The University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art will present “The Darker Side of Light: Arts of Privacy, 1850‱900,” an exhibition that examines the private worlds of late Nineteenth Century Europe through prints and other works meant for quiet contemplation. The exhibition will be on view February 11⁊une 13.
Organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., the exhibition reveals a sober world of individual collecting and private study in which prints were kept aside in portfolios, bronze medals were stored away in cabinets, and statuettes were set on a table in the stillness of the library, to be viewed discreetly on chosen occasions.
“The Darker Side of Light” features more than 100 of these enigmatic, often startling prints, drawings, illustrated books and small sculptures by artists such as Félix Bracquemond, James Ensor, Max Klinger, Käthe Kollwitz, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Charles Meryon and Anders Zorn, among others. The exhibition is organized in eight thematic sections: Possession, Nature, the City, Creatures, Reverie, Obsession, Abjection, and Violence and Death, which together offer another view of the art of a period most often associated with the light and landscapes of Impressionism.
“The Darker Side of Light” is curated by Peter Parshall, the curator of Old Master prints at the National Gallery of Art and an alumnus of the University of Chicago. Parshall will deliver an introductory lecture on the exhibition during an opening reception at the Smart Museum on Thursday, February 11, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm.
Unlike a framed painting hanging on the parlor wall, works like the ones in the exhibition were never intended to be a part of the day-to-day. Rather, they were subject to more purposeful study on chosen occasions, much like taking a book down from the shelf for quiet enjoyment.
The inherently discreet nature of this type of aesthetic experience encouraged the investigation of suggestive, sometimes disturbing themes, including complex states of mind and expressions of deep social tension: opium dreams, the obsessions of a lover, the abject despair of an impending suicide, meditations on violence, the fear of death. As “The Darker Side of Light” demonstrates, the desire for intimate aesthetic experience and the art made to satisfy it constitute an important chapter in the long history of collecting as a private endeavor.
Many of the works presented share the dark naturalism and rebelliousness of the writings of Charles Baudelaire and Edgar Allan Poe, among other literary figures of the time. The revival of the etching medium during this period is also evident. According to Baudelaire, etching compelled an artist to express the most intimate degrees of self-revelation. This rich medium became a common arena for often opposing styles and schools of thought, and its exploratory latitudes drew the attention of Impressionists, academic painters, Realists and Symbolists alike.
With works drawn primarily from the collection of the National Gallery of Art, the exhibition centers mainly on art from France and Germany, but also includes works by artists in Britain, Belgium, the United States and Norway. Together with related public programs and lectures, the exhibition reveals a private world filled with often startling works and offers a far less familiar story of late Nineteenth Century art.
The exhibition is accompanied by a 192-page, hardcover catalog published by the National Gallery in association with Lund Humphries.
The museum is at the University of Chicago, 5550 South Greenwood Avenue. For more information, 773-702-0200 or www.smartmuseum.uchicago.edu .
