Day 417 - Painting on various supports


 

May 11, 2025

Going to the museum only a few hours before my car service was scheduled to take me to JFK for my flight seemed crazy enough, even when I decided to save a few minutes by cabbing over to the East Side. When I discovered that 81st Street was blocked off between Columbus and Central Park West, necessitating a long (and costly) detour, I thought briefly about just going back home. But I wanted to get to one more gallery before a three-week hiatus set in, and I was able to do that, although my visit to that gallery was very abbreviated

The theme of Gallery 640 is painting on different “supports” - that is, media other than canvas, including copper, wood, plaster ( as is fresco painting), and stone. On display are works from different countries that span the period from about 1330 to 1860. One I particularly like is an oil on copper painting, measuring about 24 inches high and 16 inches high, by Domenichino (Domenico Zampieri), a Bologna-born painter (another one!)whose dates are 1581-1641. The painting is entitled “Landscape with Moses and the Burning Bush.” Moses in the foreground shields his eyes from the bush’s bright flames, while the sheep he’s guarding graze peacefully behind him. The landscape is equally serene - and unlike anything to be seen in the Holy Lnad - an aquamarine lake bordered by a walled town and a fortess, with craggy mountings in the far distance. More like Como than Kinneret, I’d say. The colors of the lake, the cerulean sky, the golden flames, and Moses’ red mantle are all brilliant, an effect, I read, made possible by copper’s smooth surface.

Another work catches my eye because it’s such a wonderful example of trompe l’oeil. The artist,   Piat Joseph Sauvage, a Flemish painter who lived around the turn of the 19th century. painted "Nymph and Putti: Nymph with a Wreath and Putti with Garlands and Flowers" in oil on slate to imitate classical bas0rkuef, The painter’s use of highlights to make various body parts stand out is truly masterful. 

But why, of why, does the gallery need a politically correct wall sign about all this? That sign notes that by the 1590s, most painters preferred to work on canvas because it was less costly, easier to obtain, and more portable than other media. “The close association between oil on canvas and the European tradition led ot its adoption as a signifier of fine art,” the sign continues, adding, “In many cases it supplanted other traditions - such as paintings on paper, linen, or bark [!] - in a form of cultural imperialism as artists sought to compete in the global art market.” The sign, at least to me, seems to slight the achievements of the European painters represented in these galleries. They did  produce fine art, after all; the museum itself is testimony to the fact that so did other cultures and epochs.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 180 - Rock crystal bird worth 275 cows

Image
August 23, 2019 At my last visit to the museum, I went to scout out the seating arrangements in the next galleries, to see whether I needed to bring my new portable cane-seat. (I do.)  I discovered that galleries 509-519 are closed for renovation, while gallery 520 is decorated with large photos of various objects that are presumably on exhibit in the closed galleries. It's not worth writing about photographs - I'll wait to see the real thing. So today's gallery is gallery 521. It's a gallery that many people walk through, because it's on the direct - perhaps only - route to the cafeteria. But not that many people stop to look at what's in the gallery itself, and that's a shame. To me, this is one of the most extraordinary, worthwhile displays I've seen at the Met. The exhibit concerns the relative value of different objects found in Northern Europe and mostly made in the 16th century. Determining relative value is a challenge because at...
Read more

Day 292 - Eakins' "Arcadia"

Image
  April 11, 2022 The title of the placard introducing gallery 764 is "In the Artist's Studio, 1865-1900."  Some paintings indeed depict artists in their studios, while others show craftsmen and scientists in their places of work. For me, though, what the paintings largely indicate is their creators' self-consciousness as artists. Eight of the paintings displayed are by Thomas Eakins, and today's work, entitled "Arcadia," is the one that most grabs me, possibly because (and I am not proud to say this) I am aware of the speculation that Eakins was gay. and wonder whether  the canvas was meant to have homoerotic appeal.  The painting, which is about 44 inches wide and 40 inches high,  shows three nude figures, one standing and two lying on a lush green sward framed by leafy green trees in the background. Two of the figures play pipes of Pan. I can readily imagine that the lean youth standing at the right could be viewed as sexually enticing, although his ge...
Read more

Day 77 - Plate with "reclusive landscape"

Image
August 1, 2018 Gallery 211 contains works illustrating another theme, the "landscape of reclusion."  The works represent the idea of landscape as a retreat from the world's dangers and from the hurly-burly of politics and professional service. According to a wall sign, such works frequently depict retired gentlemen and scholars seated in pavilions sipping tea, surrounded by majestic mountains -- an altogether peaceful, meditative, and beautiful environment. (Of course,I suppose these scholars would have had to be men of means to afford such retreats.)  A poem by Lu Yin, a 3rd century C.E. poet, that is reproduced on a wall placard, expresses this notion perfectly:  Living in retirement beyond the world,  Silently enjoying isolation,  I pull the rope of my door tighter, And grip tight the wine jug. My spirit is tuned to the spring season; At the fall of the year there is autumn in my heart, Thus following the ways of heaven and earth. ...
Read more