Face to Face: Flanders, Florence, and Renaissance Painting

Rogier van der Weyden (ca. 1400–1464). The Virgin and Child, ca. 1460, oil on panel transferred to canvas transferred to masonite, 19 1/2 × 12 1/2 in. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens



Rogier van der Weyden (ca. 1400–1464) Portrait of Philippe de Croÿ, ca. 1460, oil on panel, 20 × 12 1/2 in. The Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp. Photo © Lukas Art/Koninkijk Musuem voor Schone Kunsten.

An exhibition of 29 paintings by Renaissance luminaries such as Domenico Ghirlandaio, Hans Memling, Pietro Perugino, and Rogier van der Weyden, complemented by six rarely exhibited illuminated manuscripts, has been organized by The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens and is on view in the MaryLou and George Boone Gallery from Sept. 28, 2013, through Jan. 13, 2014. Accompanied by a book of the same title, “Face to Face: Flanders, Florence, and Renaissance Painting” explores the relatively little-known fact that Flemish painting helped make possible the innovative, sophisticated, and beautiful works of the Italian Renaissance.

While many exhibitions have shed light on the beauty of 15th-century Flemish painting, and even more have celebrated the glory of Italian Renaissance painting, “Face to Face” (inspired by the 2008 exhibition “Firenze e gli Antichi Paesi Bassi 1430–1530,” presented at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence) is the first in the United States to examine the theme, showing the results of artistic contact between the creative centers in Flanders (specifically those located in present-day Belgium) and Florence.

“Face to Face” marks the first time viewers in the Los Angeles area will be able to see The Huntington’s acclaimed Virgin and Child (ca. 1460) by Flemish painter Rogier van der Weyden (ca. 1400–1464) displayed alongside its companion diptych panel. Portrait of Philippe de Croÿ, on loan from the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, was originally the right half of the two-panel painting hinged to open and close like a book—a common format at the time that enabled the works to stand open on a table or altar.

With paintings from the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence, the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., among others, the exhibition juxtaposes Flemish and Italian works in thematic groupings, addressing the form of the diptych, the depiction of the face of Christ, the evolution of portraiture, the elements of landscape painting, and the virtuosic rendering of materials and objects.

“Face to Face” is co-curated by Catherine Hess, chief curator of European art at The Huntington, and Paula Nuttall, author of From Flanders to Florence: The Impact of Netherlandish Painting, 1400–1500 (2004, Yale University Press) and Face to Face: Flanders, Florence, and Renaissance Painting, published by The Huntington on the occasion of this exhibition. Her recent book includes a new essay on the topic and reproduces all of the works included in the display.

The Connection Between Flanders and Florence

Flanders was a wealthy region encompassing parts of present-day Belgium, France, and the Netherlands, and it was ruled by the dukes of Burgundy, whose magnificent court attracted leading artists. These factors led to the flourishing of art and culture in this region. It was in Flanders, argues Nuttall, that in the first decades of the 15th century “a new pictorial language based on the observation of reality” was developed, notably by Jan van Eyck (ca. 1380/90–1441) and Van der Weyden.

Florence also had a prosperous mercantile economy and was an important cultural and artistic center in the 15th century. And since the late Middle Ages, a colony of Florentine merchants and bankers had settled in Flanders to facilitate banking and trade.

Through these commercial connections, Flemish painting became known in Florence, where it was admired for its emotional intensity and awe-inspiring realism. By the end of the 15th century, influential art patrons, including the Medici family, displayed works by Flemish artists in Florentine churches and homes.

The lessons learned from Flemish painting enriched and transformed the art made in Florence. Even Michelangelo commented on the realism of Flemish painting by noting that the painting of Flanders “will cause [the devout] to shed many tears,” and “in Flanders they paint with a view to deceiving the eye.”

