Tag: French Art

From the Collection: An Illuminated Manuscript

Post author By Catherine Sawinski
Post date May 14, 2019
2 Comments on From the Collection: An Illuminated Manuscript

French, Leaf from a Liturgical Psalter, early 14th century. Tempera, ink, and gold leaf on parchment. 6 3/8 × 4 7/16 in. (16.19 × 11.27 cm). Milwaukee Art Museum, Gift of Paula Uihlein M1932.108. Photo credit: John R. Glembin — French, *Leaf from a Liturgical Psalter*, early 14th century. Tempera, ink, and gold leaf on parchment. 6 3/8 × 4 7/16 in. (16.19 × 11.27 cm). Milwaukee Art Museum, Gift of Paula Uihlein M1932.108. Photo credit: John R. Glembin

French, *Leaf from a Liturgical Psalter*, early 14th century (detail). Tempera, ink, and gold leaf on parchment. 6 3/8 × 4 7/16 in. (16.19 × 11.27 cm). Milwaukee Art Museum, Gift of Paula Uihlein M1932.108. Photo credit: John R. Glembin

Before the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century, books were handwritten. Imagine…every time a copy of a text needed to be made, someone had to do it painstakingly by hand. In our world of quick reproductions and the ease of hitting “print”, this can be hard to believe!

The exhibition The Art of Devotion: Illuminated Manuscripts from Local Collections, on view at the Milwaukee Art Museum through June 16, 2019, aims to provide an introduction to these handwritten texts—called manuscripts—that were made in the middle ages and early Renaissance. A good number of those manuscripts are also illuminated, or decorated with gold, silver, and bright colors that make them literally look like they shine from within.

Tags European art, French Art, From the Collection, Illuminated Manuscripts, Medieval art, middle ages, works on paper

Art Collection Curatorial European

From the Collection: A Pair of Paintings by Alexandre Cabanel

Post author By Milwaukee Art Museum
Post date October 4, 2016
2 Comments on From the Collection: A Pair of Paintings by Alexandre Cabanel

Alexandre Cabanel (French, 1823–1889), Saint Monica in a Landscape, 1845. Oil on canvas. Milwaukee Art Museum, Purchase, with funds from Avis Martin Heller in honor of the Fine Arts Society and funds from the Fine Arts Society M2014.9 Photo credit: Jack Kilgore & Co, Inc.

What makes an artist influential? Most would say it the art he or she creates, because most likely that artwork was created in some sort of special way. And although that is true, I would argue that that is only part of the story. Let me show you what I mean.

Tags 19th Century Art, Academic art, Alexandre Cabanel, European art, european painting, French Art, From the Collection

Art Collection Curatorial European Exhibitions

From the Collection–Girl in Straw Hat (Femme au Chapeau Rouge) by Pierre Bonnard

Post author By Catherine Sawinski
Post date July 10, 2012
1 Comment on From the Collection–Girl in Straw Hat (Femme au Chapeau Rouge) by Pierre Bonnard

Pierre Bonnard (French, 1867–1947), Girl in Straw Hat (Femme au Chapeau Rouge), 1903. Oil on canvas; 15 1/8 x 17 5/8 in. Milwaukee Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Lynde Bradley M1958.13. Photo credit P. Richard Eells. ©2010 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris.

The Museum’s current exhibition Posters of Paris: Toulouse-Lautrec and his Contemporaries features a number of posters by Pierre Bonnard (French, 1867-1947)—including the fantastic France-Champagne lithograph, a work that inspired the master Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec to make ground-breaking posters.

Did you know that the Museum’s Permanent Collection has two paintings by Bonnard?

The paintings are gorgeous, and can be found on the upper level in the Bradley Collection Galleries.

One of the two paintings, Girl in Straw Hat (Femme au Chapeau Rouge), has long been one of my personal favorite artworks. I suspect that Girl in Straw Hat was also one of Mrs. Bradley’s favorites, and there is good reason why.

