Le Bon Temps à NOLA: Bonbons at the NOMA 1

It was just going to be one post on the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA). I was just going to do what I had done with Corcoran, one post. But I started looking at the shots and said, the beginning are really crappy, but then you get into the primitive collection, some of the pottery and then Chihuly and glass. A thoughtful modern collection and then the wonderful sculpture garden. It becomes a second post, and a third. And all of this as a freebie on Wednesday, last December. You take the streetcar on Canal north, and there you are, cher.

The interior of the original wing of the museum. From what I can see, the original must have been a two story building with an open enclosed courtyard and galleries off of it. The new wing is behind it, and 3 storeys.

The DeYoung, the St. Louis Museum of Art (as I remember it) and the Baltimore Museum of Art have a familiarity similar to NOMA. They are not grandiose size like the Philly or Met, but they have very sound collections and their housings are a little younger, more intimate and more compact. I was quote happy over seeing this collection. As art students, and former art students a lot of what we visualize is stuff housed inside museums. Famous works of art, smothered under glass, trapped away or non seeable, with an occasional release of a photo, or a “corporate” traveling show from a private collection.

Jan Lievens‘ Portrait of an Old Man. Lievens, a fellow student with Rembrandt, was considered a better painter when they were both alive.

Minor artists, or lesser known artists, are often shelved away. We don’t make time to pay attention to their work. Which is why either being to go online, or to photograph, becomes an important reason for studying work. I have heard mention of Rembrandt’s teacher, but have never seen his work except in the Rembrandthuis in Amsterdam. I may have seen his work, but either did not know or was running to see the work of the master. Hence, why certain shows are important. In the Hopper show in Rome, it was important to see the coming together of so much work, often housed in lesser known, local museums.

Marinus van Reymerswaele‘s The Lawyer’s Office

Hendrick Garritsz Pot Scenes from a Bordello and Pieter van der Bosch Kitchen Interior with a Woman Scouring Pans

These two, subjects aside, are good examples of interior paintings done in that style that would make Vermeer so famous. The scale and the sense of light are so inherent with the Dutch of this period. Pot was a fellow student with Hals and actually was painted by Hals in one of the group guild things, the Dutch are so famous for. I am having trouble locating Pieter van der Bosch other work as many are listing him as van den Bosch, which may be a difference in aging of the Dutch language. There are several versions of women scouring pots, if it is him!

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Cornelis de Heem‘s Still Life with Fruit on a Ledge

Dutch and Flemish paintings are mostly in the galleries downstairs in the original section of the museum. The inside open courtyard has many interesting contemporary works, including the work of a self-made artist, Bruce Davenport, Jr. Several of his works are shown including the one below.

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Denis Van Alsloot and Hendrick de Clerck St John the Baptist Preaching

 Bruce Davenport, Jr. Self-Taught Artist (6th series)

If the ground floor, old wing, is mostly Dutch and Flemish within galleries, with contemporary work in the interior courtyard, the upper level is more French and English portraiture, with various works, including American landscape on the interior courtyard walls. A rather dramatic hanging of one of France’s most renown woman artists, Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun’s Marie Antoinette Reine de France (below). Money aside, I am curious how this museum got portraits of the doomed couple, as both were done by their official court painters.

Antoine-François Callet Louis XVI and Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun Marie Antoinette, Reine de France

Claude Lorrain Ideal View of Tivoli

There are some painters who you are always happy to see, I always believe Corot and Turner are in landscape, another is Lorrain. This Lorrain is not as lovely as some, but he is building space very nicely here with soft light and atmospheric recession.

Jean-Baptiste Greuze’ Portrait of Marie Angélique Vérany

Notice how Greuze’ use of texture predates what Ingres will do in his portraits of women.

Nicolas de Largillière Self Portrait and Attributed to Jean François Delyen Portrait of a Wine Merchant

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Jean Baptiste Monnoyer’s Flowers in an Urn

This is a nice contrast next to some of the Dutch still lives, although this is owes a tribute to people like Ruysch.

English appear more on the outer wall of the courtyard, as do Americans. There is also  a room which has a collection of about 12 minature portraits in oval frames (directly below, right).

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Sir Thomas Lawrence Portrait of Anne-Jane Gore, Marchioness of Abercorn and two miniatures

Gilbert Stuart’s Portrait of Lydia Pinkering Williams (and detail) and Joshua Johnston’s Little Girl holding a Box of Cherries

After spending a good part of the year trying to get my kids to learn how to “block in” a painting, here we see Stuart doing it quite differently,  building up facial features while carefully blocking in areas of background color. I hope she is not Washington in drag!

William Aiken Walker’s Cotton Gin

A straightforward and quite appealing American landscape from the 1880s. It subject predates Schiller and doesn’t have that drab brownness often seen in American landscapes. I have seen other pieces, for Walker painted for tourists to make a living, but some of these are a little too stereotypical for the 21st century.

The Kuntz rooms are replications of local New Orleans American decorative arts, which are an ongoing project. Compared to Philly, or the Brooklyn Museum, this is ongoing and open for comment. The fact that the museum is attempting to preserve history of the area is a great idea.

DC1223: 1day/3muse: Corcoran

How could you knock a place that has “Dedicated to Art” over its doorway entrance?

The Corcoran is one of the museums in Washington DC that is private and you must pay for. The original housing for the collection was in today’s Renwick building (seen below, left). If you have a North American reciprocal card with your local membership you should be able to get in for nothing, same as the Women’s Museum or the Phillips. The Phillips may have an “extra” exhibit, many do, that almost negates this by making you pay extra. Luckily, if you do pay, it is only $10. A bargain next to the New York museums.

