Portrait

Tags

France, NGC, Ottawa, salon de la paix, Versailles, Vigée-Lebrun

Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI had four children. They could not have been born at a more problematic time for the French royal family.

Marie-Thérèse Charlotte, known as Madame Royale was the only child, named after her grand-mother Empress Marie-Therese of Austria to survive the French revolution and reach adulthood. Eleven years old when the revolution erupted, in 1789, she was particularly close to her father the King.

Louis-Joseph, the first born son of the royal couple was spared the pains of revolution. He died of tuberculosis, at age seven, on the 4th of June, 1789. By all accounts a sweet child, the prince’s death added immeasurable grief to the lives of his parents the month before the revolution began.

After the death of his older brother, Louis-Charles, born in 1785 and sometimes referred to as Louis XVII, became dauphin. Subjected to the most cruel treatment by revolutionaries, the young prince was ten years old at his death in 1795.

Sophie-Beatrix was the family’s youngest child. Born in July of 1786, she died the following year – age eleven months – also of tuberculosis.

 

Because of the scandal of l’affaire du Collier, the ministers of the King ordered Vigée-Lebrun to do this propaganda painting, a tableau about family devotion and parental love. Though the Queen was cleared of any responsibility in the affair of the diamond necklace, the vicious press and a largely ignorant public hounded Marie-Antoinette. We know now that King Louis XVI brother, Prince Louis Stanislas Xavier, Comte de Provence  was also plotting against his brother, he was encouraging rumours and did little to help his unfortunate relatives. He was able to leave France with a false British Passport for a 23 year long exile around Europe, living on the charity of various Sovereigns. Returning to France in 1814 to become Louis XVIII.

This family portrait was painted at Versailles in what is today the Salon de la Paix at the end of the Galerie des Glaces, it was then a private salon used by the Queen. If you look closely at the painting you glimpse at the Gallerie des Glaces in the left corner. See picture below as it is today.

Le Salon de la Paix, the Queen is seated to the right of the door, she is surrounded by her children. Her eldest son is pointing to the empty crib of his sister Sophie-Beatrix who died a few months before this painting was done. He is already sick with tuberculosis and will be dead in just a few months after this painting is completed. Truly a painting of tragedy. The cabinet in the background to the left of the tableau represents a strong box keeping locked up the jewels of the Queen. This is a reference to the alleged extravagance of the Queen. Marie-Antoinette herself only wears a pair of pearl hearings. This piece of furniture is almost in shadow and tucked away, not very important to the tableau, another message in this composition.

The composition of this painting also refers to a famous story in Greek antiquity of another mother and her children, who is asked what is most precious to her. Despite being wealthy, she presents her children as a reply, this is my wealth. This is the obvious symbolism of this painting. There is no doubt that the Queen was devoted to her children this was her wealth and this message had an impact on the French public at large. However by the time this painting was shown, it was too late. In 1793 at the 2 day trial of the Queen, she did not stand accuse or charge with any crime, the tribunal was divided on what to do. The revolutionaries were well aware that it would be difficult to pass a death sentence on Marie-Antoinette 37 yrs old. So without proof it was decided that she was guilty of treason, a farce by any judicial standard.

She was a mother and the public was against executing the mother with small children. On the day of her execution as she was brought to her public execution the streets were very silent and the mood of the crowd was sullen. The troops on hand were nervous and feared violence against the tribunal and the revolutionary government.

1787, Château de Versailles, la Reine Marie-Antoinette et ses enfants.

By Court painter to the Queen of France, Louise-Elizabeth Vigée-Lebrun

Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (also known as Madame LeBrun) was the most-famous female painter of the 18th century.  So impressed was Marie Antoinette with Vigée Le Brun’s work that she had the artist create more than thirty portraits of the Queen and her family. This large painting, remained at the Palace of Versailles after the fall of the Monarchy and only left the Palace 4 years ago for the first time ever to travel to the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa for a retrospective exhibit of Lebrun’s paintings.

 

 

Summer finally

Tags

C-91, Canada., Gauguin, Indigenous language, natives, NGC, Ottawa, Parliament

We returned from Ottawa a few days ago, it was our first visit in 3 years. A 90 minute quiet flight from Charlottetown. The plane a regional jet 50 seats was half empty and it was the same upon our return, strange it should be full at this time of the year but the weather has been so cold and rainy, not pleasant for tourists or us.

