Edvard Munch – Graphic works from the Gundersen- Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art Collection

2^nd September 2012

This exhibition has a selection of prints of Edvard Munch.  This was on show in Modern Two of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in the Dean Gallery.  The exhibition is over several rooms and the order of the prints is not always obvious.  There was a bit of a treasure hunt scene when we and others could not find a couple of numbers.  http://www.nationalgalleries.org/whatson/exhibitions/edvard-munch/

I had been to Tate Modern and had visited the “final” forms of some of these works and could recognise the scenes with some of the prints. (see post http://profwhitestick.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/edvard-munch-modern-eye-tate-modern.html )

Munch had made his first solo show in the UK in Edinburgh in 1931 and there is an area of the exhibition with some material relating to the 1931 show.  His influence on other painters is noted and I liked the Gillies’s Ardnamurchan.  Some of the prints were sharper than others. 

The gallery has an A3 sheet printed on 2 sides with a lot of technical details about graphic prints and techniques.  A background in these terms is useful to know and terms such as lithograph and woodcut are clearly explained.  It was time well spent in having these terms read out to me as we went round. 

There is a print of The Scream.  I had seen the “original” in London before I lost my sight.  The other prints were more or less covered in the Tate Modern exhibition regarding the rather sombre subject matter.  Munch’s series and re-workings of The Sick Child, Madonna, Kiss can be recognised.  In some cases the images are sharper depending on print and colours employed.  Munch was always drawing a portrait of himself and I could recognise him here too.  The On the Bridge series was fun to find. Some others had been mixed up with his two versions.  I had said there is one view of the Bridge with 3 coats and one with 4.  I ought to have counted the hats.

My notes which were taken by my companion are as follows:

No. 13

Head by Head, 1905

Two faces merging

No. 17

Jealousy I, 1896

Jealousy II, 1896

No. 26

The Scream, 1895

Lithograph on paper

Handcoloured by artist

William Gillies Morar, 1931

In Ardnamurchan, c1936

http://www.nationalgalleries.org/collection/artists-a-z/G/3433/artist_name/Sir%20William%20Gillies/record_id/4698

No. 40

Moonlight I 1896

No. 52

On the Bridge 1912-13

Counted 5 hats

No. 53

The Girls on the Bridge, 1918

Could make out 3 girls

A limited number of postcards were on sale.

Young Girls on a Bridge, c1901

Woodcut

Two People, The Lonely Ones, c1899

Woodcut

Lovers

Orientation:

Modern Two is located across Belford Road from Modern One.  If feeling energetic the pair of galleries are within walking distance from the West End of Edinburgh.  Last year we walked from Charlotte Square and visited Dean Village on the way back.  There is a trail from the Belford Road Bridge down to the Water of Leith.  Take care on the descent and ascent.  There is a waterfall or rapids near the Dean Village and the whole river can be walked making an interesting trip combining the galleries. 

Modern Two has access to the upper floor via a lift from the rear of the bookshop.  There is also a café on the Ground Floor.  The stairwells are interesting if not a bit institutional and reminded me of those in the Courtauld Gallery in Somerset House in London. 

More information on the Gundersen Collection can be found on: http://gundersencollection.com/

Van Gogh to Kandinsky:Symbolist Landscape in Europe 1880-1910, Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

***Update 19/9/2012

During my stay in Edinburgh I checked out many muffins in order to arrange them in a way that would match Monet's Haystacks in the Symbolist Landscapes exhibition.  Using a print of the Haystacks as a backdrop, a plate of two muffins was arranged in front and photographed.  This was sent to the National Galleries of Scotland who tweeted it out as below.
 

