Madame Moitessier by Ingres: Art through Words National Gallery London

27^th October 2012

The subject of October’s Art through Words was the portrait of Madame Moitessier by Ingres.  Sara Dibb led the session assisted by Stephen Barrett.

 

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/calendar/art-through-words-27-october-2012

In January, Sara had drawn a perspective tactile diagram of Paris By Night by Pissarro and repeated the idea with a tactile reproduction of the painting of Madame Moitessier.  This seemed to be a little simpler and found total appreciation with all the visually impaired visitors for whom such large scale tactile representations are a new experience.  Some, like me, are familiar with the thermoform representations which are smaller and require some familiarisation with language of the senses in the artwork.    

 

Tactile reproduction of Ingres's portrait of Madame Moitessier

 

 

Sara introduced the painting with the reproduction and then introduced her tactile version.  Tracking the human body is familiar enough but Sara’s tactile version neatly illustrates the odd reflection in a mirror of the sitter.  (I was beginning to get the mirror touch or even mirror neurons references as a witty remark but kept quiet.)

Ingres had taken a long time to finish this picture and had run off another portrait in between.  The sitter has made an unusual gesture with her right hand in jabbing her pointing finger into her head, thumb hidden with remaining fingers pointing downwards.  One of us suggested that Victoria Beckham (Posh Spice) used this pose.  I tried to copy the gesture.  She is abslument couvert de beaucoup de bling!

Following an example of Empress Eugenie, the dress is of Lyons silk and has printed (not embroidered) patterns.  On the left there is one of those oriental fans (table tennis bats) which I noted in the paintings on show in the Impression Collection of Clark at the RA.  (http://profwhitestick.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/royal-academy-from-paris-taste-for.html)  The tactile diagram allowed us to follow the detail of the picture and we were able to locate the expanded pieces with references to “landmarks”

As well as describing the picture, Sara also told us about its history and how it came into the National Gallery by Sir Kenneth Clark (Civilisation) in 1936.   There is also an interesting story about the original frame for the picture which had become separated and later reunited when on show in the National Gallery.  The National Gallery is having a photographic exhibition and a similar pose of someone in a Mary Quant outfit is positioned next to the Ingres. 

Our walk through the gallery took us past the Turner Temeraire picture which I recognised, though on the way back to the Sainsbury Wing I thought I could detect a Cuyp landscape only for Stephen to say that it was by Claude. At least I was in the right region with an Italianate landscape. 

Sara had been wearing a printed top much in the fashion of Madame Moitessier.  I had been sitting next to Sara, but being polite had not commented on it until Sara slipped it into the discussion around the picture and photograph discussion. 

Many thanks to Sara for getting this tactile diagram prepared for us and to Stephen for assisting us through the busy galleries.

Postscript:

There are continued possibilities to study this picture in the comfort of one’s home.  A photo has been taken of the tactile diagram of the picture with the reproduction of the Ingres portrait.  I can be noted touching the reflection of the cheek of Madame.

 

 

Reflections on the cheek of Madame Moitessier

 

Camille Pissarro: Paris at Night - tactile representation of Impressionist art

The National Gallery’s Art through Words series opened 2012 with a painting by the Impressionist Camille Pissarro of  a Parisian street scene at night and during the rain. 

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/camille-pissarro-the-boulevard-montmartre-at-night 

An Impressionist painting in the dark sounds a tall order for people of the visually impaired community, but the National Gallery team met the challenge.  There were around a dozen visually impaired people and with companions that made over 20 people altogether.  The speakers/describers were Sara and Linda. 

Sara introduced Pissarro with dates and background.  Pissarro was active politically and would also rent a room at the Hotel Rusie in Paris and do a series of paintings of street scenes, of which this was one. The painting is of a convenient domestic size being 22 inch by 26 and is in oil.  You can read about Pissarro at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camille_Pissarro .