We saw a lot of people in Ottawa and I got to visit the National Gallery of Canada and meet with my old colleagues. Very kindly gave me a 90 minute presentation on the wonderful changes in the museum. Very impressive, the NGC is amongst the top 10 art galleries in the world. The new Canadian and Native wing is spectacular, in the set up of the gallery both the Algonquin and Ojibway people were brought in for consultations on how to display the various artifacts. All of it is displayed with sensitivity amongst Canadian art of the same period. I also visited the other galleries on Renaissance and Baroque art, modern and contemporary. A computer now controls all the LED lights and is programmed to sense when a gallery is empty of people or when people walk in, the computer adjust lighting accordingly. Doors open by themselves as you approach given their size its a good thing. The museum now has 2 restaurants and a coffee shop and a new revamped gift shop with beautiful books.  I do miss the National Gallery.

On the steps leading to the NGC Director’s Office, words by Joi T. Arcand of the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. Written in Plains Cree (Y dialect) expressing hope and encouragement to all Indigenous people who struggle to keep their language alive.

Note to readers yesterday was the last day of the 42sd Parliament of Canada, the House rose for the Summer and will not reconvene since we will have a general election in October. The House and Senate passed bill C-91 a new law to protect 60 Native languages in Canada. This will give official recognition to indigenous languages and create a position of Native language commissioner similar to the one we have for French and English, Canada’s 2 Official non-indigenous languages. Also today in Montreal, Amherst street in the downtown core named after a British General who committed crimes against humanity in the 1750’s against Native groups in Canada by distributing contagious smallpox infected blankets to natives in an act of genocide. The street will now bare a Iroquois name ATATEKEN, meaning peace and brotherhood.

Entrance to the renovated and re-organized gallery. Well worth a visit and take an audio-guide, so you understand what is on display. This multi-million dollar project was part of the Canada 150 Celebration.

I also visited the other galleries of renaissance, baroque and modern art. Many things have changed and it was a pleasure to see many of the art works I knew well and had presented in the past.

This work is entitled: Olive Garden of Eden by Chloe Wise of Montreal. Using a marble podium it becomes the overwrought support for a toppled Cesar salad – an ”Italian” food stuff invented by émigré Cesar Cardini in Mexico in 1920. Wise who is known for her realistic sculptures, here plays on notion of artifice and authenticity in our Western consumer society, obsessed with branding and marketing.

Charles Meynier, 1810, Wisdom (Minerva) defending youth from the arrows of Love. This French painting done at the height of Napoleon’s Empire presents the young hero  poised between a life of empty sensual pleasure at the sight of the sleeping Venus and one of struggle and glory. Minerva shield defends him from the arrows of love. The idea of his sacrifice to duty resonates here with the Empire’s cult of military virtue and service to the Nation. Hopefully he makes the right choice.

The Court of the reflecting pool whose bottom is the ceiling to the other hall entrance to the museum below.

The garden Courtyard re-imagined in a Japanese style design.

My colleagues also invited me to visit the Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) exhibit of self-portraits. It gave a good background on his life and family, he was married and had 5 kids, though his wife left him and returned with said children to Denmark when he decided to quit his job as an investment banker and become a full time painter travelling around the world and dying at 54 in French Polynesia.

It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object; beware of this stumbling block.

I was not aware that he worked with many French artists like Monet, Césanne, Matisse but also with Van Gogh. He was a friend of French poet Mallarmé.

Gauguin self-portrait with yellow Christ, c.1897

 

 

The 5 Fallacies about Art

Tags

art., fallacies, MBAC, NGC, Ottawa

Here we have Marc Mayer, Director of the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa presenting his arguments to debunk fallacies about art. I find it very helpful in my conversations with the public at the Art Gallery.

 

Music I listen to

Tags

NGC, paintings, PEI, Robert Harris

Often when I write a post on this blog, I will listen to music from the Internet Radio usually from a European Station, in Germany MDR or Switzerland or the Dutch NRK, sometimes from WETA, WCRI or Classical Wyoming in the US.