National Galleries ‏@NatGalleriesSco

Thanks @ProfWhitestick for his Monet's Muffins #SymbolistLandscape photo! Not to mention best Haystack Muffin research! pic.twitter.com/bWQkF4MW

***end of update

 

30th July, 2012

This is a wonderful exhibition of Symbolist Landscapes which was the fashion after the Impressionism phase at the turn of the 19^th Century and early 20^th Century. (http://www.nationalgalleries.org/whatson/exhibitions/van-gogh-to-kandinsky)  

Many classical themes are interwoven into landscapes and while not as clear as Claude they are more accessible in the main from some of the Turner blurs which I can no longer enjoy (http://profwhitestick.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/turner-inspired-in-light-of-claude.html)

Symbolist Landscape exhibition

National Gallery of Scotland

Edinburgh

This exhibition is housed in the roomy galleries of the National Galleries of Scotland in the Mound Complex (Royal Scottish Academy Building adjacent to the Tramlines. For access I climbed the steps and was greeted by a friendly guard who suggested leaving a backpack (full of books from the new Portrait Gallery in Queen St ) in lockers.  The exhibition staff were very helpful and when asked about facilities for visually impaired visitors said there was no audio headset facility at all though there were Tablet driven headsets posts in the rooms with audio input.  (I know one friend who would dread taking his sighted relatives/friends to this one), there had been an event early in the exhibition for visually impaired and if I intended to go to more exhibitions I could get a culture vulture package for 4 ticketed exhibitions.  I signed up and will be going to the other three which are:

Expanding Horizons: Giovanni Battista Lusieri and the Panoramic Landscape

Scottish National Gallery

Picasso and Modern British Art

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern One)

Edvard Munch: Graphic Works from the Gundersen Collection

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern Two)

The pictures are varied in size and the artists include many better known for their other works.  This includes Monet, Van Gogh, Munch, Kandinsky, Mondrian, Whistler, Gaugin, Hammershoi and Strindberg.

We wandered around the exhibition and there was much to enjoy.  My companion, who enjoys Impressionism and Post Impressionism, was more animated and rather than pointing out the symbols from the picture labels asked me what I could see.  Monets Muffins may be a highlight of the trip. In this way I was asked what was up, down, left and right and I also found that using anti glare sunglasses helped me in picking up perspective lines in landscapes and town scenes, especially in Copenhagen (Hammershoi) and in Bruges. 

I did not have a pigment analyst to hand but the white pigments are really bright.  Lead White gives a buttery white but this was more of a titanium dioxide white.  In fact the helpful assistant in the shop asked me about the brightness of the exhibition as a whole. 

My sunglasses were on and off.  With the sunglasses I could make out the geometry and the removal allowed me to detect some of the colours.  This technique worked particularly well with Kandinsky’s Church in Murnau and a couple of Van Goghs (The Sower,  and Wheatfield with Reapers)

The Scandinavian input was varied with some Finnish artists working in their myths into landscapes of forests and lakes.  The Hammershoi landscape in Zeeland was familiar as I had driven my father round Zeeland, Funen, Langeland and other islands using ferries and the new bridge connecting Odense with Copenhagen via the Great Belt.  At the National Gallery in London we covered one of Hammershoi’s Interior pictures. 

The notes below were made from the picture labels which were written down by my companion with some remarks which I have been retained.  Monet’s hay stacks look like muffins which I enjoy with a coffee.  My companion mentioned that large print lists were in each room on the benches with the catalogues.  We did not try the audio system and not being able to resist touching a touchscreen discovered that the exchange of letters could be heard between Vincent van Gogh and his brother Theo.

Prof Whitestick between Van Gogh and Kandinsky

Edinburgh

Clytie c1892

Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830-96)

Leighton House, London

Quite bright, telegraph pole in bottom right hand corner

Reminds me of The Cherry Orchard

Tomyris and Cyrus c 1885

Gustave Moreau (1826-1898)

Terror Antiquus 1908

Leon Bakst

State Russian Museum, St Petersburg

Huge painting, figure of woman in bottom centre, bolt of lightning

Woman and a White Horse 1903

Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Trees, three figures, one a woman on a horse

Nocturne with Cypresses 1896

Henri-Edmond Cross

Association des Amis du Petit Palais, Geneva

Diagnol lines (sails), cypress trees

The Lake, Evening c1910

Lucien Levy-Dhurmer (1865-1953)

Lucile Audouy and Galerie Elistir Paris

Horizontal lines half way, very vivid reflection of moonlight

Winter Night, c1900

Edvard Munch

Kunsthaus, Zurich

Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau - Rising above a sea of mist, 1908

Ferdinand Hodler

Musee Jenisch, Vevey

Snow-capped mountains, very very bright. I wondered if this had been painted from Murren in the Interlaken area and it had been based across the valley in Wengen/Grindelwald.  I skied this area mid 1970s.

