"Place des Lices, St
Tropez," Paul Signac, 1893. Oil on canvas. Carnegie Museum of
Art, Pittsburgh.
PITTSBURGH, PENN. - A groundbreaking exhibition showcasing the
biggest names in light from the worlds of art and science will be
on view at Carnegie Museum of Art through July 29. "Light! The
Industrial Age 1750-1900, Art & Science, Technology &
Society" focuses on the era when discoveries about natural
artificial light transformed art as well as everyday life. By
experiencing masterpieces of art, rare scientific instruments,
and interactive demonstrations, visitors can discover the
revolutions in light that were as earth shaking to our ancestors
as the digital revolution is to us today.
"Light!" was organized in partnership with the Van Gogh Museum
and is presented only in Amsterdam and Pittsburgh.
"Light!" features artworks of diverse media, including drawing,
painting, etching, sculpture, photography, and film. The artists
in the exhibition represent the broadest range of styles and
techniques of the Industrial Age: the romantics - Blake, Goya,
and Tuners; the pre-Raphaelites - Holman-Hunt and Madox Brown;
American greats - Bierstadt, Whistler, and Homer; Impressionists
and Post-Impressionists - Degas, Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, van
Gogh, Signac, and Toulouse-Lautrec.
Alongside the great names in art, "Light!" showcases the
brilliant careers of scientific luminaries, such as Newton,
Priestly, Daguerre, Edison, and Westinghouse, with unusual and
exceptional scientific and technological devices: microscopes,
astronomical and navigational instruments, candelabra, kerosene
and oil lamps, gaslights, a wide variety of early electric light
sources, as well as popular science texts, housekeeping manuals,
and trade catalogues. The exhibition also demonstrates how light
has been used as a medium for entertainment with early projection
lanterns, kaleidoscopes, unusual historic photographs, x-rays,
photomicrographs, and early motion pictures.
Camera obscura.
In addition to displaying science, art, and technology side by
side, the exhibition offers interactive displays that allow
visitors to gain hands-on experience with crucial discoveries in
the history of light: Newton's prism experiments, primitive
photography, the invention of telescopes and microscopes,
theories of vision and the visual effects of light from different
sources.
Andreas Blühm, head of exhibitions at the Van Gogh Museum and
co-organizer of the exhibition, believes the show gives visitors
an unparalleled chance to appreciate how even the greatest
artists struggled with new technology. "Van Gogh mentioned in his
letters that his paintings looked different in daylight and
gaslight," says Blühm. "Visitors to this exhibition will be able
to see exactly what he meant. They will see the colors of one of
his paintings change in different lights."
"Light!" is presented in five sections. "Rays of Light" begins
with the work of Isaac Newton, whose optical theories inspired
generations of scientists, artists, inventors, and the general
public. It includes items that testify to Newton's far-reaching
influence, including a number of rare books, such as a 1704
edition of his Optiks and Benjamin Franklin's copy of a
treatise explaining Newton's work titled Physices elementa
mathematica (1721). Francesco Algarotti's Newtonianism for
Women, published in 1775, also in the exhibition, embodies
the spirit of the era, when all educated persons, not just
specialists, were fluent in the latest scientific discoveries.
The art of the period also reflects the new knowledge of optics.
Jean Siméon Chardin's "Glass of Water and Coffeepot," circa 1760,
deftly captures the behavior of light itself. In this still life,
a water glass shows refraction, the bending of light as it
travels through transparent objects, in this case glass and
water. Refraction proved to be one of the central optical
problems of the Eighteenth Century, and the other objects in the
painting, the coffeepot for example, are rendered in a way that
highlights the problem of diffraction - the behavior of light on
opaque surfaces.
In "The Light of Nature," the exhibition's second section, the
story of natural light and the ways artists depicted natural
light as day and night are explored. For artists and the public,
light provoked controversy, particularly when artistic movements,
like Impressionism, depicted it in ways that broke with the
aesthetic conventions of the day. Three paintings in this section
of the exhibition, van Gogh's "Trunks of Trees with Ivy," 1889,
Paul Signac's "Place des Lices, St Tropez," 1893, and Albert
Bierstadt's "Light and Shadow," 1862, use divergent, but equally
compelling methods to depict the play of light and shadow.
Likewise, "The Sower," 1888, by van Gogh, and "Sun Setting over a
Lake," circa 1840, by J.W.M. Turner, successfully overcome the
challenge of portraying subjects at twilight in original and
startling ways. Claude Monet's pair of paintings, "The Portal of
Rouen Cathedral and the Tour d'Albane at Dawn," 1893, and "The
Portal of Rouen Cathedral, Morning Effect," 1894, dramatize
light's emotional potential.
Between 1750 and 1900, the task of creating light and imbuing it
with meaning was claimed in turn by the church, the state, and
various capitalist enterprises. Each sought to create light and
interpret its symbolic nature. The "Makers of Light" section of
the exhibition reveals how light was used as an enduring icon of
power, truth, and beauty in the Industrial Age.
