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149 Paintings You Really Need to See in Europe

149 Paintings You Really Need to See in Europe So You Can Ignore the Others J U L I A N P O RT E R

Copyright Julian Porter 2013 All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic mechanical photocopying recording or otherwise except for brief passages for purposes of review without the prior permission of Dundurn Press Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright PROJECT EDITOR Diane Young EDITORS Bob Chodos Ginny Freeman MacOwan Susan Joanis DESIGN Kim Monteforte WeMakeBooks ca PRINTER Imago AUTHOR PHOTO Michael Barrack We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and Livres Canada Books and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions J Kirk Howard President Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Porter Julian author 149 paintings you really need to see in Europe so you can ignore the others Julian Porter Issued in print and electronic formats ISBN 978 1 4597 0072 7 pbk 1 Art museums Europe Guidebooks 2 Painting European Guidebooks I Title II Title One hundred forty nine paintings you really need to see in Europe N1010 P67 201 708 94 C2013 902948 6 1 2 3 4 5 C2013 902949 4 17 16 15 14 13 Printed and bound in Canada VISIT US AT Dundurn com Definingcanada ca dundurnpress Facebook com dundurnpress Dundurn 3 Church Street Suite 500 Toronto Ontario Canada M5E 1M2 Gazelle Book Services Limited White Cross Mills High Town Lancaster England LA1 4XS Dundurn 2250 Military Road Tonawanda NY U S A 14150

CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xvii INTRODUCTION xix Chapter 1 GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND 1 The Paintings 1 Anonymous The Wilton Diptych 4 2 Bellini Giovanni The Doge Leonardo Loredan 7 3 Titian The Death of Actaeon 9 4 Rembrandt Self Portrait at the Age of 63 11 5 Constable The Hay Wain 13 6 Turner Rain Steam and Speed The Great Western Railway 15 7 Van Eyck Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and His Wife 17 8 Stubbs Whistlejacket 19 9 Uccello St George and the Dragon 21 10 Turner Snow Storm Steam Boat off a Harbour s Mouth Making Signals in Shallow Water and Going by the Lead 23 11 Millais Ophelia 25 12 Waterhouse The Lady of Shalott 27

13 Whistler Nocturne in Blue and Gold Old Battersea Bridge 29 14 C zanne Lac d Annecy 33 15 Manet Bar at the Folies Berg re 35 16 Lawrence George IV 36 17 Rembrandt Self Portrait with Two Circles 39 18 Rubens Adoration of the Magi 41 19 Uccello Hunters in a Wood 43 20 Caravaggio The Taking of Christ 44 The Galleries National Gallery London 46 Tate Britain London 49 Queen s Royal Gallery London 53 Courtauld Gallery London 53 Wallace Collection London 54 Kenwood House London 56 King s College Cambridge 56 Ashmolean Museum Oxford 57 National Gallery Dublin 57 Chapter 2 FRANCE 59 The Paintings 21 Caravaggio Death of the Virgin 61 22 Raphael Baldassare Castiglione 63 23 David Jacques Louis Madame R camier 65

24 Delacroix Liberty Leading the People July 28 1830 66 25 G ricault The Raft of the Medusa 69 26 Quarton Piet de Villeneuve l s Avignon 72 27 Chardin Pipe and Drinking Cup 74 28 Manet D jeuner sur l herbe Luncheon on the Grass 76 29 Manet Olympia 79 30 Degas In a Caf 82 31 Renoir Ball at the Moulin de la Galette Montmartre 84 32 Toulouse Lautrec Le Lit 86 33 Monet Water Lilies 88 The Galleries Mus e du Louvre Paris 91 Mus e d Orsay Paris 97 Mus e de l Orangerie Paris 100 Mus e Jacquemart Andr Paris 100 Chapter 3 SPAIN 103 The Paintings 34 Bosch Garden of Earthly Delights 104 35 Van der Weyden Deposition 107 36 Fra Angelico The Annunciation 108 37 Goya Third of May 1808 109 38 Goya Sabbath 111 39 El Greco The Holy Trinity 113 40 Vel zquez The Surrender of Breda 115