Grain stacks/Hay stacks, Snow Effect 1891

Claude Monet

Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Pair of Large (name of coffee chain) muffins

Tuesday’s Wood 1893

Vilhelm Hammershoi

Ordupgaard, Copenhagen

Flat, big Scandinavian sky

The Lac d’Amour, Bruges, 1904

Fernand Khnopff

The Quay, View of the Quai Long in Bruges, 1898

Henri Le Sidaner

Flemish houses with steep triangular gables, chimneys, canal/water

Amalienborg Square 1896

Vilhelm Hammershoi

Large painting

Can make out quite a lot: plinth, man on horse, railing round plinth, house, windows, roof etc

Royal Galleries, Ostend 1908

Leon Spilliaert

A Beauvais Square by Moonlight c1900

Henri Le Sidaner

The Horses of Neptune 1892

Walter Crane

Couldn’t make this one out at all, though there was plenty of swirls indicating waves and eventually I was persuaded that some parts of the painting were in fact legs of horses.

Man and Woman on the Beach 1907

Edvard Munch

Munch Museum Oslo

Merges faces, beach is at Asgardstrand

The Sower 1888

Vincent Van Gogh

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Vision of the Sermon (Jacob wrestling with the angel) 1888

Paul Gauguin

Women on the Cliffs, St Briac 1888

Emile Bernard

Wheatfield with Reapers 1889

Vincent van Gogh

See more with spectacles, very bright

Alpine Landscape 1894

August Strindberg

Painting of Dornach in Lower Austria

Melting Snow, Elgersburg 1906

Edvard Munch

Vonder Heydt Museum, Wuppertal

Woods near Oele 1908

Piet Mondrian

Gemeentemuseum, The Hague

Hockney moment, vertical and horizontal lines

Setting Sun, Sardine fishing, Opus 221 (Adagio) from the series The Sea: The Boats, Concarneau, 1891

Paul Signac

Murnau with Church II 1910

Wassily Kandinsky

Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven

Bavarian church with onion top

Very distorted landscape, bright red top right

Cossacks, 1910-11

Wassilky Kandinsky

Rainbow said to be inspired by Wagner’s Rheingold

Lake Thun and the Stockhorn Mountains 1910

Ferdinand Hodler

Mill near Domburg 1908

Piet Mondrian

Windmill, cut of triangle like lighthouse

Sea After Sunset 1909

Piet Mondrian

Beach at Heist 1891

Georges Lemmen

There is a gift and book shop at the end of the exhibition.  A very helpful assistant asked me how I found the exhibition.  I had found a postcard of the Kandinsky Cossacks but wanted the Murnau church.  We found the picture in a hardback Taschen book of Kandinsky, on sale. We discussed Kandinsky and Bauhaus and I mentioned my visit to the Bauhaus exhibition.   In the main bookshop  in The Mound, a book on Gauguin's Vision of the Sermon is available.  The book is called Vision of the Sermon - The Story Behind the Painting and is by Belinda Thomson. 

Postcards which I bought:

Lake Thun and the Stockhorn Mountains (1910) by Ferdinand Hodler

Oil on canvas, 83 x105.4 cm

GMA1523

Haystacks: Snow Effect by Claude Monet

Oil on canvas, 65 x 92 cm

NG2283

Cossacks (1910-1911) by Wassily Kandinsky

94.5 x 130 cm

Winter Night (c1900) by Edvard Munch

81 x 121 cm

The Sower (1888) by Vincent Van Gogh

73.5 x 93 cm

Book: Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) : A Revolution in Painting by Hajo Duchting

Other Prof Whitestick posts that might be of interest include:

on Hammershoi (http://profwhitestick.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/two-paintings-and-killing-of-sister.html)

on Picasso: http://profwhitestick.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/picasso-exhibition-tate-britain-13th.html

on Munch: http://profwhitestick.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/edvard-munch-modern-eye-tate-modern.html

on Bauhaus: http://profwhitestick.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/bauhaus-art-as-life-barbican-art.html

on Monet: http://profwhitestick.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/royal-academy-from-paris-taste-for.html

Footnote:

AA Gill reviewed A History of Art in Three Colours in the Culture magazine of this week’s Sunday Times (5-8-12).  Gill did not enthuse about the programme on the colour blue.  Gill mentions the absence of any discussion concerning the Blaue Reiter group which had been led by Kandinsky (and Franz Marc).  I am grateful to a friend who read out this review for me. 