A particularly striking example of the impact of Flemish work on a Florentine artist is Hans Memling’s (ca. 1430–1494)



Man of Sorrows Blessing,

an intensely moving Flemish devotional painting that promoted private prayer and the contemplation of Christ’s humanity rather than his divinity. The painting was owned by a Florentine and must have arrived in Florence soon after it was painted, generating a host of copies. Outstanding among these is the copy by Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449–1494) that is so faithful to its model that it was long thought to be by Memling himself. Both works are on view in “Face to Face” for visitors to compare:




Left: Hans Memling, "Man of Sorrows Blessing," ca. 1480-90, oil on panel, 22 x 13 7/8 in. Musei di Strada Nuova, Palazzo Bianco, Genoa. Photo © Musei di Strada Nuova, Genoa. Right: Domenico Ghirlandaio, "The Man of Sorrows Blessing," ca. 1490, tempera on panel, 21 3/8 x 13 1/4 in. Philadelphia Museum of Art, John G. Johnson Collection. Photo courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The Glory of Renaissance Painting

Masterworks gathered together for “Face to Face” include



Memling’s Portrait of a Man with a Coin of the Emperor Nero from the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp


A celebrated cornerstone of Western art, Portrait of a Man with a Coin of the Emperor Nero displays elements typical of Memling’s portraits that were popular with Italians in Flanders, including the fanciful landscape in the background and an especially refined execution. The painting may depict an Italian patron, an idea supported by the Roman coin in his hand.



and his Saint Veronica from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.,

Saint Veronica is a sensitive rendering of the saint kneeling within an expansive landscape and holding a veil imprinted with the image of Christ’s face. This Flemish panel originally formed half of a diptych—with Memling’s Saint John the Baptist, now in Munich—that was owned by Bernardo Bembo, the Venetian ambassador to Burgundy and subsequently the Venetian ambassador to Florence.



as well as Gerard David’s (ca. 1455-1523) Virgin with the Milk Soup from the Palazzo Bianco in Genoa,

An image of intimate domesticity, Virgin with the Milk Soup is a masterful rendering of objects of daily life—including the child’s transparent linen shirt, a basket and prayer book under the window, and the elements of a meal on the table in the foreground—a characteristic of Flemish painting prized by Florentine painters and patrons.



Pietro Perugino’s (ca. 1446/1450–1523) Portrait of Francesco delle Opere from the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence,

and Filippino Lippi’s (ca. 1457–1504) Portrait of a Musician from the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin.



Portrait of a Musician is a remarkable Italian portrait that shows a young man, a bow tucked in his elbow, tuning a lira da braccio (a Renaissance stringed instrument), with other instruments and books on the shelf behind him. The domestic setting, the window with a vista, and virtuosic details in this Italian picture were undoubtedly inspired by Flemish models.






Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-1494). Left: "Portrait of a Man," ca. 1490, tempera on panel, 20 3/8 x 15 5/8 in. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. Right: "Portrait of a Woman," ca. 1490, tempera on panel, 20 3/8 x 15 5/8 in. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens


From a wonderful review:

Hans Memling (ca. 1430-1494), "Christ Blessing," 1481
oil on panel, 13 1/8 × 9 7/8 in.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Bequest of William A. Coolidge.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons


Upon approaching, "Christ Blessing," I was struck by its immense emotional subtlety. The face of Christ has a naturalistic softness that transmits a sense of knowing sadness: It moved and impressed me. But then I lowered my eyes and took in a detail that made the work come even more completely alive: Christ's hand rests on the edge of the frame in a virtuoso display of illusionistic oil painting.



Detail: Hans Memling (ca. 1430-1494), "Christ Blessing," 1481

The image of the hand really got to me: It was an epiphany that alerted me not only to the genius of Memling but also to the "moment" that this show represents. A few short decades before Leonardo completed the, "Mona Lisa," it is clear that his artistic predecessors in the north were doing the hard work that cleared the way for the astonishing presence of his art. The power of that subtle hand -- resting on the edge between illusion and reality -- strikes me as every bit as brilliant and memorable as the, "Mona Lisa," smile. It breaches the barriers between Memling's world and ours and demolishes time...

I was very charmed by Gerard David's, "Virgin With the Milk Soup." Apparently Flemish collectors were too as there are some seven versions of this image which carries iconographic suggestions of salvation and redemption. She is the serene prototype of the window-lit secular beauties that Vermeer would paint two centuries later.

