Landscape with a View of a Distant Village, by Thomas Gainsborough (late 1740s or early 1750s)

We continue our look at the truly stellar show at the Frick Collection here in New York featuring 10 masterpieces from the Scottish National Gallery with a picture by Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788).

Gainsborough was born in humble circumstances.  His father was a weaver in Suffolk, and not much is known about his mother.  However, he seemed to be one of a brood of creative children: his brother John (known as Scheming Jack) was a well-known designer of curiosities, while his brother Humphrey invented the method of condensing steam in a separate vessel. 

Thomas left home for London in 1740 to study art; his mentors included Hubert Gravelot, Francis Hayman and William Hogarth.  He married Margaret Burr in 1746, and they had two daughters. 

A move to Bath in 1759 was a great career boon, as there he became a fashionable society painter.  He was soon exhibiting in London, and, in 1759, he became a founding member of the Royal Academy.  Despite founder-status, he had a tempestuous relationship with the organization, and he would sometimes pull his work from upcoming exhibitions.

Thomas and family returned to London in 1774, where he painted the royal family.  He soon became enamored with landscape painting, and his later years were devoted to depictions of the English countryside.  (He is credited as one of the founders of the British landscape school.)  He grew to love painting landscapes more than portraits, and his landscapes are among his finest achievements. His career was cut short with a diagnosis of cancer, and he succumbed in 1788.

Gainsborough was a meticulous painter, but he painted with great speed and fluidity.  His palette was generally light, with brushstrokes that were precise without being fussy.

Your correspondent must confess that he considers Landscape with a View of a Distant Village on show at the Frick as among the weaker selections in the exhibition.  The composition is perhaps too polished and too … calculated, leaving nothing for the eye to linger upon.  Though it follows the strain of naturalism popular at the time, the eye is disturbed by the overwhelming symmetry of the piece, as if calculated more for commercial reproduction that personal contemplation.

More off-putting still is the placement of various elements, as if Gainsborough were running through a list of crowd-pleasers necessary for a picture.  Pastoral lovers?  Check.  Strategically placed cattle?  Check.  Dog?  Check.  Even the clouds and trees look more like stock figures hustled out for effect rather than a reflection of either mood or reality.

In person, this rather wide picture further disappoints because the eye roams without direction.  As demonstrated in our posts on Constable and Velasquez, artists gifted in composition keep the eye in constant movement.  There is nothing in the composition to pull the eye along, and the effect is rather-well painted elements that just lie there without dynamism.  It’s not a bad painting … it is merely uninteresting.

It is particularly disappointing when compared to the truly champion Constable hanging on the same wall.  There, Constable’s fecund imagination takes a similar theme, and creates a picture that is teeming with life.  Indeed, the composition suffered to some extent by sheer virtue of Constable’s ability to render the scene real.  Both painters were men of talent and genius, but Constable was a painter of vision. 

More from the Frick Collection tomorrow!

Vale of Dedham, by John Constable (1827-28)

We continue to work our way through the fabulous exhibition at The Frick Collection, showcasing 10 masterworks from the Scottish National Gallery, with a glorious picture by John Constable (1776-1837).

We have written of our deep and abiding admiration of Constable’s artistry in these pages before.  Perhaps the greatest painter of weather ever, Constable had an uncanny ability to convey the magic of a place.  That sense of almost otherworldly beauty in the everyday world is illustrated perfectly in this picture, his last major painting of the Stour Valley and his definitive treatment of the East-English countryside.  The Vale of Dedham is a masterpiece.

Constable was born on the River Stour in Suffolk; his parents were Golding and Ann (Watts) Constable.  Golding was a wealthy corn merchant, and owner of a small ship, The Telegraph.  John was the second son, but his older brother was mentally disabled and John was expected to pursue the family business.  John dutifully worked in the business once leaving school, but a series of sketching trips in Suffolk and Essex made it clear that John was more artist than businessman.

