Caught by the Courtauld

Somehow, despite living in London for over a decade, I only went to the Courtauld to the first time this weekend. It is one of those places every so often I say, I should go to etc, but then I don’t. Finally I have.

It is a cave of wonders and I highly recommend you go.  It is not part of the national collection so you do have to pay to go in.  Tucked away in the entrance arch to Somerset house, it is larger than it looks laid out over 2 and ½ floors with a café basement and lockers in which you can store bags, toddlers etc.

Then you navigate up the medieval style, distinctly Escher like, stair case to see the art on display.  Hint for dealing with multi-story galleries; start at the top and work down.

One of the things that drew me to the Courtauld was the Botticelli and Hamilton Collection exhibition. This consisted of a series of drawing sketches illustrating Dante’s Inferno, and a selection if illuminated medieval books.  The sketches while intellectually interesting where quite dull.  They were very faint and difficult to see and frankly I didn’t have the patience.  The illuminated books on the other hand were very enticing.  A particular favourite was a bible which on the open page had the main parts of genesis summarised in a series of colour illustrations backed with gold. Everyone likes gold. Another had a fine illustration of Alexander the Great being lowered to the bottom of the sea in a diving bell.  Apparently diving garb is the same as full coronation regalia.  There was also a tiny book which was very pretty but is difficult to see how any non-hawk could read.

This exhibition is not up to much but worry not as entry is included in the price of general entry to the gallery and that is well worth it. Moving from the top floor down I saw many wonders. The top floor has a large domed ceiling but is carefully subdivided by display walls to give the place a more intimate feel (and no doubt to provide more hanging space). I by passed a room of Freud and Auerbach as holding little interest to me The next space was a room with a number of Kandiskys in.  I was particularly drawn to a work called “On the Theme of last judgment”.  Vague figures and landscape morph out of the abstract shapes and in the background there appears to be barbed wire.  Somehow he has managed to get oil paint to act like watercolour.

Next to this was a piece call “Portrait of a Young Woman in a Large Hat” by Gabriele Munter.  That is exactly what you get with strong lines and deceptively simple shapes making a striking portrait.  I liked it.

The next room was a series of tiny Seurat’s.   It was very well laid out so you could see the development of his style. You could see the introduction of marks of colour and this moving onto pointillism proper.  Not only good art but an example of good curator-ship.  Well done, whoever it was who did this.
The next room had a dull and depressing Walter Sikart painting but also two luminous Bernard landscapes.  They were called “Landscape with Olive Trees” and “The River Seine in Paris”.  These fought for attention with, and over came a Renoir (girl tying her shoe). I like the way Bernard's tree trunks blur out and then become leaves. 

Onward and another new discovery (for me) Ferdinand Leger  called "Contrast of Forms". Painted on burlap (he must have been skint). Its good though.  Other striking works included Mattise’s Red Beach a very good portrait by Pierre Bonnard with the original title “Woman in interior”.  She is that but it is strong and intimate portrait with bold colours and solid use of paint. He married the model apparently (who doesn’t?).  There was also a figurative piece by Braque.  I’ve only ever seen abstract but The Port of L’estaque is very good.  He uses green blobs in the sky which is a trick I will steal. The prize for this room though goes to another unfamiliar name, Larionov’s "Still life in a Major key".  Objects rendered in simple lines and shapes and with effective use of contrasting primary and secondary colours. Particularly liked the blue kettle.

That’s the top floor and on the next floor down is the Renaissance moving into impressionism. This time following the conventional route round I started earlier and went forward in time. The Courtauld is a little like the Wallace collection in that it isn’t just pictures and sculptures but other objects as well. Books, furniture, fine table wear and also the decor of the building itself are part of the collection.  The thing that catches your attention in the first room on the 1st floor is a fine selection of decorated plates.  There are also some Botticelli which are interesting to see having seen his sketches earlier.  Cranach has special significance for me and it was nice to see his Adam and Eve.  I like his apples and his crazy animals.  There was also a number of Rubens including an intriguing and very dark Rubens landscape. I was also intrigued by the very odd perspective in 2 paintings, the one I preferred of which is "Esther before Ahasuerus".  It is like you are looking up at the action from a flight of steep stairs,  a view you share with a dog that is in the foreground of the piece.  He does flesh and violence best though in my view and the room was dominated by Rubens’ "Cain killing Abel" hanging over a large ornamental fire place. 

Moving on the next room was a series of fairly dull portraiture.  Fine examples of the genre I am sure but I find them a little un-engaging. Landed gentlemen in early versions of watch catalog poses.  The striking work in this room was Joshua Reynolds' "Cupid and Psyche" with these strange luminous light grey figures, ethereal and odd.  Again hanging over a fire place.

Then into the next room and suddenly you are in the impressionist era.  The paintings are on the whole much brighter.  Presumably they mostly abandoned the use of coloured grounds which would make sense if you were painting out of doors as there wouldn’t be the time.  Monet and Renoir in evidence but there was singular Degas called “Woman at Window” which was dark and the painting was barely there at all yet it was still effective.  The paintings have to fight for your attention with the ornate ceiling of the rooms.  It adds to the whole experience I think.

The final two rooms are real show stoppers.  The next room was a long oblong.  Manet’s “A Bar at Foiles- Bergere” is here. Modigliani and Gauguin also.   My favourites included a small Rousseau called the "Toll Gate".  It is the stark contrasting lines that make it work for me.  The diagonal line of the road and the wall contrasting against the straight upward lines of the trees and the figures.  You can see modernism hammering at the seams to get out. I also liked Cezanne.  Cezanne is in fact becoming a rapid favourite of mine. He had three landscapes.  I like his landscapes.  I like his trees especially. He also had a still life that greatly appealed called “Still life with a Plaster Cupid”. I would have like to stay longer in this room but I was driven out by a student with trendy blue dyed hair giving the most soul crunching embarrassing art talk I have encountered in a long while.  I meant to go back in after she had gone but I got distracted by the next room.

The next room included a “Vase of Flowers” by Monet.  Since last week’s exhibition I have more of an appreciation of flower paintings.  He used thick blurry paint to make the flowers stand out.  There was a Lautrec of a very ill looking woman.  There was the famous Van Gogh of a portrait of him with an ear missing.  In one corner was a large Seurat of a woman powdering her nose (his mistress, unsurprisingly).  Pointillist and hypnotic. The two stand our works in this room, for me were a Van Gogh and a Monet.  The Van Gogh was called Peach Trees in Blossom. So vivid and striking, particularly the sky.  The Monet’s was “Antibes".  It is deceptively simple.  An iridescent sea, struck through diagonally by a single dark tree.  Very good.

There was a mezzanine of dull drawings.  I was not interested.

Down onto the ground floor there is a single room of medieval art. All painted panels, religiousty and gold.  It would seem that in this period either nobody smiled or artists had yet discovered how to paint smiling.  Master of Fogg Pieta’s "Saint Lawrence", popping out of his gold background is particularly grumpy.  I was struck by how modern this looked.  This and also a piece by Quentin Mossys. I have seen similar things in recent art shows.

I would have liked to stay longer but I had to leave.  Bafflingly, and for the second time, the postcard collection contained a picture of a painting not on display. This time it was Degas’ Two Dancers on a Stage.