I enjoy spending a little more time with the pieces that stand out to me at a museum visit. Especially when I’m less familiar with the artists.
Our feet were sore by this time. So we missed out on a few parts of the museum, but we’ll come back!
1. Lyonel Feininger
This piece really jumped out in the collection. My photos, per usual, can’t do it justice. (Image links go to the official museum website, though.)
Cubist faces and a juttering sky against a visceral yellow – what’s not to like? There are also some fantastic hats.
Feininger, a German-American, got around. He took part in Berlin Secession exhibitions, joined many German Expressionism groups, and became head of the Bauhaus Print Workshop from 1919 to 1925. One of his works even became the front of the founding manifesto.
2. These Polar Bears
John Macallan Swan, an English artist, was known for his animal portraits, particularly of feline subjects. He also created some famous bronze sculptures of animals.
Polar bears elicit a certain sadness today. But this trio of a bear and cubs look like they own the joint. And what a killer title.
3. A Cozy Intimist Scene
The warmth of the light or fire inside the building to the right looks cozy. Maybe it was the long winter that made this piece stand out to me.
Thank you, Le Sidaner, for introducing me to the concept of intimism, which is what it sounds like, intimate. Portraying perfectly composed everyday scenes. Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard were other more famous intimists. I’ll have to read more.
4. Visual Esperanto
This monumental piece feels universal. It’d fit both an ancient cave painting or a 1980s album. A. R. Penck apparently attempted to create a ‘visual Esperanto’ of reduced pictorial elements.
From a more personal point of view, I’ve been interested in these appliqué pieces from Benin since I found one in an estate sale. I’ve struggled to find out more, so do let me know if you know anything. And Penck’s incredible piece reminded me of it. (And yes, we have a huge piece of a leopard eating a man in our stairwell.)
5. A Small Portrait with Beautiful Lace
To the opposite end of the spectrum is this miniature piece by Gerard ter Borch, a little over a foot high and long.
I liked the detail of the different fabrics and the intense glow of the figure and board. You can see some of the influence on Vermeer (who later obviously eclipsed Gerard ter Borch).
6. Quebec Landscape with an Interesting Process
This might be the piece I spent the longest with in the permanent collection. It really drew me in. I found myself getting closer and closer until I was sure a guard would ward me off.
I love how open and confident the Quebec artist, Marc-Aurèle Fortin, was about his process and work:
I paint on a grey ground to capture the warm atmosphere of Quebec’s skies […] Using the grey manner, I go back several times when it’s completely dry, to rework the light effects a bit, and the colour, but with the black ground I don’t rework. It’s not quite the same. You can’t understand unless I do it in front of you, it’s impossible. I invented these combinations myself.
I regard this painting as one of the three that have afforded me the greatest satisfaction in life […] It’s the most beautiful landscape of Saint-Siméon that I ever made. The technique is marvellous.
You go, Marc-Aurèle Fortin.
7. Surrey’s Lonely City
I’m a sucker for a night scene that evokes loneliness. And this is apparently one of the themes the Canadian artist is known for.
Also, a nomadic life. Before he was an adult, he had lived in Australia, British Columbia, California, France, Switzerland, Singapore, Malaysia, and Calcutta. In my opinion, no wonder the loneliness seeps through.
Each individual is alone, cut off. Each wonders how others cope with life. A work of art is a particularly complex statement, valuable because it is packed with meaning… Like icebergs, four-fifths of our personalities lie below the surface; of the fifth that shows, only part can be expressed in conversation. The only effective outlet for all deeper feelings and thoughts is art.
– Philip Surrey
Hey, I see you in Surrey.
8. Beaver Hall Group Crowd
There weren’t as many female artists as I would like to see at the museum, but this one jumped out to me.
In part because of the stunning nose in profile. But also it made me think about how I don’t see sat people portrayed from the back often, even though it’s a sight I am quite familiar with. The sumptuous textures and layers of abstraction of the people closer to the stage are also interesting.
Heward was associated with the modernist Beaver Hall Group, a collective of ten female artists based in Montreal. They seem to be in the process of being rediscovered. (And now I need to buy a new book, although I hope the book stops focusing on how very unmarried these women were.)
9. The Ceramic Piece that Made Me Jump
Terrifying. It actually gave me a jolt. There’s a part of me that wants to believe in huge sea monsters, especially when they’re portrayed as about to eat colonizers.
Shary Boyle’s work is incredible. Give it a look.
Read More:
https://carleton.ca/fass/2016/08/remembering-the-beaver-hall-group