David's, "Virgin," struck me as containing a host of paintings within a painting. His sensitive rendering of the milk soup and bread has the candor of Chardin still life. The tiny vase of flowers on the shelf above the Virgin -- the flowers are meant to denote both sorrow and compassion -- is an image that will bloom into full complexity and become a genre in the hands of later Dutch masters. The gated village scene -- visible through the window -- is like a tiny John Constable landscape.

About the Book



Face to Face: Flanders, Florence, and Renaissance Painting
Written by: Paula Nuttall (Introduction by Catherine Hess)
Available worldwide
Format: Cloth, 96 pages, 8 × 10 inches, 80 color illustrations
ISBN: 978-0-87328-258-1
$29.95
Release: Sept. 2013
Huntington Library Press

This lavishly illustrated catalogue accompanies an exhibition of the same name at The Huntington (Sept. 28, 2013 to Jan. 13, 2014). Co-curator and scholar Paula Nuttall explores the transmission of ideas, techniques, and modes of artistic rendering that first developed in the Burgundian court and became hugely influential in southern Europe—notably on painting in Florence, usually considered the artistic epicenter of Renaissance Europe. Nuttall treats the thematic groupings of the exhibition, exploring the diptych as an art form, the portrayal of the face of Christ, the development of portraiture, and the virtuosic renderings of materials and textures.

Jordaens: the Pride of Antwerp

Jordaens: the Pride of Antwerp

19 September 2013 – 19 January 2014

Petit Palais



Jacques Jordaens (1593-1678)
The Painter’s Family, 1621-1622
© Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado


Backed up by superb scenography and numerous loans of remarkable works from leading French and International museums, this retrospective will restore Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678) to his rightful place as the pride of Antwerp. Still hard at work more than thirty years after Rubens’ death in 1640, Jordaens’ long career and the ability to turn out sizable, dazzling canvases with the assistance of a rigorously organised workshop, saw him provide a whole section of Europe with altar paintings and large, mythological compositions. At a time when Antwerp was in decline as the Continent’s economic capital, Jordaens kept its prestige alive with the sheer abundance and colourfulness of his artistic output.




Jacques Jordaens (1593-1678)
Sainte Famille, vers 1620
© Southampton City Art Gallery, Hampshire, UK/ The Bridgeman Art Library

On loan from collections not only in Belgium, but also in Russia, America, Sweden, Hungary, Jerusalem, Madrid and Vienna, the 120 works on show at the Petit Palais are an eloquent testimony to the extent and variety of his inspiration: from family portraits to large religious works, from the famous Flemish Proverbs series to banquet scenes, such as The King Drinks and tapestry cartoons. Here, we see a bourgeois man who hardly ever left his home city drawing on a host of sources ranging from Rubens to Caravaggio, the Venetian Renaissance masters and the heritage of antiquity, and combining them with the personal verve that won him international renown.



Jacques Jordaens (1593-1678)
Adoration des Bergers, 1616-1617
© Musée de Grenoble

The exhibition is punctuated by information points which provide visitors access to the stories behind the works and to the painter’s ‘trade secrets’.



It is also accompanied, by a detailed, splendidly illustrated catalogue.

From an excellent review: (image added)

The influence of Rubens is crucial to any interpretation of Jordaens, but to call him Rubens’ successor is too strong. An ink sketch for Rubens’ The Deposition of Christ, produced by Jordaens while working in the master’s studio, demonstrates the younger artist’s vigorous grasp of composition, characterised by the tightly packed curves and counter-curves of figures tumbling over each other to be noticed. The subject of the painting becomes little more than a device, a clockwork key for this carnival of forms and movement.

This can also be seen in Jordaens’ version of Rubens’ The Adoration of the Shepherds,(Adoration des Bergers,, above) where figures pile precariously above the virgin and child. Faces are contorted, arms flail – and the rigid head of a huge bovine protrudes into the centre of the painting. This bathetic addition is a particular idiosyncrasy of Jordaens’ and reaches its apex with the



Abduction of Europa,

in which the artist’s concentration on fleshy nudes is almost outdone by his ardent depiction of the attendant herd of cows.

