Collection Comparison: Monet’s Coastlines

Posted on October 19, 2015 by Experiment Station

In the Collection Comparison series, we pair one work from Gauguin to Picasso: Masterworks from Switzerland with a similar work from the Phillips’s own permanent collection.

(left) Claude Monet, Calm Weather, Fécamp, 1881. Oil on canvas. The Rudolf Staechelin Collection (right) Monet, Claude, Val-Saint-Nicolas, near Dieppe (Morning), 1897, Oil on canvas 25 1/2 x 39 3/8 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, Acquired 1959

After the death of his first wife, Camille, in 1879, Monet returned to the Normandy coast of France, where he had spent his youth. Currently on view in the Gauguin to Picasso exhibition, Calm Weather, Fécamp records the natural beauty of the coast looking toward Yport. Positioned from a high vantage point and perhaps painted entirely outdoors, it shows Fécamp’s imposing cliffs, which hug the coastline and appear to emerge from the sea at low tide. This work was exhibited in the Seventh Impressionist Exhibition in 1882.

Compare this to the Phillips’s Val-Saint-Nicolas, near Dieppe (Morning) at right above and on view in a nearby gallery in the museum; what similarities or differences do you see? Monet’s Calm Weather, Fécamp was painted in 1881, while Val-Saint-Nicolas, near Dieppe (Morning) was created in 1897. What changes do you notice in the artist’s style?

Spotlight on Intersections@5: Xavier Veilhan

Posted on October 15, 2015 by Experiment Station

The Phillips celebrates the fifth anniversary of its Intersections contemporary art series with Intersections@5, an exhibition comprising work by 20 of the participating artists. In this blog series, each artist writes about his or her work on view.

Xavier Veilhan, Sitting Nude, 2000. Jet print mounted on aluminum, 63 x 47 1/4 in. Gift of the artist, 2013

Sitting Nude is a self-portrait in a somewhat melancholic, dark lighting. The pose recalls a classical archetypal representation of the sitting nude, like Rodin’s The Thinker. It is part of a series of portraits of individuals and couples. Some are dancing, others are fighting. Some are just resting and contemplating, like this piece. It is something I have continued to explore with other nudes, like the ones presented in my show Music at Galerie Perrotin in Paris (March 2015). More than anything else, the focus lies on the silhouette. I believe that the psychology of the human representation in art also comes from the way the figure is standing or the way the body is installed in a certain position, and not only from the face, as is the case in the more traditional psychological portraiture. This doesn’t, however, mean I don’t look for expression. Although Sitting Nude is related to a generic idea of the human body, it also refers to something specific; in this case, myself. The melancholy of the image is more related to an assumed and manifested ethic for beauty.

Xavier Veilhan

Manet’s Head of a Woman

Posted on October 14, 2015 by Experiment Station

Édouard Manet, Head of a Woman, 1870. Oil on canvas. The Rudolf Staechelin Collection

Upon entering Gauguin to Picasso: Masterworks from Switzerland, Édouard Manet‘s Head of a Woman is one of the first works you’ll encounter. During the 1870s, Manet produced portraits such as this one which captures a glimpsed expression of a woman slowly moving into an amused smile. Its brushwork and color palette reveal the artist’s admiration for the 16th- and 17th-century Dutch and Spanish masters he studied on travels and at the Louvre. Although the sitter is unknown, her pose is characteristic of portraits Manet painted of his wife, Suzanne Leenhoff, his sister-in-law, the Impressionist Berthe Morisot, and his student Eva Gonzalès. Manet’s painting style would later take on a brighter palette and freer brushwork, the result of his association with younger Impressionist artists such as Monet and Renoir, who saw him as a mentor.

Assistant Curator Renée Maurer remarks that a common question about this picture is whether it’s finished or unfinished. What do you think? What are some of the elements of the painting that make you feel that it is complete or incomplete?