meaning far more then faithful representation of those portrayed.

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp, 1632, oil on canvas,
66.7 x 85.2 in. (169.5 x 216.5 cm), Mauritshuis, The Hague

The Dr. Deyman was his second anatomy scene. In 1632, he had painted The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp, where he dramatically turned the subject into a lesson on mortality, divinity and knowledge. (For an excellent analysis of both anatomy group portraits and more, see Simon Schama’s Rembrandt’s Eyes, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999.)

In what is left of the Dr. Deyman work, we see the surgeon’s hands dissecting the cadaver’s brain. His assistant on the left, shown with a thoughtful gaze, holds the corpse's skullcap. The quite foreshortened corpse is so angled that the viewer has a first hand view into the open stomach cavity. What is one to make of this?

Andrea Mantegna, Dead Christ, c. 1490, tempera on canvas,
26.8 x 31.9 in. (68 x 81 cm), Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

Orazio Borgianni, The Pietà, c. 1615, oil on canvas,
21.7 x 30.3 in. (55 x 77 cm), Galleria Spada, Rome

Firstly, Rembrandt’s composition is a reference to the Dead Christ by the fifteenth-century Italian master Andrea Mantegna and similar images by Orazio Borgianni, an early seventeenth-century Roman artist.

Rembrandt turned the secular event, the autopsy, into something sacred by making reference to these earlier images. The painting is interpreted as a religious scene. Dr. Deyman hands make a gesture of blessing over the dead while his nearby assistant holds the Eucharistic chalice.

The viewer focuses on the central figures of the canvas that fortunately have survived. The cadaver’s extreme backward and forward extension in pictorial space and the placement of the dissecting table against the outermost front of the picture plane, persuade, as in the Mantegna, that the feet of the deceased extend into real space beyond the picture frame. The viewer is thus present in the image and participates in the event.

Surely this painting is not diminished.

Little Things Mean a Lot

Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen, Crucifixion, 1507,
oil on panel, 37 ½ x 30 ¼ in. (95.3 x 76.8 cm),
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Looking at the Crucifixion panel by Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I was reminded of the 1950’s popular song title, “Little Things Mean a Lot”.

Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen (ca. 1472-1533) was a Netherlandish painter and designer of woodcuts active in the early sixteenth century primarily in Amsterdam. He was a conservative artist. Although not an innovator, he was an able observer with an eye for details. His work has charm and lyricism.

The Metropolitan Museum Crucifixion is a crowded scene. Some fifteen figures, three on horseback, fill the foreground. Soldiers hold their weapons, finely dressed aristocrats stare, the Apostle John helps the fallen Virgin Mary, and Mary Magdalene kneels in prayer before the cross.

Many of those depicted are fashionably garbed as if the narrative gave the painter an opportunity to describe the riches of his contemporaries. The viewer gets caught up with the story – the crucifixion of Jesus and the reactions of those present.



















Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen, Detail of Crucifixion, 1507,
oil on panel, 37 ½ x 30 ¼ in. (95.3 x 76.8 cm),
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York



















Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen, Detail of Crucifixion, 1507,
oil on panel, 37 ½ x 30 ¼ in. (95.3 x 76.8 cm),
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Four relatively small angels, three of which are levitating about Jesus’s upper wounds, seem minor players in this drama. But wait. What are they doing? The angels are filling their chalices with the blood emanating from Jesus’s wounds. By their action, the central doctrine of Catholicism comes into focus – the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. The angels’s chalices that hold the blood allude to the chalice that contains the wine at Catholic Mass. Believers partake in the body and blood of Christ through the consecrated bread and wine and thus share in the sacrifice of the cross. These lovely angels that may seem insignificant are not so.


















Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen, Calvary,
c. 1507-10, oil (?) on panel, 40.9 x 34.6 in. (104 x 88 cm),
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

I draw your attention to another crucifixion by Jacob Cornelisz in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. This work, entitled Calvary, includes in the background depictions of events that occurred before the crucifixion. The four chalice-holding angels can easily be lost among the forty-plus other characters. Their presence, however, is important.



















Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen, The Adoration of the Christ Child,
c. 1515, oil on panel, 38 3/16 x 30 1/6 in. (97 x 74.9 cm),
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago,

The Art Institute of Chicago’s The Adoration of the Christ Child, attributed to Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen and Workshop, offers a happy encounter.















Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen, Detail of The Adoration of the Christ Child,
c. 1515, oil on panel, 38 3/16 x 30 1/6 in. (97 x 74.9 cm),
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

The individuated actions of the numerous music-making cherubs exhibit uninhibited joy. You can almost hear this painting!














Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen, Detail of The Adoration of the Christ Child,
c. 1515, oil on panel, 38 3/16 x 30 1/6 in. (97 x 74.9 cm),
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

There is much going on around the main event but don’t omit a look at the small distant figures that set the scene for the Adoration. These diminutive beings matter.

Happy New Year

Henri Matisse, Dance (I), early 1909, oil on canvas,
8 6 1/2 x 12 9 1/2 in. (259.7 x 390.1 cm),
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Wishing you a joyous 2010.

A Colorful Awakening

Homo sapiens sapiens, 2005
Audio-video installation, video still

Sometimes an experience out of the ordinary awakens our senses. An example would be an amuse-bouche eaten at the onset of a meal which stimulates the palate and leads to the intensification of taste. Similarly a visual sight or sights can alert the mind to the pleasures of seeing. Such was the case for me.

It was the stimuli of works by an audio-video installation artist and the viewing of an indigenous art show that aroused my sensitivity to colors.

First, a little background. This seemed to be the year for the Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist. A major show at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, “Pour Your Body Out (7354 Cubic Meters)”, took place from November 2008 through February 2009. From September to December, Rist’s audio-video installations filled the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in Helsinki, Finland. Then in October, exhibits of her work opened at the Palace of Arts and the Museum of Image and Sound in São Paulo, Brazil.

I have been an admirer of Rist since her exhibit at Art Basil in 1994. She is a complex artist whose work touches on many themes including gender, sensuality, and sex. Yet, it is her heightened use of color that elicits the strongest response.

In an article about Rist, The New York Times Magazine, November 15, 2009, the artist was quoted talking about the yellow of a piece of lemon on the rim of her drinking glass. She explained that if an artist wished to depict that color yellow in film or photography, it would not be the same – it would be less yellow. This is something she does not want to happen in her work – Rist does not want the yellow to appear less so.



















Pour Your Body Out (7354 Cubic Meters), 2008,
Multichannel audio-video installation,
Installation view, Museum of Modern Art, New York

Thus, her multimedia installations are filled with intense color-saturated imagery. She tries to capture the “real” color of actual things such as the rich red of a ripe apple or the pure blue of a clear sky. When I emerge into light from the darkness of watching one of her videos, the natural hues of objects appear more vivid, more penetrating. The world seems to have gone from black and white to Technicolor. Her work activates my color awareness.














Featherworks, Beauty and Knowledge Exhibit,
3 October to 29 November 2009,
Caixa Cultural São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

A show of indigenous featherwork that took place at the Caixa Cultural São Paulo in São Paulo, Brazil had a similar impact. The exhibit, “Beauty and Knowledge”, was organized by the Museum of Archeology and Ethnology of the University of São Paulo as part of the museum’s 20th anniversary celebrations. This was a unique opportunity to see some ninety rarely displayed feather and fluff artifacts.


















Featherwork, Beauty and Knowledge Exhibit,
3 October to 29 November 2009,
Caixa Cultural São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

The gallery was surprisingly well lit given the light-sensitive material on view and the varied featherworks produced a dazzling spectacle of colors. Again, I was alerted to nature’s intense hues. I thought about the inability of photography, paint, video or film to capture such coloration.

When I left and walked out onto the city streets, the world seemed brighter and more vibrant. My visual palette had once again been stimulated. My responsiveness to colors awakened.

This can happen to you. Continue to look.