The exhibition also presents Jordaens’ lavish tapestries, and his scene decoration, showing an artist who thrived under bourgeois requirements for ostentation. A painter who inspired Delacroix with his studies of heads, Cezanne with his nudes, and Van Gogh with his cows, Jordaens is a figure worthy of re-evaluation. This exhibition offers a sensitively tuned approach, its honesty of appraisal enlivened by a lightness of touch.

Excellent review in French with lots of images

Even more images!



Jacques Jordaens (1593-1678)
Le Sacrifice d’Isaac, vers 1625-1630
Huile sur toile
© Milan, Pinacothèque de Brera



Jacques Jordaens (1593-1678)
Servante avec une corbeille de fruits et un couple d’amoureux, vers 1628-1630
©CSG CIC Glasgow Museums Collection





Jacques Jordaens (1593-1678)
Le satyre et le paysan, vers 1645
© Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Bruxelles/Photo J.Geleyns / www.roscan.be



Jacques Jordaens (1593-1678)
Les Filles de Cécrops découvrant l’enfant Erichthonios, 1617
Anvers, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten
© Lukas-Art in Flanders vzw/photo Hugo Maerten



Jacques Jordaens (1593-1678)
Adam et Eve (La Chute de l’Homme), vers 1640
© Photography Incorporated, Toledo,
Etats-Unis



Jacques Jordaens (1593-1678)
Mercure et Argus, vers 1620
© Lyon MBA-Photo Alain Basset



Jacques Jordaens (1593-1678)
Le Roi boit, vers 1638-1640
© Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Bel-gique,
Bruxelles/Photo J. Geleyns / www.roscan.be



Jacques Jordaens (1593-1678)
Les Quatre évangélistes, 1625-1630
© RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre)/René-Gabriel Ojéda



Jacob Jordaens,
‘Le Repos de Diane’, c. 1640 /
© Stéphane Piera / Petit Palais / Roger-Viollet



Jacques Jordaens (1593-1678),
Autoportrait de l’artiste avec sa femme Catharina van Noort, leur fille Elisabeth et une servante dans un jardin, 1621-1622,

Pablo Picasso Women - Bulls - Old Masters

Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin
Fri 13 September 2013 - Sun 12 January 2014

Pablo Picasso–Women, Bulls, Old Masters from Gestalten on Vimeo.

Picasso created the most important oeuvre in 20th-century art not only in his capacity as a painter and sculptor, but also and above all as a draughtsman and printmaker. The Kupferstichkabinett's collection of 180 works by this giant of modernism is one of the oldest Picasso collections held by a public museum. Featuring 120 prints and drawings selected from the Kupferstichkabinett's own holdings and supplemented by an additional 40 loans - including paintings, coloured works on paper, posters, and ceramics - this retrospective survey cuts across seven decades in an extraordinary body of work. It ranges in style from Picasso's early ascetic figuration, through nuances of Cubism, Neoclassicism, and Surrealism, to the vibrant expressivity of the late period, all the while depicting his transformative plurality of style.



Pablo Picasso: Portrait of a Young Girl after Cranach the Younger II, Cannes, 4.7.1958
© Succession Picasso / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2013. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett / Jörg P. Anders

This portrait, made in July 1958, was Picasso’s first independent linocut. It was based on a postcard sent to him by his dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler of a painting by Lucas Cranach the Younger. Cranach’s painting of 1564 is delicately modelled and coloured, making it an unexpected choice for turning into a linocut. Adopting the conventional technique for colour linocuts, Picasso cut a different linoleum block for each different colour in the print. Registering each block correctly was complicated, hence the slight overlaps and gaps between the colours.

The exhibition is divided into ten thematic chapters that adhere to Picasso's motto that 'the drama of the man' was the most crucial motivation behind his art. Starting with the early work peopled by jesters and acrobats and interspersed with portraits of his contemporaries, the exhibition moves on to the core themes of his homages to women - lovers and partners - and the relationship between artist and model. Also highlighted are Picasso's lifelong fascination with bullfighting as an allegory of the battle of the sexes and his appropriation of the myth of the Minotaur of Crete, the half-bull, half-man, which he depicted as his alter ego. Other thematic sections illustrate the artist's politically motivated works (for example prints produced against the Franco regime, and the dove of peace) and his reinterpretation of works of literature and old masters like Rembrandt, Cranach, and Goya.