Constable would paint the English countryside for the rest of his life.  Early on he met George Beaumont, a collector who showed young John a series of pictures that opened up his eyes to the possibilities of art; and Thomas Smith, a professional artist who encouraged John to paint (but suggested he remain in the family business).

In 1799, John persuaded his father to let him pursue a career in art, and the elder Constable provided a small allowance.  John entered the Royal Academy Schools and attended life classes and studied and copied the old masters.  He would exhibit paintings at the Royal Academy by 1803.  He was also a devotee of religious sermons and poems – and his sense of immanence translated into his art.

John had a childhood friendship with Maria Bicknell; once in love with her, he proposed.  The marriage was opposed by Maria’s family, who saw John as a social inferior; John’s parents approved, but would not support the couple until John was more financially secure in his art.  They were married in 1816.

John was not a very financially successful artist, and would struggle to raise his seven children.  In 1828, Maria became ill with tuberculosis and died; she was only 41.  Much like Allan Ramsay after the loss of his wife (see yesterday’s post), Constable never fully recovered from the blow.

Vale of Dedham is the result of a holiday trip in Suffolk in 1827 with his two eldest children.  Of the finished picture, Constable would write to friend John Fisher that he had painted a large upright landscape (perhaps my best).  The picture was well regarded when it debuted at the Royal Academy in 1828, and many consider it his finest work. 

This work really explains the genius of Constable.  The picture is teeming – trees, vegetation, lake, village in the distance, gypsy and child in the foreground, passing cow, hidden cottage, small bridge, distant boats…. In less gifted hands, this would be fussy stuff, but Constable makes all these pieces integrated parts of the overall landscape. 

For an outlandish comparison, think of Constable as a kinder, gentler Hieronymus Bosch.  Both painted scenes of overwhelming fecundity; in Bosch’s world, this density is a source of overwhelming horror.  To Constable, this density was mostly a matter of extreme awareness – overwhelming, perhaps, but also natural and organic.

Important, too, to Constable’s aesthetic is the sense of an England and English tradition unsullied by change.  The technological and scientific advances of Constable’s era were significant, and the Industrial Revolution threatened to change the look and manners of the English countryside for all time.  Like most sensitive souls, Constable was deeply aware of everything that is lost with each new technological era, and his work is suffused with a gentle nostalgia.

Finally – no one (Turner included!) painted the sky like Constable.  It isn’t merely a question of color, but of quality of weather.  Constable’s skies contain distant storms, areas of sun, omens locked in the clouds.  The novice uses a dab of white to paint a cloud, the genius uses his full palette.

Next Week:  More From the Scottish National Gallery at the Frick.

Fêtes Vénitiennes, by Jean-Antoine Watteau (1718-19) at The Frick Collection

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 19^th 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!

Hadleigh Castle, by John Constable (1829)

A little more John Constable (1776-1837) today as we wash the taste of Francis Bacon out of our mouths.

Constable was born on the River Stour in Suffolk; his parents were Golding and Ann (Watts) Constable.  Golding was a wealthy corn merchant, and owner of a small ship, The Telegraph.  John was the second son, but his older brother was mentally disabled and John was expected to pursue the family business.  John dutifully worked in the business once leaving school, but a series of sketching trips in Suffolk and Essex made it clear that John was more artist than businessman.

Constable would paint the English countryside for the rest of his life.  Early on he met George Beaumont, a collector who showed young John a series of pictures that opened up his eyes to the possibilities of art; and Thomas Smith, a professional artist who encouraged John to paint (but suggested he remain in the family business).

In 1799, John persuaded his father to let him pursue a career in art, and the elder Constable provided a small allowance.  John entered the Royal Academy Schools and attended life classes and studied and copied the old masters.  He would exhibit paintings at the Royal Academy by 1803.  He was also a devotee of religious sermons and poems. 

John had a childhood friendship with Maria Bicknell, which later blossomed into a deep and abiding love.  The marriage was opposed by Maria’s family, who saw John as a social inferior; John’s parents approved, but would not support the couple until John was more financially secure in his art.  They were married in 1816.