Recently I was listening to Roman Carnaval Ouverture by Berlioz, Mahler 6 Symphony, Variation on a French Mountain Air by Vincent D’Indy, Handel’s Sarabande and gigue or Glazunov Waltz no.2 or Dvorak Symphonic variations, among other things playing.

A bit eclectic but a nice mix to inspire.

Recently MAGAZINE the internet publication of the National Gallery of Canada had an article on a famous painting by Robert Harris that I presented to visitors at the NGC many times. It has been restored recently by Curator Tasia Bulger for the first time in 88 years. A Meeting of the School Trustees, painted in 1885. A scene in a typical one room school house which was a feature in rural PEI for many years until 40 years ago. Robert Harris often used his wife Elizabeth Putnam as a model in his paintings as is the case here. Another relative, his uncle Joseph Stretch of Long Creek PEI is the man sitting with his fist on the table looking stern. The teacher, a woman, in a conservative rural environment at the end of the 19th century is seen as the educated outsider, trying to convince the farmers/trustees of the need for their support for education. The conflict in this scene though it was some 132 years ago, could have happened just last week, again the school question was discussed on the Island very publicly and the old conflict between rural and urban area surfaced.

For a full description click on the link below;

http://www.ngcmagazine.ca/features/in-the-spotlight-conserving-a-meeting-of-the-school-trustees-by-robert-harris#Comments

This is what the painting looks like now, with the old yellow varnish removed. 

Born in Wales in 1849, Robert Harris’ family moved to Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island in 1856, where he was raised. He studied painting in Boston, London, and Paris, and spent most of his adult life working as a portrait artist in Montreal. Following the successful reception of his large-scale group portrait, The Fathers of Confederation (1883), which was destroyed in 1917 in the fire of the Parliament building in Ottawa, Harris became interested in creating a painting for the newly founded National Gallery of Canada, which had just begun purchasing works of art for its collection.

It was suggested by the late Director of the Art Gallery of the Confederation Centre, Moncrieff Williamson in his book, Island Painter: The Life of Robert Harris (1849–1919), that the subject matter was based on an actual conversation in August 1885 between Harris and Long Creek schoolteacher, Kate Henderson, during a visit by Harris to his family in PEI.

The name “Kate Henderson” is written on a booklet on the desk, along with “Pine Creek School” — a fictional school based on the one-room schoolhouse in Long Creek, PEI. However, a deeper look into PEI’s Annual Public School and Education Reports and census data from the 1880s reveals that no women taught in Long Creek at that time, and the sole Catherine Henderson teaching in PEI was only recorded as active between 1876 and 1883, in Alma, Crapaud, Little York, and Poplar Grove.

Remarkably, this Catherine Henderson was born in Lot 31, a portion of which is now North Wiltshire, PEI . In terms of subject choice and the structured, academic treatment, the painting was in part painted to catch the eye of the recently founded National Gallery of Canada.

 

New photo

Tags

Arts, culture, Job, Lievens, NGC, painting

A colleague of mine took this photo at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa where I work as a Docent-Volunteer and Coordinator of Cultural and Art Lectures. When the photo was taken I was actually choosing the art works I wanted to present next month in my little art talks I give in the galleries. I picked Job by Jan Lievens, it is a very interesting picture and Lievens was under the influence of Rembrandt and Caravaggio, you can see that in his paintings, many of which are on Biblical stories. The painting I am pointing to in this photo I never presented though I like the subject and its composition.

 

Job by Jan Lievens

In this painting we see Job sitting on a dung heap being castigated by his wife and tormented by demons. His wife bemoans the fact that God has abandoned them, he answers her, You speak like a foolish women, God gives and God taketh away, we were happy then we are happy now.