Catalogue:



Over the seven decades of Pablo Picasso’s artistic career, there were subjects to which he returned again and again. These include women, bulls, and the Old Masters as well as political and literary themes, circus people, mythical creatures, and interiors. In order to further explore his changing personal perspective on these subjects, this large format, 300-page book showcases Pablo Picasso’s graphic work in chapters structured according to these recurring themes. Women, Bullfights, Old Masters presents 200 graphic prints, lithographs, drawings, and collages from Pablo Picasso’s artistic beginnings in the early 1900s to his late works from the 1960s. Ranging from black and white to colorful, the artwork represents his various styles from classic to cubistic to surrealistic. The included texts not only examine the work in a historical context, but also reevaluate it from a contemporary point of view. This book juxtaposes a selection of Pablo Picasso’s graphic works with the classical paintings that inspired them. The visual dialog that results reveals interesting parallels and the clear influence of Old Masters such as Rembrandt, Cranach, and Goya on Picasso’s work. Women, Bullfights, Old Masters is rounded out by a biographic chronology, a detailed list of Pablo Picasso’s artworks, and a bibliography.



Pablo Picasso: Studie zu „Die Opfergabe“ (Étude pour„L’ offrande“), 1908 Aquarell und Bleistift, 47,5 x 62,5 cm – © Succession Picasso / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2013; SMB, Kupferstichkabinett / Jörg P. Anders

Zurbarán (1598-1664)

For the first time in Italy, an exhibition dedicated to Francisco de Zurbarán, one of the main charachters of the XVI Century in Spain - a contemporary of Velázquez, Murillo, Rembrandt and Hals. A selection of his masterpieces will show his great art, with traditional images linked to modern inventions.

September, 14th, 2013 – January, 6th, 2014
Ferrara - Palazzo dei Diamanti - Corso Ercole I d'Este, 21

This Spanish painter was a contemporary of Velázquez and Murillo, as well as famous artists from the Netherlands, as Rembrandt and Hals. During his life, Zurbarán was well-known for his very own way of interpreting religion, and a personal poetic naturalism. Soon afterwards, his fortune eclipsed, to rise only during the Nineteenth Century. From the first decades of the Nineteenth Century, many artists got their inspiration from his masterpieces. His contribution to Baroque art history is of great importance.

A great opportunity to get to know this artist, the exhibition will host many works of art from both public museums and private collections, from all over Europe.

The gallery will be divided into themed sections, to underline the strength of this painter, who was able to re-interpret in a very modern way many traditional themes as religious figures, still life, everyday scenes.

Catalogue:



Excelent review, in Italian


Images from the exhibition:




Agnus Dei, c. 1635-40,San Diego Museum of Art



Fra' Jerónimo Pérez, c. 1632, Madrid, Museo de la Real Accademia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando



San Francesco, c. 1634, Milwaukee Art Museum



La casa di Nazaret, c. 1644-45, Madrid, Fondo Cultural Villar Mir



Cristo crocifisso con un pittore, anni Cinquanta del Seicento, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado



Santa Casilda, c. 1635, Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza



Vergine Bambina addormentata, c. 1655-60, Jerez de la Frontera, Capitolo della Cattedrale

Facing the Modern: The Portrait in Vienna 1900

This autumn, 9 October – 12 January 2014, the National Gallery presents the UK’s first major exhibition devoted to the portrait in Vienna - Facing the Modern: The Portrait in Vienna 1900.

Portraiture is closely identified with the distinctive flourishing of modern art in the Austrian capital during its famed fin-de-siècle: artists worked to the demands of patrons, and in Vienna modern artists were compelled to focus on the image of the individual.

Iconic portraits from this time – by Gustav Klimt , Egon Schiele, Richard Gerstl, Oskar Kokoschka and Arnold Schönberg are displayed alongside works by important yet less widely known artists such as Broncia Koller and Isidor Kaufmann.

