A Trip to the Museum

The day after the election, I needed to get out of the apartment and get my mind off of the depressing news.  There was a special exhibit at the National Museum of Art that sounded interesting, so I took the Metrobus downtown.

The exhibit features paintings from the collection of Henry Pearlman, a New York City businessman who was a leading collector of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art.  Since his death in 1974, his collection has been in the Museum of Art of Princeton University in New Jersey.

Nine paintings from the Pearlman collection are on loan for this exhibit.  The European paintings are paired with contrasting paintings by Mexican artists.

"After the Bath"

by Edgar Degas

ca. 1890-95

The French impressionist Degas is known for his paintings a ballet dancers, equestrian scenes and also nudes.  This work displays his interest in movement and unusual positions.

"Nude Woman Sitting"

by Manuel Rodríguez Lozano

1926

Paired with the Degas is this painting by Lozano.  He was born in Mexico City to a well-to-do family, and briefly had a career as a diplomat.  During the Mexican Revolution, because of his father-in-law's role as a counter-revolutionary, he had to go into exile along with his wife and her family.  While living in Paris, he met and was influenced by painters such as Matisse and Picasso.

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"Nude in a Landscape"

by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

ca. 1887

Renoir, of course, was one of the most famous of the French Impressionists.

"Baroque Nude"

by Germán Gedovius

ca. 1918

In contrast to Renoir's Impressionism, this painting is done in a romantic academic style.  Gedovius was born in Mexico City in 1867.  He was deaf and mute, and when he was twenty, his father sent him to Germany for medical treatment.  There, doctors were able to restore his hearing, and he learned to speak.  After studying art in Europe, where he was influenced by baroque masters, he returned to Mexico in 1893.  In addition to painting, he also taught art.  One of his students was Diego Rivera.

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"Monte Sainte-Victoire"

by Paul Cezanne

ca, 1904-1906

Cezanne was one of the most important Post-Impressionist painters.  In his later years, from the vantage point of his studio, he painted numerous paintings of this mountain.  His style, which features planes of color, was to influence later avant-garde movements including the cubism of Pablo Picasso.

"The Cloud"

by Geraldo Murillo (aka Dr. Atl)

1931

Murillo, who painted under the name of Dr. Atl, mostly painted landscapes of the Mexican countryside, particularly its volcanoes.

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"River View"

by Alfred Sisley

1889

The French-British painter, Sisley, may be overshadowed by Monet, but he was one of the first generation of Impressionists.  His landscapes are reminiscent of Monet.

"Green Hill"

by Joaquín Clausell

ca. 1910

Clausell was a lawyer whose political activism against dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz led to several months in prison and several years in exile.  But he is best remembered as Mexico's foremost Impressionist landscape painter.

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"Young Woman with a Round Hat"

by Edouard Manet

ca. 1877-79

Manet was one of the first painters to portray modern life and was a transitional figure from realism to Impressionism.

"Lady on the Balcony"

by Félix Parra

ca. 1880

Parra's paintings depict the changes in Mexican society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

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"Still Life"

by Camille Pissarro

1872

The Impressionist Pissarro is known for his landscapes and urban scenes.  This is one of the very few still lifes that he did.

"Still Life"

by Roberto Montenegro

1940

Montenegro is better known as an illustrator, although he also did canvases and murals.  During the Mexican Revolution he went to Paris where he met, among other artists, Pablo Picasso.  Although he did not embrace cubism, this still life is reminiscent of Picasso.

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"Mesalina"

by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec

1900-1901

Toulouse-Lautrec is known for his paintings and posters portraying Parisian nightlife.  This picture portrays a drama presented in a Paris theater as seen from offstage.

"The Bedroom"

by José Clemente Orozco

1910

Orozco would go on to become one of the "Big Three" of Mexican muralism.  This early watercolor, portraying a scene in a brothel, shows the influence of Toulouse-Lautrec.

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"Jean Cocteau"

by Amadeo Modigliani

1916

The Italian born painter and sculptor moved to Paris where he joined the avant-garde art scene.  His portraits are identifiable from the elongated faces, necks and bodies.  Modigliani died at the age of 35 from tuberculosis.

"Portrait of Adolfo Best Maugard"

by Diego Rivera

1913

In 1912 the young Rivera moved to Paris where he knew a wide circle of artists including Picasso (he adopted cubism for a while), Mondrian, Chagall and Modigliani.  This very large canvas with an urban landscape in the background is a portrait of Best Maugard, a Mexican painter and film director, who was completing his studies in Paris at the time that Rivera was there.

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"Tasacon Stagecoach"

by Vincent Van Gogh

1888

Hanging by itself, and not paired with any Mexican painting, is this oil painting by Van Gogh.  It was painted the year that he moved to Arles in southern France, one of the most prolific periods of his career.  However, by the end of that year his mental instability worsened to the point that he cut off his ear and was placed in a hospital.  Less than two years after painting this picture, Van Gogh was dead from an infection from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.