The Romanov collection, The Pinacotheque de Paris, 26th January to 15th September 2011, 28 place de la Madeleine, 75008, Paris. By Larissa Woolf, Arts Editor, www.visitmuseums.com.
The Pinacotheque museum in Paris is showing at the moment the treasures of the Hermitage Museum from St Petersburg. It is a fantastic exhibition, showcasing more than one hundred works of art from all around Europe and the world and renowned artists that date right back to the fifteenth century. Beginning from the end of the eighteenth century the imperial leaders each began a massive project towards collecting rare and impressive pieces of work from around the world, beginning with Peter the Great in the seventeenth century to Nicholas 1st.
Under Peter the Great Russia saw the beginning of a genuine cultural opening and curiosity towards the Western Europe and foreign lands. The Great Embassy went overseas in 1697-1698 and visited workshops, libraries and museums and literally fell in love with what it saw and so began the history of avid Russian collecting. Once bought they transferred these paintings to St Petersburg which was built according to a model of Amsterdam with canals and Dutch, German, French and Italian architecture.
Peter the Great amassed a collection of 400 paintings, 165 of them were from Holland and Flanders. One example was a Joos de Momper le Jerne (1564-1635)oil painting,’ Monks in a cave’ - a beautiful and luminous landscape scene of monks in a rustic and religious setting. Within the collection is a magnificient Rembrandt, entitled ‘David and Jonathan’, where the two figures are depicted against the background of the city. The luminous colour and the detail of the figures attest to his great skill as a painter.
Catherine II of Russia was also an enlightened leader who, interestingly enough, had an enduring writing relationship with the French philosopher Diderot and spoke to Voltaire, and d’Alembert on a regular basis. It was her idea to buy a whole collection rather than just one piece, for example she bought the Comte von Bruhl’s collection and 4,000 drawings from the Phillip Cobentzel’s collection. One of the paintings that figures in her purchase is Rembrandt’s ‘Portrait of a bearded man with a beret’ which is particularly beautiful; invoking a solemn atmosphere and infused with complex and life like detail such as the wrinkles on his face and his subdued expression. One of the most impressive paintings of the collection is Gabriel Metsu’s ‘The sick person and the doctor’ in which we see a dark, black robed, ominous looking doctor’s exchange with an old lady in her bedchamber. The lady is depicted in a rich, sumptuous gown, fur trimmed with orange silk and is quite clearly dying. The solemn, funeral like atmostphere of the room is clearly depicted.
The biggest buy for the Hermitage was the Crozat collection in 1772 and Catherine had amassed an amazing 4,000 paintings by the end of her reign including works by Nicolas Poussin, Marie Louise le Brun and Claude Joseph Vernet.
The next Russian leader was just as prolific, Alexander I amassed art on a grand scale and felt it was an important aspect to his reign both for cultural posterity and for his standing as a leader. He had an amazing collection of Spanish art and Josephine Bonapart sold him the collection in the chateau de Malmaison. Francisco Ribalto and Diego Velasquez da Silva are some of the artists that were amassed. His successor Nicolas 1st inspired significant changes to the collection from 1825. One of the paintings that he bought was by Sofoniska Anguissola, entitled ‘portrait of a young lady in profile’ figuring a beautiful, rich detailed portrait of a lady holding three flowers wearing a rich green velvet dress lined with pearls. Another stunning piece is the oil painting by Andrea Vaccoro of Marie Magdeleine, the vision of her looking towards the sky in immense sorrow is profoundly moving. Amongst the collection, to name but a few, is Titian, Natale Shiavane and Gabriel Metsu.
The outstanding collection at the Pinacotheque in Paris reveals how enlightened and cultured these great Russian leaders were and how, through their effort, an entire cultural revolution was begun and a legacy left. To experience the magic of the Hermitage museum without having to travel to Russia go to the museum.
The Romanov collection, The Pinacotheque de Paris, 26th January to 15th September 2011, 28 place de la Madeleine, 75008, Paris. By Larissa Woolf, Arts Editor, www.visitmuseums.com.
Recommended Hotels in Paris
Wednesday 22 June 2011
Monday 13 June 2011
Guggenheim Museum New York
The permanent collection at the Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue, New York, USA.
For further details see www.VisitMuseums.com. By Larissa Woolf, VisitMuseums.com Arts Editorial Contributor
The Guggenheim Museum is one of the landmark museums that should without a doubt be top of the list for museums to visit in New York. It is a collection of art from the mid nineteenth century to the present day and presents an incredibly rich, in depth and challenging portrayal of modern art whilst also showcasing some of the world’s finest modern and abstract paintings from the likes of masters such as Van Gogh, Gauguin, Picasso and Kandinsky. Opened in 1937 it began with the collection of its founder, Solomon R Guggenheim, which he transformed into a public foundation that would exhibit but also preserve his vast collection of art. Housed in its impressive white, circular unmistakable building the Guggenheim becomes an exploration and celebration of modernism and abstraction.