Painting

Tags

BMAC, Canada., China, docent, Europe, Fantin-Latour, museum, NGC, Ottawa, painting, Renaissance, Song Dynasty, Zhai Wei

This week I had 3 days of duty as docent at the National Gallery of Canada. One was hosting the Wednesday Morning Lectures-Mercredis Culturels, I coordinate that program in French and in English. Then I had a school group, the students around 9 years of age where quite good and had lots of good questions and observations, the teacher was also interested and helpful, that is not always the case. We also had a training session, unfortunately the NGC is under a lot of renovations in preparation for Canada’s 150th Anniversary of Confederation. The Canadian Galleries are being completely redone, the Bookstore is getting a facelift after 27 years in the same spot. There is also some work installations in the Contemporary Galleries which are taking more and more space at the NGC and slowly eclipsing the other collections. Also all the lights in the museum are being converted to LED, apparently that is better. I also presented a work of art by Matthias Stom, Flemish School of Painting, 1630, entitled The arrest of Christ. I never know who is going to come and listen to my presentation which last about 10 minutes,”officially”. I had a father with his little daughter who was 7 yrs old and she wanted to know what a Museum guide did, she was very attentive and a little overwhelmed. I also had a couple from Spain and a Muslim lady who told me how much she loved the museum and was appreciative of my presentation. Another lady wanted to give me a tip, which I declined.

The subject of this painting from the Baroque period is religious and so I was not sure how it would go over. You cannot count on people knowing about Biblical stories or even being able to identify the Deity nowadays. At any rate I concentrate on the colours, the light and other details of the composition such as facial expression, clothing, hand gestures etc. I speak about the painter and the technique he used and then speak about the frame and how it was made. One person did ask me where this scene was taking place and another asked who was Judas. Christ is looking up towards Heaven and one person asked what is he looking at given the violence around him, I said God the Father which confused them, many do not know who that is. A bit like in another tableau where the Virgin Mary and Jesus are featured, many Renaissance paintings (1300-1600) have a strong religious subject. One fellow asked me who was that women with the baby in her arms, before I had time to answer a 9 year old who was also looking at the painting said, that’s Mary and Jesus, thank you kid and shame on the adult.

Virgin and Child with St-Anthony Abbot by Hans Memling

I take that sort of lack of knowledge as a sign of the age we live in, we think we know a lot but in fact we know nothing and understand even less. To me that is really sad and unfortunate. Quite a few people do not understand why European paintings of the Renaissance and Baroque period feature religious themes, despite the fact that the explanation fact sheet explains where it came from. There appears to be this belief that since we all know religion is bunk then why show it, it’s boring I am told. Sad really, I often have to explain that the European galleries show 900 years of paintings and through the ages style and fashion evolve and we are showing this evolution in human history. The galleries are arranged like a clock when you start you are in 1290 and when you finish at the other end its 1970, still many just don’t get it. Well I console myself, thinking if one visitor I spoke too loved it and was inspired my job is done.

I wonder if anyone has done a study of why more women come to the museum than men. I am sure there must be a thesis some where on the topic. I did observe that in Europe there are more men in Museums in general but in North America it is different, culture no doubt.

Finally, I always make a point of going through the galleries whenever I have a moment at the museum to look at what is new. In the last week I counted 15 new works on the wall. They had replaced other works, so the rotation happens more quickly now than before, the NGC can only show about 1000 works at the moment with the space we have, the basement has over 35,000 in storage. This of course is not counting the sculptures, the Diploma works of the Canadian Royal Academy, the photographies and all the sketches and prints. We do have a very rich collection.

While I was walking in the 19th century gallery, a work by Henri Fantin-Latour (1836-1904) caught my eye, entitled Roses, 1885. The simplicity of presentation and botanical accuracy of his still-life paintings prompted many critics to compare him to the 18th century painter Jean-Siméon Chardin.

What I did not know and discovered was that Fantin-Latour would pick flowers from his own garden early in the morning, arrange them and then create a painting of them. He became famous for his delicate portrayal of roses.

Les Roses, 1885 at the National Gallery of Canada.

I also noticed on the explication note that he would cover the canvas with a thin layer of transparent colour that would serve as a background- a neutral colour determined by the bouquet he wanted to paint.

During the Song Dynasty in China (960-1127) painters would do this also on their canvas applying a thin layer, with a broad brush, of black tea and ink.

Unfortunately the reflection of the glass does not help, however I purchased this in Beijing from an artist of the Chinese Central Academy of Arts, Ms. Zhai Wei. She applied a thin layer of black tea and ink before painting the little sparrows on a ficus branch, thus imitating the style of painters during the Song Dynasty.

