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)

Royal Academy: From Paris – A Taste for Impressionism

18^th July

This exhibition at the Royal Academy is from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute’s collection of Impressionism paintings with some pre Impressionists such as Corot.  (http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/from-paris-a-taste-for-impressionism/)

The exhibition is themed round Still Life, Landscape, Genre Painting, Female Form, Portraiture and Orientalism.  The exhibition is on the Sackler Wing of Galleries level (2) and can be reached by lift (elevator).  My friend Stephen took me as he had been the day before and knew the type of painting that I could make out. 

On checking the audio desk I asked what audio descriptions were available.  Daria checked and gave me instructions for the 6 themed audio described pictures and told Stephen where to look out for them.  These are numbered on the audio set as 51 to 56.  I have prefixed the relevant paintings with VI 51-56; these are not the same as catalogue numbers.   Instructions on the operation are found on 555. 

I had found that in the Zoffany these audio descriptions are a guide to the dimensions, geometry of the painting and some shapes, colours and figures or landmarks.  This describes the content of the painting and the guide will lead on to other information.  The numbers of the contextual information can also be heard if a friend tells you the number. 

For example I listened to VI #51 which was a description of some roses in a glass vase by Manet.  I mentioned to Stephen that there was not a wasted adjective in the description and that I knew that the leaves had not been cut from the rose stems in the transparent vase.  I could not see this detail though could make out the vase and roses themselves.    There are many still life compositions and some of them were quite clearly lined, for example a dish of apples forming a pyramid above a horizontal line formed by a table. 

Landscape:

There are some very beautiful Corot landscapes and I liked them all.  His trees and skylines have been noted before (http://profwhitestick.blogspot.com/2012/02/corot-peasants-under-trees-at-dawn.html) The cityscape of Rome with the view of St Peters on the left and Castel Sant’Angelo on the right had been painted many years after Corot had visited Rome.  Corot had painted with new (at the time) oil paints in tubes in the open air.  (I had noticed a sketch of a view of Rome at the Courtauld Gallery on 12^th July)

VI #52 Landscape by Sisley (The first Sisley I have understood since I lost my sight) Sisley landscapes have been difficult for me and I had more or less accepted that it was impossible for me to make out much.  With a close listen and another phial of eyedrops I could make out much more. 

VI #53  A beautiful picture of the cliffs at Etretat by Monet.   I have heard these cliffs described in novels before (Jonathon Coe’s Closing the Circle).  The coastline is dimly familiar from the past on sailing by this on a ferryboat/ship.  The scene is of a cliff with much erosion leaving an arch and an offshore stack.  Resembles the Old Man of Hoy, Orkney but less dramatic.  The colours are striking and the lines quite clear.

This exhibition was a real delight and I bought the catalogue and a selection of postcards at the end of the visit.  Stephen and I had lunch at the gallery.  Postcards bought include:

The Cliffs at Etretat by Claude Money

Moss Roses in a Vase by Edouard Manet

Castel Sant’Angelo, Rome by Camille Corot

Bathers of the Borromean Isles by Camille Corot

Portrait of Madame Monet by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Prof Whitestick outside Royal Academy

showing catalogue for "From Paris - a taste for Impressionism"

behind is a banner for the exhibition

The following are notes which Stephen took down and a sighted friend deciphered and typed up.  We both crosschecked the titles and artists.  In contrast, the above three descriptions of paintings were from my memory.  This will illustrate how an image can remain in memory after a description has been made.  Also, in checking the following notes, the PDF guide, which can be downloaded from the Royal Academy website, can be useful in checking captions.  I am grateful to Kate Horbury from Access and Learning at the Royal Academy for alerting me that the Clarke exhibition guides had just gone up on the RA website.  http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/learning/access-and-communities/large-print-gallery-guides-and-labels,1420,AR.html.