Gill takes the presenter James Fox to task over his choice of colours – gold, blue and white – given that this exhibition in Edinburgh has some very vivid gold colouring in the Van Gogh sun and very brilliant white, I think the technical term of pigment as applied to paint may be more appropriate. 

In heraldry, pedants will refer to gold and silver as metals ‘Or’ and ‘Argent’ respectively.  Non metals are referred to as tinctures.  This is another case for a lead white - titanium white discussion.

Murnau Church - after Kandinsky

coloured magnetic wooden blocks on mild steel whiteboard

8 August 2012

(Prof Whitestick 'Grand Crew' collection)

Edvard Munch: The Modern Eye - Tate Modern, London

19^th July 2012

This exhibition is on show in Tate Modern until 14 October 2012. 

Munch ‘The Scream’ has often been in the news. Munch made several copies of this work and one came up for auction recently.  One of the Oslo paintings has been stolen more than once and this has only increased the Munch name to a much larger audience. 

Several years ago I was at a private view of a major Munch exhibition in the National Gallery.  The Scream was on show with much of Munch other works.  I still have the catalogue somewhere.  I was sighted at the time. 

I had visited Oslo in midsummer and in December when sighted and the contrast between the two seasons reminded me of the north of Scotland during the same periods.  Since I lost my sight, I had visited Oslo for a long weekend in the early summer, when the days were getting longer, though it was still rather cold on the Oslo fjord. 

Munch had a standard Scandinavian outlook if one believes in stereotypes.  Studying plays by Ibsen and Strindberg makes one dismiss some dark detective stories popular on TV just now as lightweight.  Munch had many problems over health, family and his failing eyesight.  I was particularly interested in this aspect.  Marcus Dickey Horley from Tate sent me the room guides and picture labels in advance and I could work out rooms of interest.  These centred on his reworking of paintings, self portraits, theatre work with Max Reinhardt for the Berlin Kammerspiele over Ibsen’s Ghosts and the eye drawings.

Room 1

This room had many small artworks, including self-portraits and photographs.  The photographic work is too small to make out much.  There is an old clip of a black & white film and a longer reel in a darker area.  Some works which I enjoyed and discussed were:

X42024  self-portrait

X42025  self- portrait

X41983  self-portrait

Room 2

This room is laid out with reworkings of paintings as if they were placed opposite.  Initially we zigzagged across the room to compare and contrast.  Eventually we followed the perimeter of the room. 

X41712  The Girls on a Bridge

X40573  The Girls on a Bridge

The Girls on a Bridge is a famous theme of Munch, with the colours of the dresses being almost discernable to me against the bridge and the background trees and shrubs.

X40572  The Sick Child

N05035  The Sick Child

The Sick Child is another theme of Munch, considering some of his close family died from tuberculosis.

X40571  Kiss on the Shore by Moonlight

X40566  Kiss on the Shore by Moonlight

X41982  Ashes

X41984  Ashes

X40585  Two Human Beings, the lonely ones

X41839  as above, cordoned off

Room 3

Very small pictures

Room 4

Munch had been experimenting with cameras and distortions of perspectives and as this section is called Optical Space, it was interesting to note how my peripheral vision picked up some of the lines.  One sensed the horses coming at one; the workers leaving en masse put one in the frame; and the The Yellow Log provoked a remark: “Ah, Hockney!” from both of us, much in the same manner as one would say: “Ah, Larkin!” whenever Hull University is mentioned.  (Ref. Alan Bennett and The History Boys)

X40626  Galloping Horse

X40623  Thorvald Lochen – angular

X40630  Red Virginia Creeper

X40945  Street in Asgardstrand – girl bottom centre

X40631  Murder on the Road – face at bottom

X40627  The Yellow Log

X40629  New Snow in the Avenue

X40624  Workers on Their Way Home

X40628  On the Operating Table

Room 5

This is a section on Stage.  I had been looking forward to this but found some of the background on the set design rather off putting and nothing like as pleasing as Picasso or even Hockney for that matter.  These are the paintings depicting the setting of Ibsen’s play Ghosts (which I haven’t seen performed on the stage itself). 