Oscar Claude Monet (1840-1926)

Tags

Argenteuil, Bridge, France, Impressionism, Monet, NGC, Seine, Thames

The National Gallery of Canada http://www.gallery.ca has just opened a new exhibit entitled ”Bridges to Modernity” on paintings by Monet done between 1872-1878 while he lived with his growing family in Argenteuil a suburb of Paris on the Seine river. This is years from his move to Giverney where he will live later in life.

By the dates we have a young painter, a young Monet before becoming famous and also the dates 1872-1878 are crucial years just after the Franco-Prussian which France lost with devastating consequences, loosing Alsace-Lorraine to the new rising power of a unified German Empire proclaimed at the end of that war in the Palace of Versailles.

Following the war, the French Empire under Napoleon III, the nephew of Napoleon collapse. France slipped into a terrible civil war devastating Paris and seeing score of Parisians killed by a French Army gone wild, Tuileries Palace was burnt to the grown and so were scores of other public buildings like the Paris City Hall.

At first Monet fled to London where he will paint the bridges of the Thames river and then returning to France will settle in Argenteuil well outside Paris and will paint the bridges being rebuilt over the Seine river.

Railway and trains and train bridges are a fairly new phenomenon at the time and impressive engineering work also created a lot of interest. This exhibit shows the devastation on infrastructure of this war and the re-building that took place and the return to a normal life. The colours and composition are very interesting and already shows what will come to be known as Impressionism, which is defined as a personal reflexion and impressions of the artist on his surroundings.

Railway bridge at Argenteuil  

Houses of Parliament on the Thames river 

Waterloo bridge with the industrial area of Southwark on the Thames

From the balcony of his London hotel room overlooking the Thames, Monet could see Waterloo Bridge if he faced to his left. He worked on this subject through the afternoon and after dinner.  In this painting the morning mist partially conceals the industrial landscape of the opposite riverbank. So once again, the real subject becomes the atmospheric variations of the London environment. 

At the end of the exhibit we have this camera view live from the Bank street bridge over the Rideau Canal in Ottawa.

It really is a beautiful exhibit by a master and to this day a much loved artist. See it until 15 February 2016.

Mercredis Culturels / Wednesday Morning Lectures 2015-2016

Tags

art., Canada., cultures, English, French, Lectures, MBAC, NGC, Ottawa

For the last few years I have been organizing for the National Gallery of Canada a series of French language lectures given on Wednesdays. The topics have been varied but are focused on the Arts, Culture and artists.

This year after the English language coordinator retired, I was asked to think up a program of lectures in French and in English to be given on Wednesday Mornings at 10:30 at the National Gallery of Canada on Sussex Drive. In total 24 lectures given by experts and curators focusing this year on our Museum and its treasures. The lectures are given one Wednesday in French and then in English the next week, the topic is not necessarily repeated, so we alternate.

Not easy to find speakers and create a program which will be of interest to our varied public.

This year the program has been revamped and publish in a Robin’s Egg blue and is also viewable on the website of the NGC. http://www.gallery.ca

I did not have much time to think of a program and worked flat out to produce it in 2 weeks. I am very proud of this achievement and happy to have been able to find the lecturers who volunteered to speak.

On this Dominion Day 1 July 2015

Tags

Canada Day, Canada., Dominion Day, NGC, Ottawa

This is the 148th Anniversary of the Union of Canada on July 1, 1867. What to say, I was reviewing films to post with the National Anthem O’Canada and looking at the images displayed I thought what a lot of hokum. It is the usual images of people, cities, nature and let’s not forget the natives. But given the current state of the country and the dysfunctional institutions either Parliament or the Senate or both, the corruption, the lies, the Duffy trial, C-51, the Summer of endless mudslinging and the Federal Election Campaign, the smug Harperites and all those Bills passed by the House and Senate quite a few of them being unConstitutional will end up being rejected by the Supreme Court, etc…. I wonder if there is anything to celebrate this year, now that Stephen Harper is obviously getting political advice from Sarah Palin, Jeb Bush and Fox News. A Summer of discontent!