Clark at RA

#65

Renoir

Apples in a Dish 1883

#32

Henri Fantin-Latour

Roses in a Bowl and a Dish

Table on diagonal, full double roses very delicately painted

#57

Renoir

Peonies 1880

Flowers vigorously painted and much less detail than previous roses

#31

Manet

Moss Roses in a Vase

VI #51

Clear description: dimensions, colours, content, no wasted adjective, no music, context given #1 (audio channel)

Landscape

#3

Camille Corot

Road by the Water

#1

Camille Corot

Castel Sant’Angelo, Rome

#6

Constant Troyon

Gooseherd 1850-55

#15

Claude Monet

Spring in Giverny 1890

Very ‘high key’ use of colour with subtle contrast, difficult to see

#25

Camille Pissarro

Saint-Charles, Eragny 1891

#19

Alfred Sisley

Banks of the Seine at By

VI #52

Avenue of Trees described, water + boat, geometry and dimensions.  First Sisley I have ever understood.

#13

Claude Monet

The Cliffs at Etretat

VI #53

Rock structures + beach + water, sky, lighting, reminds me of Caithness/Orkney

Old Many of Hoy

#16

Gustave Caillebotte

The Seine at Argenteuil 1892

#23 & #26

Pissarro

Industrial + boat scenes

I really like these Pissarro paintings.  I admired one of his paintings of a steam engine in Dulwich which I saw at the Courtauld a few days before.

Genre Scenes

#44

Giovanni Boldini

Crossing the Street

Carriage with driver, visible woman, lifting skirt, street scene Paris, very nice

#45

another Boldini painting

#37

Degas

Horses

#36

Degas

Dancers in the Classroom, 1880

Reminds me of National Gallery Metamorphosis

#56

Renoir

A Box at the Theatre, 1880

Audio context points out that top right x-ray shows man observing, subsequently painted over.  I want it!  Music score in hand

#53

Renoir

Girl with a Fan

These fans were Japanese and appear to be table tennis bats!  They appear in other paintings as these fans were particularly fashionable at the time.

#72

Pierre Bonnard

Women with a Dog

Check tablecloth (dress), middle right profile of woman (dog), 2 real women above, Japanese influence, flat pattern

(In trying to demystify the above notes, the woman’s dress is of a plaid tartan type and was fashionable in Paris at the time.  Queen Victoria had also made some Scottish patterns fashionable.  The profile of the dog had appeared to me to be a profile of a woman sitting at a table, whereas in reality the tablecloth was a dress and it was a dog who was reaching up to the lap of a woman.  This illustrates how first impressions can really lead one astray!)

#49

Renoir

Portrait of Madame Monet, 1874

Top to bottom triangle

Body and dress top left

Corner table tennis bat fans

VI #54

Flower in hair and foot on footstool

(I couldn’t see this, but learnt this from the audio description.  Even Stephen thought it may have been a ribbon rather than a flower.)

The Female Figure

#41

William-Adolphe Bouguereau

Seated Nude

VI #55

White body + dark background, curved back, arms clasping knees, looks like a giant ampersand.

Portraits

#34

Degas

Self portrait, 1857-8

#47

Renoir

Self-portrait, c1875

#67

Renoir

Self-portrait, 1899

#40

Jean-Leon Gerome

The Snake Charmer

VI #56

Music Prelude a l’apres-midi d’un faune by Debussy

Other reality

This is an example of Orientalism gone mad.  The artist took bits of Istabul, bits of North Africa and let his imagination go wild.  This painting was apparently a favourite of the Clarke family and had been in the family’s possession for a long time.  I didn’t like it, but I’ve never liked scenes from the highlands of Scotland painted by some Victorians around the same time.

You can listen to curator Richard Rand discussing some of the works on display:

http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/ra-magazine/blog/video-from-paris-a-taste-of-impressionism-paintings-from-the-clark,249,BAR.html

ProfWhitestick‏@ProfWhitestick

@RoyalAcademy With a detailed audio description of the Manet Roses in glass vase I could make out so much more. I can smell them.

AntennaInternational‏@AntennaIntl

@ProfWhitestick We are pleased that the audio guide for "From Paris A Taste of Impressionism" exhibition @royalacademy was useful!

ProfWhitestick‏@ProfWhitestick

@antennaintl @royalacademy In my case I could smell Manet's roses and the Renoir descriptions were good.

Royal Academy‏@royalacademy

@profwhitestick We're delighted that the @AntennaIntl audio guide brought #RAFromParis to life for you!

ArtWord‏@ArtWordMari

Fabulous! RT @ProfWhitestick: With a detailed audio description of the Manet Roses in Vase I could make out so much more. I can smell them."