The rooms have odd angles making distorted cubes and a really unsettling wallpaper, which is a recurring theme showing some deterioration in Munch’s vision.  I sometimes get strange patterns when faced with old-fashioned anaglypta wall coverings, where the seams of the paper had been badly laid out producing strange lines.

X40670  Man and Woman by the Window with Potted Plants

X40583  Puberty

X40669  Man and Woman – cramped

X40672  The Artist and his Model

X40668  The Murdered

X40635  To the Sweet Young Girl

X40630  Jealousy

X42258  Death Room

Room 6

Weeping Woman -  5 of them!

X40678 is one of them

Also a sculpture

Room 10

X40705  The House is Burning

X40706  The Splitting of Faust

X40708  The Fight

X40707  The Fight

X40709  Uninvited Guests

X41966  Street Workers in the Snow – wire around

X40710  Sailors in the Snow

Room 7

Very small photos

Room 8

Starry Night is a well-known painting and I could make out the stars.  There is also a head in the lower part of the painting, though the body has a shadow projecting into the centre.  This is a very nice composition.

X40695  Man with a Sledge

X40696  The Sun

X40701  Kristian Schreiner Standing

X40699   Starry Night – head and shadow showing

X40693  Children in the Street

Room 12

X40733  Portrait in Bergen

X40734  The Night Wanderer

X40735  Self-portrait with Bottles

X40737  Self-portrait

X40738  Self-portrait between the Clock and the Bed

X40565  Self-portrait with the Spanish Flu

X42324  Man with Bronchitis

Room 11

This room has many ‘disturbing’ pictures of Munch ‘reflecting’ on his deteriorating vision after suffering a haemorrhage in his right eye in 1930.  The haemorrhage was in his good eye and thus increased the distortion, as he painted both himself and his eye in quite close detail. 

My friend found it rather disturbing watching me take a close interest in the paintings of Munch’s eyes.  This friend of mine has known me as a sighted person and probably thought my ‘seeing’ these pictures would be disturbing.   Munch has painted many extraneous lines which people with impaired vision sometimes get on good vision days and bad vision days.  These are distortions caused by the brain trying to interpret different information in good eye / worse eye conflict.

It would be interesting if Tate Modern, the RNIB and perhaps The Royal College of Ophthalmologists could organise a short workshop based on perceptions of vision.  Several ophthalmologists have voiced their own opinions on sight loss to me over the last 11 years and one sometimes gets the impression in some blind charities that they do not always appreciate the broad spectrums of sight loss and how it affects cognitive function.  Such a symposium may put art, medicine and the visually impaired on a better balance.  If you agree with this, lobby your eye clinic, art gallery and blind charity. 

X41989  Self-portrait with Wounded Eye

X40740  Disturbed Vision

X40747  Artist’s Injured Eye

X42276  Disturbed Vision

X40749  Artist’s Injured Eye

X40756  Artist’s Injured Eye

X40754  Artist’s Injured Eye

Conclusion

This is a very interesting, though disturbing, exhibition as it reflects many dark themes.  There is a lot to appreciate in this exhibition which has been “organised by the Centre Pompidou, Musee national d’art moderne, Paris in cooperation with the Munch Museum in Oslo and in association with Tate Modern, London.”

Postcards that I bought include:

The Girls on the Bridge 1927

Oil on canvas

New Snow in the Avenue 1906

Oil on canvas

Street in Asgardstrand 1901

Oil on canvas

The Yellow Log 1912

Oil on canvas

Starry Night 1922-4

Oil on canvas

Self-portrait 1895

Lithographic crayon, tusche and scraper

The original paintings are in the Munch-museet in Oslo.

Travel tip:

The Bank side exit from Blackfriars has lifts operating from both north and south tracks down to the ticket hall.  Though there is still construction work on the doubling of the Thameslink, access to the Embankment is straightforward and the Tate Bank side turbine hall can be reached after a short walk downstream, keeping the river on your left hand side.