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book was long in the oven I owe thanks to many My father who was a fine painter and a gentle teacher Professor Brieger who taught me at university for his love of Rembrandt James Spence who helped me focus in on the scope of this Frans Donker whose countless Book City sales created my art library Kevin Sartorio for his help on copyright Virginia Walker for her laborious photography of many of these paintings Joey Slinger who is the best possible viewer on an art tour Jack Rabinovitch who has painfully endured many lectures Dirk and Ines Roosenberg who explained the magic of Rembrandt in The Hague Frank Iacobucci for unravelling access to King s College Cliff Lax and Ian Roland my cheery legal supporters for their expression of confidence Roy McMurtry a sounding post for colour and the difficulties of painting Margaret Atwood for her flow of innovative ideas about approaches to this Michael Barrack for his pictures of me in Vienna Baron Jan Six van Hillegrom who provided me with the image of the portrait of Jan Six Nancy Lockhart for her picture of Giverny Dawn Mathews for pulling all this together Anna for her guidance And of course Rembrandt van Rijn whom I have visited for some fifty nine years xvii

INTRODUCTION In 1955 during my last year of high school I started work as a tour guide in Europe and every summer after that for seven years I travelled to Europe with Canadian high school students showing them the grand sites the famous cities and of course the galleries While there I fell in love with European art and it has been my passion ever since I have returned every year either alone or with my growing family with friends or small groups of lawyers or with larger groups of acquaintances Each time I have discovered something new but my favourites remain those that most attracted me early in life and though I have added to my list of must sees I have rarely sacrificed an old favourite for a new discovery To really look at a painting takes time The artist may have spent a month or more on the work so it is only fair that you attempt to understand what it is about to give it the time it deserves with your uninterrupted gaze Knowing something of the story behind the painting helps in its appreciation as does some familiarity with the customs of its times and where it fits into the pantheon of great art The more you know the more you ll see and the greater your enjoyment of the experience will be My purpose in writing this book is to introduce the gallery going novice to the world of European painting There are countless books on art and art history and galleries and guidebook publishers have produced their own versions I do not seek to replicate them Rather I want to talk to those viewers unencumbered by too much knowledge and say look here are 149 paintings or murals that I believe you must see before you die In addition to the 149 I have recommended a few xix

1 GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND British and Irish galleries are fun Not only do they contain some of the world s greatest paintings but these paintings are often housed in settings that make the overall experience of visiting the galleries a multilayered treat The National Gallery just may be the world s foremost art museum It is literally in the very middle of London on Trafalgar Square The view from the gallery overlooking the Thames and the parliament buildings is stunning There are two entrances the Sainsbury entrance on the left as you face the gallery and one in the centre If you leave by the centre door you look down toward Westminster and the vast scene of a city in motion the square before you is always full of people And get this the gallery is free Just imagine that if you worked nearby every day at noon you could step in and have a rendezvous with a different painting What a glorious opportunity Then there s the recently renamed Tate Britain which reminds me of why I wrote this book It offers sumptuous and varied fare in the work of many important artists In my list of favourites I note paintings by Millais Waterhouse and Whistler as well as Turner The gallery has so many Turners from large to small in several media that it cannot display them all at once so they are on rotating permanent exhibition 1

2 1 4 9 PA I N T I N G S YO U R E A L LY N E E D T O S E E I N E U R O P E Go to the back of the gallery and up a staircase to a study centre that has special exhibitions and many of Turner s sketchbooks bequeathed by him to the nation on view Be sure to look at some of them The museum also has a marvellous video demonstration by Michael Chaplin a contemporary painter that shows how Turner prepared his medium and painted watercolours It explains how he would have mixed colours worked with wet paper how he scratched watercolour surfaces and how his drawings were done It conveys Turner s techniques for drawing painting using graphite chalk pencil and a variety of brushes It also explains the development of colours for artistic practice and when they were invented It is the best demonstration I ve seen on how art is created Lasting a total of twenty minutes it s a crash course on watercolour The room has eight drawing tables with paper and pencils and before you is a Turner sketch Try to copy it and keep your work You will be amazed by what you have learned in such a short time and delighted by your new found appreciation of the artistic process The Queen s Gallery on the left side of Buckingham Palace facing it is a superb gallery In most galleries the attendants are little pools of sloth calculating their next time off Here the attendants all proud to represent Her Majesty are quick courteous and efficient This gallery with its rotating collection offers the quintessential British experience of art The Wallace Collection offers in my opinion a mixed experience Its luncheon under a glass covered canopy over a courtyard is memorable However as pleasant as the site is the collection of paintings is almost lost in the middle of the mumbo jumbo of china armour furniture small sculptures snuff boxes swords rifles daggers bowls medals plates vases bronzes and Limoges enamels Some of the glassedin tiered paintings are stacked in dark rooms without clear identification It can all be a hopeless mess unless you know what you seek You can nonetheless take advantage of the free guided tours of the collection that are given each weekday at 1 00 p m Admission to the museum which is open seven days a week is free though you will be asked for a donation at the entrance