One of the first paintings on view is Van Gogh’s “Mountains in St Remy” which he painted whilst he was recuperating from his psychiatric problems in an asylum. Its swirling waves and rich, bold colours portray Van Gogh’s enthusiasm for nature, landscapes but also his vivid imagination. More arresting is the emotional emergency of the picture and the feeling that in his painting he is healing himself. Similarly we see Paul Gauguin returning to a state of primitivism in his painting ‘Haeve Mae Tahiti’ and his idyllic vista of island life. His move towards a simpler, more idealised way of life is reflected in his art and style. It was after 1918 however that Guggenheim and his wife collected solely non objective art. Their belief in the spiritual dimensions of pure abstraction and the bringing together of multiple viewpoints simultaneously to create a pure, direct way of looking at art was at the core of their interests and philosophy.
In Pablo Picasso’s painting, ‘Woman Ironing’ we see how Picasso’s bleak colour scheme of blues, whites and greys merge together to form a metaphor for the misfortune of the working poor. Her head hangs heavy, her angular body is unsettling and one can really feel the burden of her body. The iron forms an anchor for her body and the painting and we can see how the space created between her arms and body prefigures cubism and Pablo’s future investigation of space and volume. One of the most striking paintings in the collection is Robert Delauney’s ‘Eiffel Tower’. Tall, imposing we see how he uses angular patches of light and shadow to shatter the tower into fragments; almost as though it was alive. Delauney was fascinated by light and he used the multiple perspectives and fractured surfaces, reminiscent of cubism, to form a grotesque picture of the tower – surely one of the best known icon’s of modernity of its time. In fact as world war one began its rampage through Europe we see its effect on the art of the time as many later works are just a collection of hard to define shapes – a mass of unrecognisable objects and subjects.
For me one of the most beautiful objects in the collection is Constant Brancusi’s bronze sculpture, ‘The Muse’. A smooth, oval, idealised head which has no facial features is balanced by an arm which is resting on a wooden base. Brancusi celebrates the notion that a woman is the muse for aesthetic art and the simplification of form. He reduces the human figure to its essence and thus has created not only an object of aesthetic significance but a sculpture of immense and inspiring beauty.
The Guggenheim museum in New York represents a vital chapter in the history of modern art and its importance as a collection is of supreme, undeniable importance.
For further details and to plan your visit, go to Visitmuseums.com
For further details see www.VisitMuseums.com. By Larissa Woolf, VisitMuseums.com Arts Editorial Contributor
The Guggenheim Museum is one of the landmark museums that should without a doubt be top of the list for museums to visit in New York. It is a collection of art from the mid nineteenth century to the present day and presents an incredibly rich, in depth and challenging portrayal of modern art whilst also showcasing some of the world’s finest modern and abstract paintings from the likes of masters such as Van Gogh, Gauguin, Picasso and Kandinsky. Opened in 1937 it began with the collection of its founder, Solomon R Guggenheim, which he transformed into a public foundation that would exhibit but also preserve his vast collection of art. Housed in its impressive white, circular unmistakable building the Guggenheim becomes an exploration and celebration of modernism and abstraction.
One of the first paintings on view is Van Gogh’s “Mountains in St Remy” which he painted whilst he was recuperating from his psychiatric problems in an asylum. Its swirling waves and rich, bold colours portray Van Gogh’s enthusiasm for nature, landscapes but also his vivid imagination. More arresting is the emotional emergency of the picture and the feeling that in his painting he is healing himself. Similarly we see Paul Gauguin returning to a state of primitivism in his painting ‘Haeve Mae Tahiti’ and his idyllic vista of island life. His move towards a simpler, more idealised way of life is reflected in his art and style. It was after 1918 however that Guggenheim and his wife collected solely non objective art. Their belief in the spiritual dimensions of pure abstraction and the bringing together of multiple viewpoints simultaneously to create a pure, direct way of looking at art was at the core of their interests and philosophy.
In Pablo Picasso’s painting, ‘Woman Ironing’ we see how Picasso’s bleak colour scheme of blues, whites and greys merge together to form a metaphor for the misfortune of the working poor. Her head hangs heavy, her angular body is unsettling and one can really feel the burden of her body. The iron forms an anchor for her body and the painting and we can see how the space created between her arms and body prefigures cubism and Pablo’s future investigation of space and volume. One of the most striking paintings in the collection is Robert Delauney’s ‘Eiffel Tower’. Tall, imposing we see how he uses angular patches of light and shadow to shatter the tower into fragments; almost as though it was alive. Delauney was fascinated by light and he used the multiple perspectives and fractured surfaces, reminiscent of cubism, to form a grotesque picture of the tower – surely one of the best known icon’s of modernity of its time. In fact as world war one began its rampage through Europe we see its effect on the art of the time as many later works are just a collection of hard to define shapes – a mass of unrecognisable objects and subjects.
For me one of the most beautiful objects in the collection is Constant Brancusi’s bronze sculpture, ‘The Muse’. A smooth, oval, idealised head which has no facial features is balanced by an arm which is resting on a wooden base. Brancusi celebrates the notion that a woman is the muse for aesthetic art and the simplification of form. He reduces the human figure to its essence and thus has created not only an object of aesthetic significance but a sculpture of immense and inspiring beauty.
The Guggenheim museum in New York represents a vital chapter in the history of modern art and its importance as a collection is of supreme, undeniable importance.
For further details and to plan your visit, go to Visitmuseums.com
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