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)

Corot: Peasants under the Trees at Dawn National Gallery Art through Words

Corot’s landscape ‘Peasants under the Trees at Dawn’ was the February painting to be discussed at the Saturday morning Art through Words event and which was attended by about 20 people.  Viyki Turnbull was our describer with Caroline Smith guiding us to the painting in the gallery.  There are usually 2 or 3 people to advise on various topics in the art world and, as I commented on the guest post by Linda Bolton of the National Gallery, directions are given to “point” in the next direction.  This is something which seems to be built into the DNA of the National Gallery. 

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/calendar/art-through-words-25-february-2012

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/jean-baptiste-camille-corot-peasants-under-the-trees-at-dawn

If you are on your own, the staff are very helpful. I am beginning to recognise some of the regulars at this event and the minutes spent at the Sainsbury Wing waiting area is a good chance to exchange information on many activities for the visually impaired including practical transport tips.  A couple from Wolverhampton were there again as was the usual North London contingent including me.  We even had a few from South of the River Thames, though no one admitted to coming from Croydon.

Corot painted this landscape between 1840 and 1845.  The setting is near Lormes in the Morvan district to the west of Dijon in France and the landscape illustrates a rather poor agricultural area with an almost limestone dry soil and trees with very gnarled trunks and roots. I am familiar with some of the countryside around Dijon and Beaune having enjoyed the company of Meursault and Volnay among others.  The peasants seem to be coppicing wood and Viyki mentioned that Corot used to buy charcoal in the area. 

The timing of the painting was before the revolutionary period of 1848 which struck many parts of mainland Europe.  (One of the visitors mentioned that many French painters and even authors had gone into exile in Italy during times of political upheaval and turmoil in France and that artists such as Claude Lorrain were at their most prolific in exile.) 

I had taken my guide to the Hockney ‘A Bigger Picture’ on show at the Royal Academy.  Given that the Hockney landscapes are huge, these paintings by Corot are quite small.  The Peasants under the Trees at Dawn is about A3 in real life so the copy we had was life size.  Another comment was made about government or state approval in France for large paintings being required or commissioned so that many artists had to sell into the growing middle class market. 

One could even describe this market as Pret a Porter. Corot had a reasonable income from his parents.  His father was a wig maker and his mother a milliner.  The family went into the hat trade.  In this background Corot had financial security and did not have to live on the bread line. Corot was prolific with 3000 works.  Coincidentally the Metropolitan Opera was broadcasting Ernani by Verdi which was premiered in 1844 and was based on a play by Victor Hugo, himself no stranger to political exile. 

Having introduced the painting Viyki set the main points of the painting before working on the geometry.  Many of us have very poor vision with limited shape and colour definition.  The geometry helps us to understand where an object is and how it (and its shadow) are drawn.  The painting is set at dawn and Viyki explained ‘raking light’ and ‘contr-jour’  The rising sun casts very long shadows and this has strange effects on the painting.  For example there is a large dark area in the painting which is the shadow of a goose which is almost a fraction of the shadow and is itself quite light and bright.  Other objects which seemed to be illuminated by the sun were a horse and some boulders.  We were not sure about the horse.  Was it a mane or a tail that was bright and how was the horse drinking from the trough. 

Some of us could not see the horse and I agreed with one other who had in fact thought that the boulders were sheep.  The peasant couple stand by a tree which is an inverted triangle covering a large area above the horizon and a smaller reflected triangle showing a root system.  There are buildings which appear in subdued mauve colours and have the odd spot of direct light, often in a stunning lead white or even a golden colour which could be a thatched roof someone thought.   The couple is shown with the woman standing on the right of the off centre tree.  The man is sitting.  There is a red piece of colour on the woman’s hat and someone commented that Constable used this technique.

Viyki described the colours and they are mainly green for the land and foliage and a chrome green was popular.  Dark greens are not my strong point and as the greenery was described Viyki dropped a bombshell: Corot painted in the sky after he had drawn and painted in the trees with foliage.  The sky is a mix of cobalt blue and lead white.  We wondered about the practicalities of painting the sky around the greenery when to us it would have been easier to paint the sky and then put the trees on top.    We still had a mystery to solve.  There is a rather smart woman lurking at dawn and what was she up to?  Viyki explained this woman as a bit of “staffage”.  

At this time it was the moment to go and view the painting which is in a room about as far as it is possible to go in the National Gallery.  This is the moment which, for me is the best part.  We stroll in groups and those on their own can tag on or borrow an arm or stay within sound by talking.  I strolled with Viyki and by the time we got to the gallery, Caroline was standing in the group and one of the visitors was discussing glaciation and its effect on the landscape especially in the shape of valleys and boulders or erratics. 

As I write this up, with no notes or recording, Ernani is finishing and BBCRadio4 is doing an Archive Hour on ‘Ways of Seeing’ by John Berger in 1972.  The National Gallery are keen to ask what we see and at no time is there an “imposed” interpretation.  With contemporary art there has to be some impression of how the background of the artist and specific context can influence what is seen.  I have learned from the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery that many of those attending the talks have a hinterland which they can share. 

There are a few scientists who go to the art talks.  Over the talk we had discussed Louis Philippe, patronage of the arts, agriculture pigments and art in Europe.  We were quite a large group in a small room with a few other Corots on show.  I had first come across Corot in Paris in 1975 when the Orangerie of the Tuileries by the Louvre had a major exhibition of landscapes on show.  I had been delighted by these paintings and this was at a time when one raced through a major art gallery in an hour.  That exhibition of Corot has remained with me and though I can’t make much of the print I can still envisage the landscape as some of the detail is imprinted in my mind.  The names of the colours and pigments tune in with my background and I mentioned to Viyki that I had bought a small painting directly from an artist on the strength of the answer to the question “What colour would you call that? The answer came back Alizarin”.  I bought it on hearing the name of an organic pigment which is often known as red madder.  (The Arts sector has absorbed quite a lot of chemical techniques and even embraced spectrometry in checking dates, authenticity and preservation.)

In the guest blogpost of Linda Bolton, Linda mentioned the poster which we take away from Art through Words  as a souvenir or a relic from a pilgrimage.  Thus when I got some postcards in the shop the assistant who helped me find the Corot postcards suggested that as my hands were full with crutch and cane I could do with a smart NG paper carrier bag with string handles to loop round the crutch grip.  That is observation, kindness and attention. (Physiotherapists take note!)

Thanks as always to the National Gallery.

PS The Roman Campagna, with the Claudian Aqueduct by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, 1796-1975
Landscape at Arleux-du-Nord, 1871-4 by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, 1796-1975

An exhbition has just opened at the National Gallery titled "Turner Inspired in the light of Claude" and runs from 14 March to 5 June.  More information is available at: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/turner-inspired