It
is always a treat when one of New York’s major museums mounts a show that is
scalable, smart and well-balanced, and that is what The Frick Collection in New York has done with its current Masterpieces From the Scottish National
Gallery, on view through February 1, 2015.
The
Frick has gathered 10 superb paintings from the collection, ranging from the
Florentine Renaissance to 19th Century society pictures. It includes wonderful works by such masters
as Thomas Gainsborough, John Constable, El Greco and Velazquez. It is a show not to be missed.
The
Scottish National Gallery was founded in 1850 in Edinburgh, and is one of the
finest museums in the world. It has an
extraordinary collection of paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings – and
the question of what to show at a traveling exhibition must have been a mighty
one.
However,
this bite-size show rises to that challenge – there is not a piece in it that
is not a masterpiece in its own right.
Those not in New York should rest easy – the show will also travel to
the de Young, Fine Arts Museums of
San Francisco, and to the Kimbell Art
Museum in Fort Worth, Texas.
Between
now and Thanksgiving I wanted to share my favorite pieces in the show in The Jade Sphinx. We start with Fêtes Vénitiennes, painted by Jean-Antoine
Watteau (1684-1721), in 1718-19.
Watteau
had a brief career, cut short by premature death, but his legacy has been long
lasting and influential. He veered away
from the stuffy excesses of the prevalent Rococo
style, and his use of color and movement was influential for decades after
his death.
Watteau
was deeply influenced by figures from commedia
dell’arte while learning his craft in the workshop of Claude Gillot (1673-1722).
The actors from the commedia had been expelled from France for several
years, but the costumes, masks and mummery were to loom large in his boyish
imagination.
Watteau
also created the genre of fêtes galantes,
scenes of bucolic and idyllic charm, suffused with a theatrical air. Some of
his best known subjects were drawn from the world of Italian comedy and ballet.
The
picture on hand at the Frick is well within that tradition – and it is one
before which I spent considerable time. It
is a picture that seems to generate feelings both celebratory and foreboding,
as what is clearly a party also seems spooky and … uncanny.
The
moody garden setting would not seem out-of-place in a pen-and-ink drawing by Edward Gorey, and the coloration seems
both subtle and vibrant.
The
figures, so clearly part of a costume party, add another note of the strange to
the picture, where figures in fancy dress disport themselves in an atmosphere
that is playfully erotic.
The
air of erotic play is personified by the background statue that is blatantly sexualized,
and by the two male figures on either side of the picture who gaze openly at
the woman center-stage. (I also like the
blue-costumed figure in the back with a tricorn hat; an aesthete who looks on
with a critical eye.)
There
is also a private joke in the picture – the musette-playing fellow to the far
right is Watteau himself, while the dancer in pantaloons and turban is Nicolas Vleughels, a Flemish painter,
who was Watteau's friend and landlord.
The actual story of why they are represented in the painting has been
lost to time.
Not
easily seen in the reproduction here is the wonderful coloration – though
painted in oil, it looks for all the world like pen and watercolor. The dress of the central female figure is
dazzling, and lightens up the whole picture, providing life and vitality to the
proceedings. The band of color that
shimmers down her dress is almost the source of light in the piece, capturing,
surely, the pearly rays of the moon.
This
small picture (22x18) is a little master class in mood and tension through
color and composition. Be sure to see
it.
Tomorrow: Painting by Allan Ramsay!
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