In contrast to their contemporaries working in Paris, Berlin and Munich, and in response to the demands of their local market, Viennese artists such as Klimt remained focused on the image of the individual. Portraits therefore dominate their production, enabling this exhibition to reconstruct the shifting identities of artists, patrons, families, friends, intellectual allies and society celebrities of this time and place.

Paintings from major collections on both sides of the Atlantic, including those that hardly ever leave the walls of the Belvedere in Vienna and MoMA in New York are shown next to rarely seen, yet remarkable images from smaller public and private collections. Most works are on canvas, though visitors will also see drawings and the haunting death masks of Gustav Klimt (1918); Ludwig van Beethoven (1827), Egon Schiele (1918) and Gustav Mahler (1911), all on loan from the Wien Museum Karlsplatz. A family photograph album belonging to Edmund de Waal, acclaimed author of 'The Hare with Amber Eyes' (2010) will also be exhibited. De Waal’s family were once a very wealthy European Jewish banking dynasty centered in Vienna; this photograph memoir has been described as an ‘enchanting history lesson’.

Highlight paintings include:



'The Family (Self Portrait)' by Schiele (1918, Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna)



'Nude Self Portrait by Gerstl' (1908, Leopold Museum, Vienna)



'Portrait of a Lady in Black' by Gustav Klimt (about 1894, Private collection)

Also on show is



Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Hermine Gallia (1904, The National Gallery, London)

the haunting image of a Jewish patron of art and design whose family would be driven from Vienna by anti-Semitism in the 1930s. It is the only painting by this seminal Viennese artist in the National Gallery’s collection.

The exhibition also features a room devoted to the portrait as a declaration of love and commemoration of the dead while a final display looks at unfinished or abandoned works that failed to meet the expectations of artists or patrons.

'Facing the Modern: The Portrait in Vienna 1900' explores an extraordinary period of the multi-national, multi-ethnic, multi-faith city of Vienna as imperial capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1867–1918). The exhibition looks back at middle-class Vienna in the early 19th century, the so-called Biedermeier period, as represented by artists like Frederich von Amerling and Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, whose portraits were ‘rediscovered’ by the city’s modern artists in 1900. It then moves to the 1867 – 1918 period to consider images of children and families, of artists, and of men and women in their professional and marital roles.

The period began with liberal and democratic reform, urban and economic renewal, and religious and ethnic tolerance, but ended with the rise of conservative, nationalist and anti-Semitic mass movements. Such dramatic changes had a profound impact on the composition and confidence of Vienna’s middle classes, many of them immigrants with Jewish roots or connections. Portraits were the means by which this sector of society - the ‘New Viennese’ - declared its status and sense of belonging; portraits also increasingly served to express their anxiety and alienation.



'Facing the Modern: The Portrait in Vienna 1900' is curated by Dr. Gemma Blackshaw, Associate Professor, History of Art and Visual Culture at Plymouth University and guest curator at the National Gallery. The project was conceived by Christopher Riopelle, Curator of Post-1800 Paintings at the National Gallery.

'Facing the Modern: The Portrait in Vienna 1900' is organised by the National Gallery, London.

From a fascinating review:

Egon Schiele’s Erich Lederer, 1912, the pose as elegantly Dyckian as any Stuart fop

This is an exhibition that from beginning to end loses its way. The year 1900 is its proposed focus, yet it roams far back to the age of Schubert and bogs down in an examination of the middle classes of his day, with the clutter of Biedermeier furniture, the clank and clunk of the German fortepiano and the whiff of tobacco in a Meerschaum pipe, and then offers, in only 73 exhibits, a threadbare patchwork history of Viennese portraiture from 1827 to 1918. Even with so little to show, the exhibition is diminished rather than enhanced by diversions into the Viennese fascination with death — so many of its citizens had taken to the Danube, the razor, the revolver and the rope that the city was known as “the suicide zone of Europe” (and what has that to do with portraiture?) — into women artists of the day (have we not had enough of gender politics in art?), and into “Imaging the Jew” — this last illustrated by one of the most beautiful portraits in the exhibition,



Isidor Kaufmann’s Young Rabbi of 1910.