Tags 19th Century Art, Bradley Collection, Edouard Vuillard, European art, French Art, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Nabis, painting, Paul Sérusier, Pierre Bonnard, Posters of Paris, prints, Women in art

Art Curatorial Exhibitions

Looking at “Posters of Paris” Through the Lens of Graphic Design

Post author By Milwaukee Art Museum
Post date June 25, 2012
2 Comments on Looking at “Posters of Paris” Through the Lens of Graphic Design

Jules Chéret, (French, 1836–1932), L’Horloge: Les Girard, 1875/1878 or 1880/1881. Color lithograph. Collection of Jim and Sue Wiechmann. Photo by John R. Glembin.

Even though the exhibition Posters of Paris: Toulouse-Lautrec & His Contemporaries may be billed as a fine art retrospective, it also serves as the largest and most extensive graphic design exhibition Milwaukee has ever seen. Featuring posters from the turn of the 20th century, Posters of Paris hearkens back to the roots of the profession. The artworks are situated at a time before “graphic design” was a legitimate term, but well after the world started recognizing the power of arresting visual communication.

And the line-up curator Mary Weaver Chapin has pulled together is impressive. The exhibition includes works by who I’d call the godheads of posters–Jules Chéret and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec to Leonetto Cappiello and Alphonse Mucha. For a casual observer, or a trained graphic designer, there’s no shortage of exuberant eye candy to indulge in.

Posters of Paris will likely leave you drooling for days.

Tags Alois Senefelder, Alphonse Mucha, Ernest Kalas, European Design, Exhibitions, French Art, Georges de Feur, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Jules Chére, Leonetto Cappiello, Paris, Posters of Paris, prints

Art Collection Curatorial European

From the Collection– “Head of a Noblewoman” tomb effigy

Post author By Catherine Sawinski
Post date April 13, 2012
4 Comments on From the Collection– “Head of a Noblewoman” tomb effigy

French, Head of a Noblewoman, 14th century. Marble; H: 11 3/4 in. Milwaukee Art Museum, Gift of The William Randolph Hearst Foundation through the Milwaukee Sentinel M1958.67. Photo by John Nienhuis.

Just as you walk into the Museum’s Gallery #3 (Northern Renaissance artworks), on your right is a display case that holds a marble sculpture.

It’s an unobtrusive work labeled Head of a Noblewoman, French, 14th century. I’m sure many Museum visitors have walked right by it and not even thought twice. The most interesting thing for those that look closer may be the way the artwork is positioned in the case–it is shown lying down, not upright.

This sculpture is more than just a portrait of a French noblewoman. It’s a portrait of the noble French woman from her tomb!

Originally, the Museum’s head sculpture would have been part of a full body sculpture of the woman lying down, and it would have rested above her tomb. You can be certain of this orientation because the back of her head is unfinished.

Although funerary portraits were used as far back as the ancient Egyptians, medieval Europe saw an explosion of them. Examples are known from the 11th century, and by the 13th century they were filling churches and abbeys. Of course, only those who could afford to have an elaborate tomb could have such an elaborate sculpture, so most examples are of kings, queens, and other nobility, including knights, such as Jean d’Alluye, whose tomb effigy is now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Tags effigy, European art, French Art, From the Collection, gisant, Hearst, Marble, Medieval art, sculpture, tomb, Women in art

Art Curatorial Exhibitions

Impressionism: La Maison de Monet

Post author By Katrina Porod
Post date November 14, 2011
4 Comments on Impressionism: La Maison de Monet

House front view. Image from Foundation Claude Monet Giverny, http://www.fondation-monet.fr/fr/content/difalcone-2011

On an estate in Giverny, France sits a long two-story home, its pink facade perforated with windows, each framed by Veronese green shutters. Intermittently, a Virginia creeper meanders its way up, around and between the windows. In front of the home an orchard space has been converted into an expansive flower garden. Beyond, a river has been expertly manipulated into a serene water garden.

This was the home of Claude Monet.

At the Milwaukee Art Museum Impressionism: Masterworks on Paper has made its debut with more than 120 drawings, watercolors, and pastels on display from some of the best known (and even a few lesser known) impressionist and post-impressionist artists. This seems a fitting time, in the spirit of impressionism, to discuss (in lieu of any one piece from his oeuvre) Monet’s home and gardens in Giverny, France.