Sara had made a sketch of the painting which, with software and special paper, had been transformed into an A3 sized tactile drawing of the painting, with black and white contrast.  I found it difficult to disassociate a map from a painting at first. Sara then went through perspective lines. I was still having difficulty in getting the lines from my fingers to imprint the lines of the buildings and the lines of cabs in a busy street scene.  Eventually the penny dropped.  At this point we were given an A3 reproduction of the painting. 

The painting is very dark (it is Paris at night after all!) and reminded me of those postcards one could buy all over the world titled “x at Night”.  The lines of the building could be made out and there was a reference point in the form of a street lamp.  Electric lighting had been introduced in Paris but was still relatively new  when this painting was made. Pissarro was an Impressionist so the figures for people and other forms are suggested rather than drawn.  In my mind I still had the idea of a drawing and a plan rather than a painting. This may explain the questions I was asking about the height of the buildings and on which floor of the hotel Pissarro had painted the view. 

Pissarro has a lamp post with the light shining in a ‘figure foreground relation’,  which was painted giving the impression of a lit lamp and as part of a row of lamps.  These lamps give another perspective line.  In Sara’s tactile drawing, the lamp post is a key to the navigation of the painting itself, as is the intersection of the diagonal perspective lines based on a line of carriages on the bottom right hand diagonal, which continues through the vanishing point to the skyline on the top left.  The other diagonal line going from bottom left to top right is mainly an awning line going through the vanishing point to the skyline to the right. 

I find it easier to prop the tactile drawing on a wall and ‘read’ it with my fingers as one would read a tube map, for example, on the underground by following a specified underground line to give an indication of the route. 

One of the participants, with limited vision, thought that the tactile drawing had encouraged her to give the actual painting a second chance whereas the reproduction was too dark to discern much.  Another thought the perspective lines helped her to ‘frame’ the picture.  I was still a little confused and switched from ‘looking’ down on the painting to looking at the painting held vertically in my hand.  While I am quite happy painting with the canvas flat on a table I still ‘look’ at a painting as I would a book that is at an angle or in a vertical plane. So it was with the tactile drawing, which I now held in my left hand and touched the lines and features in my right.

We discussed the painting and the background of Paris which had been remodelled with the Hausmann designs and the wide boulevards which replaced the narrower streets. Topics such as the Paris Commune, cars and Hansom cabs, Franco Prussian War, Pissarro and conscription, the Dreyfuss Affair and the coming of electric lighting to both Paris and London were also raised.

The treat of these moments is when we move on through the National Gallery to the painting itself.  It looked a lot brighter than the reproduction suggested and the perspective lines were quite clear in my mind. Although we had been given close ups of the painting, no figures could be discerned apart from blobs of paint, which is what it is.  In passing this painting I would have recognised it and as Sara said it would look good above a mantelpiece.

Many thanks to Sara and Linda at the National Gallery for a lot of research and being able to answer all the questions which arose during the discussion. 

Postscript

On returning from the National Gallery I was invited to “watch” a TV programme about painting and the night.  This would have been just as good as the radio as all the subjects were either done in the dark or were about the “dark” The presenter Waldemar Januszczak was interesting though the subjects were tangential in that the subject continually changed and tended to religiosity. Nevertheless it was informative about candle light, gas light and even starlight.  I learned about the coming of gas and gas lighting in Arles and Van Gogh painting ‘Night Café. There were also some weird photographs about steam locomotives so I was entirely transfixed about that subject.  Not having a television I appreciated this programme though it added little to my knowledge on Paris by Night. The programme ended with the Rolling Stones ‘Paint it Black’ and this seems a suitable point to close.

Also, the Guardian published an article on a pavement artist who draws.  I find this aspect of street art fascinating and made a comment in the section in the Guardian.  This is the link to the paper's discussion with comments on perspective and perspective lines in drawing and painting: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/feb/01/3d-street-art  It fits in rather nicely with street scenes and my comments seemed to have been appreciated by late night Guardian bloggers.