The exhibition is far from being “a portrait of Vienna itself”, as Nicholas Penny puts it in his Director’s Foreword; it could hardly be that without some focus on the Secession and the Wiener Werkstätte (craft workshops) — though some trifle by Kolomon Moser appears on the shelf behind Maria in Auchentaller’s portrait of 1912.

The exhibition comes to life with Klimt, aged 38 in 1900. We see an earlier Klimt, his Lady in Black of c.1894,(above) a thing of startling light, clarity, tone and silhouette, every detail of textile, stitching and jewellery, of ear, hair, eye, lips, double chin and hand caught to perfection in and against the light, every aspect of its brilliance quite astonishing. Ten years on we encounter Hermine Gallia of 1904, (above) a portly Jewess dissolving in a Whistlerian drift of faintly coloured tone, anchored in pattern but all other details suggested, not defined. In it we can nevertheless see roots of the highly coloured, ornately detailed tricks and mannerisms that were, within a decade, to make Klimt’s work so utterly seductive —



his posthumous (and unfinished, for he too died) portrait of the dancer Ria Munk of 1917-18, makes the point.

.

From another excellent review:

Schiele Egon Schiele's Portrait of Albert Paris von Gütersloh, 1918 Photograph: Schiele/Minneapolis Institute of Arts

The stars of the show are undoubtedly Schiele and Klimt. Schiele's portraits, especially those of himself, are a bit frightening and grotesque, and deliberately, provocatively so. I am immune to Schiele. Klimt, who began as an extremely proficient and conventional portraitist, did at least develop in interesting ways, and wasn't just bludgeoning us with his ego. There was a sense of inquiry in his work, even at its most decorative, an interest in form and surface that at its best becomes almost oceanic.



Gustav Klimt's portrait of Amalie Zuckerkandl, 1917-18. Photograph: National Gallery

Perhaps the real ending to the show comes not among the death masks or the portrait of Emperor Franz Joseph, lain out for the undertaker, but in Klimt's 1917-18 portrait of Amalie Zuckerkandl, which hangs alone on a dark wall. Klimt died before finishing the painting. It seems complete without his usual decorative excess. I am held by the painting's symmetry, the way that Zuckerkandl looks directly at us. Apart from her head and bust, the rest is vagueness. Later, she was murdered in a Nazi concentration camp. Here, she still has something of a life to live, which makes this painting's incompleteness painful and expressive in ways the artist could never have intended or envisaged.

And from still another review (images added):

For example, if like me you’d always thought of Schiele’s or Kokoschka’s twisted and tormented portraits as visual manifestations of Freud’s writings about neurosis and hysteria, just take a look at the work of one of their predecessors, the surpassingly strange Anton Romako, who died in 1889. His pendant portraits of the newspaper man



Christoph Reisser and



his wife Isabella

are so unsettling that on first seeing them I found I’d inadvertently taken a step backwards. Husband and wife are seen from head on, as though caught in the beam of a headlamp. Dressed to the nines, Isabella smiles as she knows she must. But what a smile:self-conscious and tearful, she bares her white teeth as if she might bite us. Christoph, by contrast is a big powerful man who crumples that day’s newspaper in one hand. Assured, calm and self -confident, he could be a psychiatrist, she his patient.



Compare this to Kokoschka’s double portrait of the young art historian Hans Tietze and his wife Erica Tietze-Conrat of 1909, where the husband lowers his eyes and bites his lower lip hard enough to draw a drop of blood. If he is eaten up with anxiety his wife stares vacantly into space with the unfocused eyes of a person in shock.



And that portrait is mild stuff compared to Kokoschka’s dying Count Verona, where on the wall behind the tubercular sitter is a palm print made with the blood he has just coughed up and wiped from his mouth and chin.

Publication




'Facing the Modern: The Portrait in Vienna 1900' is published by National Gallery Company to accompany the exhibition. The foreword to the accompanying book, edited by Dr. Blackshaw, is written by Edmund de Waal.