: "Raphael to Monet: European Masterpieces from the Walters Art
Museum, Baltimore," on display through January 11 at Charlotte's
Mint Museum of Art, is a rare opportunity to enjoy magnificent
artworks from many of European art history's greatest talent
spanning five centuries.
Few collections are the equal of the 22,000 works of art
assembled over decades by father and son railroad tycoons William
and Henry Walters. Henry Walters magnanimously gave the
collection to the mayor and city council of Baltimore in 1931
"for the benefit of the public."
The exhibition's title reference, "Raphael to Monet," connects
the two greatest art periods of Europe, the Renaissance and
Impressionism, while the exhibition threads through many other
major art movements and artists in between.
Hailed by art historians as the last great painter of the High
Renaissance, Raffaello Sanzio (Raphael) was called "the prince of
painters" while living in Rome. The serene "Madonna of the
Candelabra," circa 1513-14, on display was the first of the
Raphael Madonna paintings to enter an American collection when
Henry Walters acquired it in 1900.
Highlights from "Raphael to Monet" include Guido Reni's "The
Penitent Magdalene," circa 1635, and Anthony Van Dyck's "Virgin
and Child," representative of the Flemish artist's finest period
of religious paintings in the 1630s.
Giovanni Paolo Panini earned fame from his broad cityscapes as
illustrated in "View of the Roman Forum," 1747. Another famous
view painter of the Eighteenth Century was Francesco Guardi.
"Venetian Courtyard," circa 1770-1790, illustrates his use of
color and brushstrokes valued later by the Impressionists.
Rapahel himself will make a figurative appearance at the Mint
Museum of Art through Jean Auguste Dominque Ingres, "The
Betrothal of Rapahel and the Niece of Cardinal Bibbiena," 1813.
Ingres idolized Rapahel, creating a series of works dealing with
his life. Cardinal Dovizi il Bibbiena offered his niece's hand in
marriage to Raphael, but she died before the wedding could take
place.
The cream of the Walters Art Museum collection is its Nineteenth
Century French paintings. France was the birthplace of
possibility in 1800 with the aristocracy vanquished, Napoleon at
the political helm and the modern era at dawn. It was a
magnificent century of vision in which Paris was the center of
the art world.
Most major artistic trends of the period in France are
represented in "Raphael to Monet." Academic neoclassism is
illustrated by its foremost exponent Ingres and Jean-Leon
Gerome's "The Death of Caesar," 1859. Romanticism is in evidence
by Eugene Delacroix's "Christ on the Sea of Galilee," 1854, and
"Collision of Moorish Horseman," 1843-44. Examples of the realism
of the Barbizon School can be found in Jean-Baptiste-Camille
Corot's "Two Italian Peasants," 1843, Jules-Louis Dupre's "A
Bright Day," 1835-40, and Jean-Francois Millet's "The Potato
Harvest," 1855, depicting the French peasants' seemingly endless
struggle for survival. Georges Clairin's "Entering the Harem,"
circa 1870s, reflects the Orientalist style popular during the
expansion of empire.
And then there are the Impressionist paintings among the Walters
Collection, the shocking loose brushwork and spontaneous
characteristics of the artwork on display. Later, it came to
represent the most significant art movement of the late
Nineteenth Century. An innovator and an unswerving advocate of
the Impressionist style, Oscar-Claude Monet is perhaps the most
recognized artist of his time. His "Springtime," on display in
the exhibition, captures his first wife Camille seated reading a
book on the grass beneath lilac bushes in their garden at
Argenteuil. Monet's seven years at Argenteuil, a village on the
Seine near Paris, produced some of the most joyous and famous
works of the Impressionist movement as friends Manet, Renoir and
Sisley joined him there.
Many shared Monet's contribution to the development of modern
painting. Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre remained an academic
traditionalist, but encouraged his students -- Gerome, Monet,
Sisley, Renoir and American expatriate James McNeill Whistler --
to pursue their own outlets. Edouard Manet was a pioneering
realist, emphasizing contemporary life and capturing the
immediacy of the moment. One of his masterpieces, "At the Café,"
1879 will be on display at "Raphael to Monet."
So will paintings by Pissarro, Sisley and Degas. Sculptures
include work by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Jean-Antoine Houdon,
Antoine-Louis Barye, Honore Daumier and Charles-Henri-Joseph
Cordier.
The Mint museum of art is at 2730 Randolph Road. For
information, 704-337-2000 or www.mintmuseum.org.