Tags Claude Monet, French Art, Impressionism, Impressionism: Masterworks on Paper

Art Library/Archives

Vive “Verve”

Matisse’s cover, VERVE The French Review of Art Volume 2, Number 8 (Sept-Nov 1940). Printed in France. Milwaukee Art Museum, Gift of Lillian Schultz. Photo by Beret Balestrieri Kohn.

Imagine having your favorite artists, authors, philosophers and others ready at your beck and call for any project you desire.

What would you have them do?

Published by E. Tériade, “Verve: The French Review of Art” was a legendary quarterly art journal with that kind of seemingly-limitless access to legendary artists.

From 1937 to 1975, Tériade (real name Stratis Eleftheriades, French 1889–1983) was an art critic, patron, and publisher that commissioned artists and philosophers, including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and André Derain to produce works for his prestigious journal.

This particular issue of “Verve” (Vol. 2, No. 8, Sept—Nov 1940), devoted to the “Nature of France”, features a luxurious dark dust jacket after Matisse’s paper cutouts.

Tags European art, French Art, Henry Matisse, Library/Archives, Modern art, Pablo Picasso, Pierre Bonnard, Verve

Art Collection Curatorial European

From the Collection—Charlotte-Françoise DeBure by Catherine Lusurier

Post author By Catherine Sawinski
Post date June 21, 2011
3 Comments on From the Collection—Charlotte-Françoise DeBure by Catherine Lusurier

Charlotte-Françoise DeBure PAINTINGS Lusurier, Catherine French, 1752-1781 1776 Oil on canvas H. 29 1/2 x 24 in. Bequest of Arthur & Noryne Riebs (M1959.80) — Catherine Lusurier (French, ca. 1752-1781), “Charlotte-Françoise DeBure”, 1776. Oil on canvas, 29 1/2 x 24 in. Milwaukee Art Museum, Bequest of Arthur & Noryne Riebs. (M1959.80) Photo by Larry Sanders.

One thing to keep in mind when you look at art is not to trust the labels. Well, I don’t mean the labels that museums put on the wall next to the artwork–we try to make those as accurate as possible. I mean that you should not trust the little metal plaques that sometimes decorate the frames of many older artworks. Why? Let me tell you one an example.

Tucked in one of the side niches in the Museum’s 18th-century French room, Gallery #8, is a painting of a young girl. Decked out in her lace finery, her blonde hair pulled back with a pink ribbon in that matches her pink dress and posed with a basket of flowers, she is the epitome of a blushing sweet child.

The ornately carved frame has a metal label at center bottom that reads “H. DROUAIS, le fils”. You’d assume this must be the artist or the subject. But upon looking at the Museum’s object label, you see that the painting is a likeness of young Charlotte-Françoise DeBure by the artist Catherine Lusurier, who lived from about 1753 to 1781. Neither of them is named Drouais.

So, what’s going on with that frame plaque?

Tags 18th Century Art, Catherine Lusurier, European art, French Art, From the Collection, Hubert Drouais, portraiture, women artists, Women in art

Art Education

Slow Art: Bouguereau’s Homer and His Guide

Post author By Chelsea Emelie Kelly
Post date May 1, 2011
13 Comments on Slow Art: Bouguereau’s Homer and His Guide

It was easier to begin my 45-minute looking experience at William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s Homer and His Guide than it was at Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s Street at Schöneberg City Park, the subject of my last “Slow Art” post. I have loved Bouguereau for about four years now, ever since I gave gallery talks on his work at the Frick Art & Historical Center in Pittsburgh, PA. Like Jean-Honoré Fragonard, he is not the most respectable artist for an art historian or museum educator to love: his work is sentimental, it doesn’t really push boundaries, and it is on the whole pretty safe. But I have always been drawn to the way he paints—his style is luminously realistic, ridiculously meticulous. He is one of the few painters whose figures always seem to me about to jump off the canvas.

Tags 19th Century Art, French Art, Homer, Slow Art, William-Adolphe Bouguereau