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Gustave Caillebotte, The Floor Scrapers , 1875  Musée d'Orsay, now on view at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, Right now the National Gallery is having an exhibition of an Impressionist whose reputation has grown over the last 25 years, Gustave Caillebotte.   Gustave Caillebotte: The Painter's Eye will be on view until October 4. It's interesting how his first masterpiece, The Floor Scrapers was rejected by the Salon in 1875, but part of the Impressionists' exhibition the next year. The masterful painting granted Caillebotte entry into the Impressionist group. He repaid his dear friends by buying up many of their works and then donating them to the French state after he died.  Many of the paintings he owned are part of Paris' great early modern museum, Musée d'Orsay. It's appropriate that the museum that houses so many Impressionist works is a former train station, since modern trains inspired viewers to observe the transient views of the world that ...

Little Dancer Aged Fourteen , 1878–1881, pigmented beeswax, clay, metal armature, rope, paintbrushes, human hair, silk and linen ribbon, cotton and silk tutu, linen slippers, on wooden base overall without base: 98.9 x 34.7 x 35.2 cm (38 15/16 x 13 11/16 x 13 7/8 in.) weight: 49 lb. (22.226 kg)   National Gallery of Art, Washington, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon It was a joy to see the Kennedy Center's world-premiere production,  The Little Dancer , which closed on November 30th.  Tiler Peck, principle of the New York City Ballet had the lead as 14-year-old Marie van Goethem, the ballerina who posed for Degas' famous statue, Little Dancer.  Although Peck is definitely far more mature than Degas' model was, she certainly was a good choice for the role.  Boyd Gaines, as Degas, really does not look like him but I guess it doesn't matter.   Some of the settings and compositions are the same as you will see in his paintings.  ( My blog about Degas'...

Archangel Michael , First half 14th century tempera on wood, gold leaf  overall: 110 x 80 cm (43 5/16 x 31 1/2 in.) Byzantine and Christian Museum, Athens Gold radiates throughout dimly-lit rooms of the National Gallery of Art's exhibition, Heaven and Earth: Byzantine Art from Greek Collections.  Some 170 important works on loan from museums in Greece trace the development of Byzantine visual culture from the fourth to the 15th century. Organized by the Benaki Museum in Athens, it will be on view until March 2 and then at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles beginning April 19.  The National Gallery has a done a great job organizing the show, getting across themes of both spiritual and secular life spanning more than 1000 years.  The exhibition design is masterful and includes a film about four key Greek churches. The photography is exquisite and provides the full context for the Byzantine church art. There are dining tables, coins, ivories, jewelry and other o...

Detail - Marc Chagall, with Lino Melano, Orpheus , 1971, from the upper right side--Pegasus, Three Graces, Orpheus   The nation's capital city added a sudden burst of color this season in the form of Marc Chagall's  Orpheus, a glass and stone mosaic.  It's a 17' by 10' wall standing in the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden, between 7th and 9th Streets, NW, Constitution Avenue and Madison Avenue.  Evelyn Stephansson Nef, who died in 2009, donated it to the museum.   (The composition is one of three new acquisitions in the National Gallery, a must-see along with a Van Gogh, a Gerrit von Honthorst and a loan of the Dying Gaul from the Capitoline Museum in Rome.) The mosaic stands in the garden behind the restaurant, but in front of the heavily traveled Route 1.  Fortunately, a lot trees shield it from view of the traffic, providing a reflective space for viewers.  The sculpture garden is on the National Mall, but open only from 10-5 daily and 11-...

Vincent Van Gogh,   Green Wheat Fields, Auvers, 1890 at the National Gallery of Art, a recent gift from the Collection of Mr & Mrs Paul Mellon Vincent Van Gogh's Green Wheat Fields, Auvers came into Washington's National Gallery of Art on December 20, 2013.  It's a windswept scene that sucks us in with intensity and urgency.     Green Wheat Fields, Auvers is among the 70 or so paintings he did during the two months of 1890 when he lived in Auvers-sur-Oise.  Experts believe he painted it in June, 1890, the month before he died. Fortunately the new painting entered the museum at the same time Washington's Phillips Collection is hosting an exhibition, Van Gogh Repetitions, until February 2, 2014. The exhibition of 14 paintings examines why the artist repeated compositions in the same format with different colors and very minor design changes. It features several portraits, The Bedroom at Arles and two magnificent Van Goghs owned by the Phillips Coll...

Albrecht Dürer , The Head of Christ , 1506 brush and gray ink, gray wash, heightened with white on blue paper overall: 27.3 x 21 cm (10 3/4 x 8 1/4 in.) overall (framed): 50 63.8 4.1 cm (19 11/16 25 1/8 1 5/8 in.) Albertina, Vienna The National Gallery of Art is hosting the largest show of Albrecht Dürer drawings, prints and watercolors ever seen in North America, combining its own collection with that of the Albertina in Vienna, Austria.  Across the street in the museum's west wing is the another exhibition of works on paper, Color, Line and Light: French Drawings Watercolors and Pastels from Delacroix to Signac .  The French drawings are spectacular, but it's hard to imagine the 19th century masters without the earlier genius out of Germany, Dürer, who approached drawing with scientist's curiosity for understanding nature. Albrecht Dürer, Self-Portrait at Thirteen , 1484 silverpoint on prepared paper, 27.3 19.5 cm (10 3/4 7 11/16 in.) (framed): 51.7 43.1 4.5 cm (20 3/8 16...

Last weekend the annual Sydney J. Freedberg Lecture on Italian Art at the National Gallery of Art was "Not a Painting But a Vision."   Andreas Henning, curator from Dresden, Germany, spoke about The Sistine Madonna , a magnificent altarpiece Raphael painted in 1512 which is now in the Dresden State Art Museum.   I have written about it in a previous blog , comparing the Mary of this painting to the  Raphael's lovely image of inner and outer beauty in La Donna Velata . However, as the title suggested, it is painting of a vision and that Mary is not of this world.  She has facial features of that generic beauty similar to those of the Donna Velata , but she is more ethereal and otherworldly.  As much as we may want to reach out and hug the baby Jesus, we can't. The Madonna also carries a tinge of sadness in this image, a practice artists used to reveal Mary recognition that her Son will die someday.  However, two saints, Saint Sixtus and Saint Barba...

Joan Miró, Nocturne , 1935, is a small oil on copper from the Cleveland Museum of Art.  A jumping man, crescent moon and spiral suggest the artist ability to leap above problems of life. "We Catalans believe you must always plant your feet firmly on the ground if you want to be able to jump into the air" In 1948, Joan Miró used these words to describe the Catalan mentality.  Like Salvador Dali and Antoni Gaudí , giants of modern art and architecture, Miro came from Catalonia, the area of Spain on the Mediterranean Sea near the French border.  Catalans had a language and cultural identify different from the rest of Spain. Washington's National Gallery, which hosts a Miro exhibition until August 12, completes the quote on a wall label:   "The that I came down to earth from time to time makes it possible for me to jump higher." Joan Miró: Ladders of Escape is the appropriate name for this exhibition which captures the flying spirit of this Surrealist artist.  From...