As history echoes itself last year, the Corcoran’s claim to shame comes in the 80s when it backed down on showing Robert Mapplethorpe’s work in light of a very hostile Right wing in both Congress and the White House. That was at a time when lunatic un-Christians felt that gays “got what they deserved with AIDS.”  So much for that dedication to art.

If you are outside the museum there is poster of the classical painting of a reclining seminude male, which is even more arresting because of the presentation, which is lined up on the floor, its scale and technique. This image was part of the 30 Americans, the show at the Corcoran, of the artworks of many contemporary African American artists, many who have become museum staples (Kehinde Wiley, Mickalene Thomas) in most contemporary collections in progressive American museums. As I have written a lot about both of them, including Kara Walker, another one of my favorites, but am not sure which piece she did. It is less about who they are now, but how they will evolve that interests me. There is a Basquiat. I always think of Basquiat, as I think of Janis Joplin, which is where would they have evolved. The trouble with aging, is you find yourself doing that each decade.

The layout of the show is a little confusing, so of course, I would take at least one illegal shot of an intriguing installation. At once, the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, as we confront our not to0 recent past, as we are reminded that Hitler patterned his propaganda (Jews as a “race”, public sanctioned murder) upon our dear old post-Reconstruction days. We think we have gone past those days, but when I think of all the hateful things people say and do, who have no business getting involved. But that has nothing to do with the overall show. –Or does it?

Stained Glass from the Cathedral of Soissons

The Corcoran is a good all around museum. While you have a lot of contemporary going on, you also have traditional work and craft, which gives a more pertinent view as to what art could be. The little Remington (below), although more illustration, is a pleasant diversion.

Frederic Remington’s Off the Range  (Coming through the Rye)

I was happy to go through the rooms and see both abstract expressionists and early pop. Hofmann gains more ground as his work ages. I remember when he was strictly NY. Two of my professors were disciples of his. Ironically, not yet 20, I dropped both their classes!

Hans Hofmann‘s Golden Blaze (left) and Helen Frankenthaler’s Hurricane Flag (right).

Mitchell’s reevaluation seems normal in the age of post-feminism. Her color, a little toward tints, does not compromise but enhance, her bold brushwork.

Joan Mitchell’s Salut Tom

Ad Reinhardt’s Red Wall (left) and others

Jane Hammond’s Hand Held

Raymond Saunders’ Red Star and Andy Warhol’s Mao

Chalgrin’s The Salon Doré

Most museums have some recreation of a room or rooms, but nothing is quite like this for the authenticity and the freedom to be inside it. The beauty of this room is that it was imported once from Paris from the hôtel de Clermont to a New York apartment, then again to the Corcoran. Originally built by Count D’Orsay in the 1770s in honor of his fiance, it was moved to New York by Senator Clark in the late 19th century with some modification. It is on the level of Versailles, with beautiful understated decoration and gilt embellishment.

Giuseppe Croff”s The Veiled Nun

Some sculptors invent with a material, let’s face it, stone is not flexible. After working for years in clay, I admire the carvers. Good ones, Michelangelo and some of the Spanish and German woodcarvers, have an interesting ability to truly visualize three dimensionally in that block of material. This wonderful little piece creates the illusion of a veil, while retaining beautifully the features and subtleties of light, especially around the eyes. It reminds me of some of those beautiful Vogue shots in the early fifties which were the last of veiled hats for women.

Rembrandt’s Heinrich Schutz may be questionable for portrait name, and perhaps artist attribution

Within a few rooms sits the likes of several wonderful painters: Delacroix, Corot, Daubigny, Diaz de la Peña, Constable and Gainsborough. These painters would have effect on what would become Impressionism. The paintings, most of them are small and wonderful studies after those overly large historical things one see in the National Gallery and the Met.

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Who am I to argue a little wall of Corots?

Ooh la lah, a little Corot nude!

Eugène Delacroix’a Tiger and Snake

Diaz de la Peña’s In the Forest

Daubigny’s Sunset on the River

There was an interesting photographic show adjoining “30.” And after seeing the above, I caught sight of the modern American painters of the twentieth century who predated Abstract Expressionism. These few were shot a little better than the others.

Lois Mailou Jones‘ Indian Shops, Gayhead, Massachusetts

Charles Demuth’s Rooftops and Trees

Arthur Garfield Dove’s Space Divided by Line Motive (left) and Marsden Hartley’s Berlin Abstraction(right)

Edward Hopper’s Ground Swell

Wonderful Hopper. A rare use where the figures don’t seem like architectonic ornaments. Check out the use of negative space within the figure grouping. Hopper does Perugino to Cezanne type space in the blink of an eye in this one. Odd color, although I have seen that coloring in New England.

John Singer Sargent’s Margaret Stuyvesant Rutherford White (above) and Marie Buloz Pailleron (below, left).

I don’t believe there is really any painter like Sargent. I have always admired his brushwork and the detail above (above) is one of the reasons why. He has unfortunately inspired many of those learn how to paint books, because they try to use his technique. He must have been very facile at that, because you have to be a terrific draftsman to lay paint down like that and get that effect. His drawings, robust and broad in a classical tradition, do not really expose what you will see in his painting. This technique to me is more like in some of the looser style of Jacob Jordaens. I also think of what a debt he owes to Delacroix, who really began to structure color against color, for optical effects. Sargents pop up in all museums in the U. S. If I get a chance this summer, I’ll go back and dig up the shots of murals he did for the Boston Public Library, and a few in the MFA.

When I came down the steps I saw this classical statue of a pretty woman with a lovely behind. I humorously smiled, as this was once the tradition for fine art. It came from a day and age, where any “decent” lady was covered from neck to toe. Only sometimes did this lady have a little décolletage showing, or a little adornment, a train or a bustle, attached to her backside. We go forward sometimes, then backwards. Sometimes not.