John was not a very financially successful artist; and he struggled to raise the seven children they had.  In 1828, Maria became ill with tuberculosis and died; she was only 41.  Constable never fully recovered from the blow, and wrote hourly do I feel the loss of my departed Angel—God only knows how my children will be brought up.  He did manage, however, and Constable cared for his children for the rest of his life.

In 1814, John visited the ruins of Hadleigh Castle while touring Essex with his friend, Reverend W.W. Driffield.  He wrote to Maria: there is a ruin of a castle which from its situation is really a fine place – it commands a view of the Kent hills, the nore and north foreland & looking many miles to the sea.  He made drawings in his sketchbook and based the painting (and preliminary sketches) upon this first impression.

This was a particularly difficult time for John.  It looked as if his plans to marry Maria would come to naught, and that the position of their mutual families would keep them apart.  He wrote that the melancholy grandeur of the sea shore reflected his mood, and he put aside the drawings for some time.

John returned to his previous sketches following Maria’s death.  This scene of loneliness and desolation, of ruin and remorse, must have been deeply aligned with his own mourning and sense of loss.  This picture, some six feet in length, was a work that helped lift the painter out of his depression.

It’s been said that if Turner was a painter of the sun, then Constable was a painter of the sky.  It is almost as if he painted his entire autobiography in the sky.  In this picture, a solitary shepherd or wayfarer (along with his dog), comes upon the majestic and romantic castle ruins.  One of the towers has a deep tear in its very center, as if rent by a heavenly finger.  Holding a staff, the figure is a pilgrim, or a searcher; not unlike the shepherds who found their way to Bethlehem.  (It is possible that he is one of the attendant cattle herders, but his isolation from the cattle and holding of the staff makes the probability of his being a spiritual pilgrim too compelling.)

A herder and cattle are visible in the distance; they, at one with nature, take the landscape for granted.  And the sky above, melancholy with clouds, is broken by shafts of heavenly light.  The sea, equally eternal, is brilliantly illuminated by the shafts of light.

The palpable sense of mystery, of eternity, of the sublime is overwhelming.  No ordinary landscape, Constable’s picture of Hadliegh Castle is a man’s soul laid bare.

Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, by John Constable (1831)

After looking at the disgusting and depressing picture by Francis Bacon (1909-1992) Tuesday, I thought we’d cleanse our palette with a little more uplifting art news.  This landscape picture by John Constable (1776-1837), Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, painted in 1831, is now starting a UK tour, and is currently on show at the National Museum in Cardiff.  For anyone traveling through the UK in the next several months, it is essential viewing.

The picture, considered by many to be Constable’s masterpiece, shows Salisbury Cathedral under a heavy cloud broken by an arched rainbow, as seen from across the River Nadder.  Scholars have interpreted the picture as the artist’s attempt to come to grips with the recent death of his wife.

Constable himself thought highly of the picture, writing that it was better than anything I have yet done.  The picture was first exhibited at the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition in 1831 and later in a regional exhibition in Birmingham.  Constable wanted it to be viewed by as many people as possible, and this traveling show continues his wish well into the 21^st Century.  The picture will stay in Cardiff until September before moving on.

Constable grew up in Suffolk and he painted so many landscapes there that the area in now known as Constable Country.  Constable’s happy marriage ended when his wife Maria died from tuberculosis in 1828.  This devastated the artist, and he wore black for the rest of his life.  He wrote to his brother Golding, the face of the World is totally changed to me.

In contemporary art world parlance, Constable is stodgy, boring and hopelessly twee.  We here at the Jade Sphinx feel differently.  On the contrary, his work is bracing, detailed, powerful and visionary.  Let’s take a closer look at this picture.

Following the death of Maria Constable, John joined Archdeacon Fisher in Salisbury, where the prelate encouraged him to create a picture for the Royal Academy.  Constable made sketches there for what would ultimately become this picture.