Among the works in this section, a number show the muscular,
dynamic influence of light that make it such powerful symbol.
"The Annual Girandola at the Castel Sant'Angelo," 1775-76, by
Joseph Wright of Derby portrays the brilliant and starkly
contrasted lighting of a fireworks display. Philippe Jacques de
Loutherbourg's "Coalbrookdale by Night," 1801, reveals a scene
illuminated by an intense and threatening glow coming from the
heat of industrial furnaces. John Martin's "Pandemonium," 1841,
an allegorical painting, shows the exterior of the palace of
Satan illuminated by gaslight across a river of glowing
brimstone.
In Europe and America, the ability to create and use artificial
light on a large scale became a representation of industrial and
political supremacy. "Light!" has a number of examples of light
used as a tool to create the propaganda of progress, including a
hand-colored lithograph by Charles-Henri Toussaint titled "The
Universal Exposition Paris 1900: The Palais des Illusions," 1900.
This print, twinkling with chips of mica and tin spangles,
depicts the World's Fair at the turn of the century showing off
its electric lights.
In the "Personal Lights" section of the exhibition, objects and
artworks trace the early history of artificial lighting. As
artificial lights became brighter and proliferated, the quality
of lighting also changed. Among the artifacts in this section are
improved versions of ancient light sources such as candleholders
and oil lamps, as well as new inventions, such as gas lamps and
electric bulbs. Paintings in this section dramatize the ways that
each of these light sources changed lives.
It is difficult for us to appreciate the fact that people once
thought that some new sources of light were revolutionary, not
just convenient or remarkable. The exhibition has several works
marking the upheavals touched off by public and private lives
coming into contact with light from new sources, including van
Gogh's "The Potato Eaters," 1885. This lithograph depicts a
mealtime scene of peasants gathered under a kerosene lamp, whose
harsh light reveals both the poverty and the spirituality of the
family seated around the table.
"Public Lighting" is the last section of the exhibition. Two new
types of illumination, gas and electric lights, were inexpensive
and bright enough to light public places. Artists began to show
public places illuminated by these new sources of light, like
"The Boulevard Barbes Rochechouart in Winter," 1879, by Hippolyte
Camille Delpy, which depicts a Paris street at night, brightened
by gas streetlights.
"Light!" will provide visitors an opportunity to gain firsthand
experience with the way artificial light affects color
perception. The van Gogh painting "Gauguin's Chair," 1888, can be
viewed under four light sources from the artist's time: natural
daylight, open gas flame, incandescent gas flame, and electric
arc light. As visitors switch from one light source to another,
they can see and compare the effect each type of light has on
perception.
"Glass of Water and Coffeepot," Jean Simeon Chardin, circa
1760. Oil on canvas from the Carnegie Museum of Art,
Pittsburgh.
"At the Moulin Rouge," 1894-95, illustrates how Toulouse-Lautrec
met and overcame technical and aesthetic challenges of new light
sources. This painting depicts the interior of a nightclub and
its patrons illuminated by gas lamps, a source of light notorious
for its color-dampening effects. In the painting, mirrors line
the wall reflecting the gaslight, and the women wear exaggerated
makeup.
When electricity superseded gas for lighting, consumers wanted a
better electric lamp that would tame the glare of the electric
bulb. The now classic table lamp, 1899-1902, by Louis Tiffany was
inspired by the desire of American consumers for a lampshade that
would dim the era's bright bulbs. Tiffany's lamps were judged to
be cutting-edge American design because they were the first lamp
design that responded to the aesthetic challenges of the new
electric light.
According to Louise Lippincott, co-organizer of the show and
curator of fine arts at Carnegie Museum of Art, no other
exhibition has presented great art, science, and technology
side-by-side, allowing the public to examine, appreciate, and
experience the aesthetic, technical, and sociological impact of
changing perceptions to the same degree as "Light!" "In the
century and a half that we focus on in the exhibition, the
availability and understanding of light transformed art and
society in ways that we can learn to appreciate," says
Lippincott.
Light! a fully illustrated book published by Thames &
Hudson Ltd., accompanies the exhibition. The book chronicles
turning points in the story of the revelation of the hidden laws
of light from 1750 to 1900. It records the way that innovations,
discoveries, and inventions in art and science completely
transformed lifestyles and perceptions. It has 272 pages and 304
illustrations, 195 of which are full color plates. The book, by
Louise Lippincott and Andreas Blühm, is available in hard and
softcover at the Carnegie Museum of Art Store by calling
412/622-3216.
The Carnegie Museum of Art, located at 4400 Forbes Avenue in
Oakland, was founded by industrialist and philanthropist Andrew
Carnegie in 1895. For information, 412/622-3131.