G R E AT B R I TA I N A N D I R E L A N D Within this chapter I also note some of Britain s smaller galleries such as Cambridge s King s College Chapel with its ethereal entrance all of which merit a visit I then take you over to Ireland to introduce you to the Irish National Gallery in Dublin Sitting close to the greenest of green parks this gallery offers delights both within and around In the capital cities of England and Ireland there is much to experience Make the time to really see the twenty essential images I introduce below and with whatever time you have left be sure to embrace the fun that these collections have to offer 3

THE PAINTINGS 1 The Wilton Diptych Anonymous 1395 99 National Gallery London England Photo National Gallery London Art Resource NY The Wilton Dipytch is a stylized painting on oak panels in the Sienese manner thin alabaster figures delicate but all having the same personality The little folding altarpiece shows Richard II kneeling in the company of King Edmund King Edward the Confessor and John the Baptist The angels surrounding the Virgin and Child wear garments emblazoned with the white hart Richard s symbol and crowns of roses The diptych s principal colour aside from gold is blue a royal colour in Richard II s time Until the middle of the thirteenth century 4

G R E AT B R I TA I N A N D I R E L A N D red dyed cloth white undyed cloth and black were European culture s dominant colours The bright blue pigment was made of lapis lazuli which was very costly and contained speckles of iron pyrite fool s gold Marco Polo in 1271 while in a mountain range to the north of Kabul Afghanistan wrote And you must also know that in another mountain of the same region is found the stone lapis lazuli of which azure is made the finest and best azure in the world Blue slowly became an attribute of the Virgin in paintings The angels are all intent all the same intent intent the sameness creates a prevailing melody A tiny orb sits at the top of the flagpole bearing the red and whitecross banner perhaps a symbol of the Resurrection and of St George patron saint of England In the orb if you peruse a blow up of it is a green island with a castle and a boat in a silver sea representing England under the protection of the Virgin and Child The back of the altarpiece shows a white hart with a gold crownshaped collar and chain hanging from its neck The king may have used this altarpiece for nightly prayers perhaps as a source of comfort He was deposed in 1399 held in captivity and executed in 1400 The artist has captured Richard II as a pompous little snippet of a know it all Look at him But he could be tough In 1381 Wat Tyler from Kent and Jack Straw from Essex led the Peasants Revolt They burned Savoy House home of John of Gaunt the king s uncle and regent until he came of age Richard II met Tyler in Smithfield promising to treat for peace There was a scuffle Tyler was killed and the peasant rabble s ringleaders were executed Richard II had deceived them My view of Richard II is found in Shakespeare who customarily rewrote history toward his plays necessities John of Gaunt dying comments bitterly on Richard s rule and his dictatorial taking of land Richard II act 2 scene 1 England bound in with the triumphant sea Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege 5

6 1 4 9 PA I N T I N G S YO U R E A L LY N E E D T O S E E I N E U R O P E Of watery Neptune is now bound in with shame With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds That England that was wont to conquer others Hath made a shameful conquest of itself

G R E AT B R I TA I N A N D I R E L A N D 2 The Doge Leonardo Loredan Bellini Giovanni 1501 4 National Gallery London England Photo National Gallery London Art Resource NY Loredan led Venice as doge the elected chief magistrate and military leader for twenty years of constant warfare It was a desperate struggle that he oversaw and Loredan was brutally intent on advancing the interests of his republic In the portrait he exudes calm inward majesty focus and unchallengeable authority don t dare flout me Giovanni Bellini is the father of Venetian painting and lived a charmed life producing a new kind of painting for sixty years He was the Venetian Council s choice as the lead painter in Venice a position of power painter extraordinary to the Lord Titian and Giorgione 7