Maybe I just need to stop reading the news and concentrate on the upcoming events at the National Gallery, much more pleasant, http://www.gallery.ca/en/

In passing mark Wednesday 8 July a special evening of music in the galleries at the NGC from 7pm onward part of the Music and beyond Festival (150 mini-concerts by 100 musicians). I will be in Room C-201 Early Renaissance paintings. The music will match the painting period. http://musicandbeyond.ca/festival2015/

On a lighter note I read something today that made me smile; In the 1960’s people did acid the make the world weird, today the world is too weird so people take prozac to make it normal.

There is one book written by Christopher Moore entitled Three Weeks in Quebec City about the writing of the Canadian Constitution which took place in October 1864. Sir George Etienne Cartier, Sir John A. Macdonald and George Brown who influence the deliberations of the Conference are presented as politicians who did not see eye to eye but manage to stir the Fathers of Confederation into a final arrangement which led to July 1, 1867.  The Museum of History has a wonderful exhibit on the topic currently called Rebellion and Confederation.

Maybe historical reminiscence will lead my thinking this July 1. I will probably watch the fireworks from the top of my building with our neighbours as we usually do, more pleasant this way.

Happy Canada Day!

Montreal, Expo 67, the Canadian Pavilion

MacCallum-Jackman Cottage on Georgian Bay

Tags

Canada., Canadian culture, Georgian Bay, Group of 7, Harris, Jackson, Lismer, MacCallum-Jackman, Macdonald, NGC, Ontario, Thomson

Yesterday at the National Gallery I went to look at the re-opened room containing the wall paintings from the MacCallum-Jackman Cottage on West Wind island on Go Home Bay in Georgian Bay, North of Toronto.

The large Cottage was built in 1911 and Dr. James MacCallum was an ophthalmologist and professor at the University of Toronto. He was also a Member of the Arts and Letters Club. He knew a lot of artists in Toronto and he wanted to commission wall paintings on Canadian subjects. He became friends with artists who would later in 1919 become the members of the Group of Seven, the famous Canadian Landscape artists. Lawren Harris, J.E.H. MacDonald, Arthur Lismer and Tom Thomson will work as a team on the various murals. On his death Dr MacCallum bequeathed the paintings to the National Gallery, the new owner of the Cottage Mr and Mrs H.R. Jackman asked A.Y. Jackson in 1953 to paint additional more panels for the Cottage. Today the entire collection stands in a room replicating the Cottage living room at the NGC and can be admired by all. The panels are quite beautiful and represent that period in Canadian History in the first half of the 20th Century when all things were Canadian in theme and spirit, they also show Go Home Bay and the Georgian Bay area for all its natural beauty.

But the story does not end there, the son of the Jackman’s Dr Eric Jackman and Mary and the current owners of the storied cottage commissioned artist Sarah Merry to reproduce the original so they could hang again as panels in the living room of the cottage. It took 15 years to do this project and her work was unveiled in 2013 for the whole community to see. Thus the memory of Dr. MacCallum can be commemorated. For Dr. Jackman, the occasion was also deeply personal. “The cottage is the only permanent home that all my children know,”

The original painted panels above the chimney in the cottage living room, as they appear now in the NGC on the first floor. Left panel French settlers and missionaries with natives. Right panel hunters. (Click to enlarge)

Original painted panels decorated the room all around.

a fisherman and painted panels of luxuriant nature very much in the style of the Group of 7 came to be known.

the island like all islands in Georgian Bay are rocky outcrops. The two little framed paintings below the large panels are more of the nature in the area painted by the same artists later in the 1920’s.

this panel was over a window in the cottage which explains the strange shape.

Again a familiar scene the ferry boat which brought people to the islands and also brought mail and groceries during the Summer months when most people would come up from Toronto with family for their vacation period. What is interesting about these painted panels is how they reproduce life as it was then. The area today has not changed very much and is still very picturesque.

In hindsight this project of Dr. MacCallum is somewhat extravagant when one comes to think about it. Of course the painters, his friends, who painted for him these panels were not famous back then and no one could envisage the fame they would encounter as of 1919 and for the rest of their lives. Icons of modern Canadian Landscape painting. We are very lucky that Dr. MacCallum and the Jackman’s had the forethought to protect these paintings for posterity, from a simple cottage to the National Gallery of Canada.