Though Constable made a study of rainbows, the rainbow here is not an “accurate” depiction.  Rather, it seems to be more symbolic of God’s covenant with man promising the sublime after a life of difficultly.  Constable was also inspired by poet James Thomson (1700-1748), whose poem The Seasons provided succor to the grieving artist.  In fact, Constable selected lines from the poem to appear alongside the painting’s title in the Royal Academy catalog. 

As from the face of heaven the scatter’d clouds

Tumultous rove, th’interminable sky

Sublimer swells, and o’er the world expands

A purer azure. Through the lightened air

A higher lustre and a clearer calm

Diffusive tremble; while, as if in sign

Of danger past, a glittering robe of joy,

Set off abundant by the yellow ray,

Invests the fields, and nature smiles reviv’d.

The arc of the rainbow ends at the home of Archdeacon Fisher, who has provided Constable so much support in his grief.  The rainbow is no mere dab of color to help the composition; rather, it is an affirmation of Constable’s faith in the face of crippling despair.  It is also no accident that the top of the cathedral spire stands out in the one bright spot of the overcast sky. 

Two other things to notice – both the cart driver talks to his companion, oblivious to the sky, but the dog in the foreground gaze openly at the rainbow, while the horses seem to bend their heads in reverence.  Man often misses the divine cues provided by the natural world, but some things are wiser than man.

Tracey Emin … Professor of Drawing?

"No Sleep" a 1994 Drawing by Tracey Eim

The good news is that I did not write about many of the horrible wrongs in the art world during the holiday season.  The bad news is that the holiday season is over and I have to explain the persistent rumbling you hear below ground.

Rumbling, you ask?  Yes, what you hear is William Turner and John Constable and dozens of other great masters rolling in their unquiet graves.  And what disturbs their well-earned rest, you ask?  Simply this – England’s Royal Academy has appointed Tracey Emin as Professor of Drawing.

Take a moment to pull your chins from the floor.

Emin is perhaps best known for deluding an alternately arrogant and ignorant art market into believing that her unmade bed was a work of art.  This work, called My Bed, had yellow-stained sheets and the surrounding area was festooned with condoms, empty cigarette packets, menstrual-stained underwear and her slippers.  This Post Modern joke was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1999.  One amusing story about My Bed is that the museum cleaning lady tried to tidy it up, and had to be stopped by security… Another work from this period was Everyone I Have Ever Slept With, which was a tent embroidered with (you guessed it) the names of everyone she had ever slept with.

A youthful folly, perhaps?  Perhaps not.  Emin has recently spent her artistic energies (just writing that phrase makes my fingers cramp) “creating” drawings rendered out of stitching, which she often accompanies with various bon mots, such as:  You Cruel Heartless Bitch Rot in Hell and, my favorite, Harder and Better Than All of You F---ing B------s.

The Royal Academy Schools form the oldest art school in Britain, and currently about 60 students study in the Schools on a three-year postgraduate course.  This important link (or former important link) to the studio-based practice in all fine arts was a haven for students who had demonstrated ability, commitment and potential for significant work.  Under “Professor” Emin’s tutelage, who knows what they may accomplish?  An over-used duffel bag, perhaps?  Or maybe scuffed and muddy shoes, filled with sand?  Dentures floating in a glass of cloudy water, anyone?

For those of you think my objections sound like a bachelor uncle shocked over naughty words scrawled in his art history book, think again.  My objection has nothing to do with her lack of talent, or that fact that Emin is less an artist and more a publicity stunt than anything else.  My fundamental objection lies in the fact that we (yes, the collective “we”) are willing and eager to toss aside our important artistic heritage to accommodate frauds, mountebanks and hucksters.  I’m appalled that theory has taken precedence over emotion, that human connection has been sacrificed to “cool” and that we have become as a people so afraid of beauty and its expression.  Have we gone so far in our flight from the beautiful, from the sublime and from the transcendent that now we rob our young artists of achieving these things by putting them under the influence of the scribbling huckster? 

Emin is quoted as saying: “being an artist isn’t just about making nice things, or people patting you on the back; it’s some kind of communication, a message.”  I believe, in her heart of hearts (deep down where one may still reside), Emin’s message to the world is: “sucker!”