8 1 4 9 PA I N T I N G S YO U R E A L LY N E E D T O S E E I N E U R O P E graduated from his workshop He gave comfort to D rer when he visited Unlike Titian and Tintoretto he had a gentle disposition He conveyed figures with dignity and repose He turned religious subjects into inhabitants of a serene and beautiful world The damask woven with golden thread is so palpable that you crave to touch it The doge appears to have seen it all without remorse and the future doesn t hold fear He s crafty yes but I would trust him I thought on my first experiences of the painting But when I visited again on September 17 2011 I was not so sure about the trust perhaps he d do whatever was necessary He s a distant cold fish no time for fools and he might put me in that category I think this is one of the greatest portraits of all

G R E AT B R I TA I N A N D I R E L A N D 3 The Death of Actaeon Titian Tiziano Vecellio c 1565 76 National Gallery London England Photo National Gallery London Art Resource NY Why is this considered to be one of the top two or three paintings in the world The myth is gruesome and disturbing Actaeon a hunter comes across Diana a goddess in the woods and sees her bathing She is angry Gods are not meant to be seen by mere mortals She transforms Actaeon into a stag Actaeon s five beloved dogs attack and devour him It is a swift and terrible moment Diana is tall in red striding forth with a bow aimed toward the falling stag the woods a furious sweeping brown the sky a turbulent grey everything thick with emotion swarming with heavy violent energy The ground river and dogs just snaffle the poor stag up The fluid terror of nature unleashed 9

10 1 4 9 PA I N T I N G S YO U R E A L LY N E E D T O S E E I N E U R O P E Look at Titian s splotchy style of applying paint the rushing river with froths of white Diana s Titian red garment canvas peaking through a scrabble of colours I had not known there were so many variations of red

G R E AT B R I TA I N A N D I R E L A N D 4 Self Portrait at the Age of 63 Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn 1669 National Gallery London England Photo National Gallery London Art Resource NY Rembrandt was perhaps the greatest explorer of inner psychology He painted at least eighty three self portraits from early to late in life Here he is at sixty three his last year In the middle of his career in Amsterdam he was a walloping success But disaster struck Bankruptcy death the passing of his beloved son Titus all crowd into his gaze in this painting Notice the brow wrinkled with concern the hurt eyes the bulbous nose the scaly skin the puffed semi bloated face with its pouches sags a startlingly frank self portrait yet it has dignity The eyes are 11

12 1 4 9 PA I N T I N G S YO U R E A L LY N E E D T O S E E I N E U R O P E despondent but still have a determined gaze They will hold your eyes and make you uncomfortable I have visited this painting for more than fifty years pretty well every other year I know him well flashing the grief of a painter straining for the unattainable The eyes The eyes say I ve seen it all and it has not been pretty I m in a mental state of pure pain but I m a wise old bird with a lot more experience than you the viewer The face peering out is impossible to translate into words but it reflects this experience You see it if you stand before this or another late Rembrandt self portrait one he produced in his last six years say one at Kenwood House or in The Hague s Mauritshuis see Chapter 9 Look at Rembrandt Really look The artist could not go any further or shed more light on his own life and the process of aging September 17 2011 was my most recent visit I found him sad sad with a dollop of hurt more vulnerable than I had seen before maybe because I am older As someone said behind me as I wrote this There s a man who lived

G R E AT B R I TA I N A N D I R E L A N D 5 The Hay Wain Constable John 1821 National Gallery London England Photo National Gallery London Art Resource NY Constable is in good form here In 1821 The Hay Wain was criticized for its heavy impasto and white patches on the water When the painting was exhibited in Paris in 1824 however people loved it Delacroix was struck with its vivacity and freshness Constable s motto was light and shadow never stand still and the skies should always aim at brightness The sky is so changeable here that you can sense a possible sprinkle an hour from now The creaking wheel eases into the water so clear that you can feel the cool You are part of summer weather Constable said The sound of water escaping from mill dams willows old rotten planks slimy posts and brickwork I love such things As long as I do paint I shall never cease to paint such places In Constable s time painters portrayed landscapes as brown always brown His vibrant greens blues providing a real mirror of nature were novel and disturbing Constable said the sky was the chief organ of sentiment in a landscape 13

14 1 4 9 PA I N T I N G S YO U R E A L LY N E E D T O S E E I N E U R O P E His white flecks of paint used as highlights were slighted as Constable s snow Here there are smears of white on the river varied greens for the trees the scene topped off with clouds on the move suggesting rain later The Hay Wain became as one critic said part of the landscape of every English mind