This past Saturday we took my daughter Jennifer for a campus visit to the Cleveland Institute of Art (that’s right, the CIA). She’s a high school junior and she’s starting the process of selecting a college. The CIA is a remarkable school and is located right across the street from the Cleveland Museum of Art, the botanical gardens, natural history museum, and Case Western Reserve.
After the tour and luncheon at the museum, Jennifer, my wife and I decided to see the special exhibit,
Paul Gauguin: Paris, 1889. I’d seen it advertised on TV and in the local papers and had wanted to see it. This was the perfect opportunity.
It was stunning. And I mean that in the literal sense. My mind has been reeling since I saw it. Before seeing this exhibition, I knew very little about Gauguin. And like many, I’m not trained in art history. I’ve found it easy to discount the impressionists and those who followed, like Picasso. In the last few years I’ve been slowly learning how to see these works, but only thru images in books and online, and assisted by books. But seeing this thoughtfully curated exhibit, being able to stand close to the art, to see multiple pieces, to go back and look again — it was a revelation.
In The Waves - Paul Gauguin
Take this painting, for example. It’s a well-known image. It’s a central piece in the exhibition. And yet being able to stand there before it and see it as it might have hung on the pomegranate red striped walls of the Cafe Volpini in 1889, in the shadow of the newly finished Eiffel Tower – this was new. And to see how Gauguin recalled this image and others in his mature work that followed, how he experimented, reworked, and recalled, I began to be able to really see his art. In particular, being able to leaf thru a reproduction of the Volpini Suite prints and then examine the originals displayed in the exhibit was thought provoking.
If you’ve ever walked thru a museum and simply noted the famous works, you’ve missed out. This is an opportunity to see, think, and feel. I especially recommend it to those, like me, who haven’t thought a great deal about art or who don’t really understand the changes that took place in art and painting in the late 19th century and which have resonated thru today. These works have not been brought together for over a hundred years and most have never been organized or displayed in this way. If you cannot travel to see it, the exhibition catalog – really a wonderful book — is available. I bought the hardback version and plan on spending many hours in further exploration.
Get thee to Cleveland!
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Dear Randy,
Even though it is a bit of a drive for you, it is nice to have a museum of that caliber nearby. Most of what is near me (in the way of art) is special-exhibit only or highly specialized (The Salvidor Dali Museum). I miss being able to run up to Cleveland or down to the Smithsonian.
Oh, and the impressionist, post impressionists, and the fauves–of whom, arguably, Gauguin is the Grandfather/father, have long been a favorite of mine. The surrealists are top of the heap, but these guys are such a relief after the great many years of realism in all of its myriad forms–Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, school of DelaCroix (what do you even call that). How nice to stumble into the vicinity of Corot, Courbet, and the pre-impressionist school–and in the states the charming and eccentric Hudson Valley school and their kindred (the illuminsts(?)).
Ah. Well, it sounds like a lovely exhibition, and if it is traveling and stops nearby, perhaps we’ll make an effort to get there.
shalom,
Steven
Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear to be a traveling exhibit. I think it requires a bit more of the viewing public than some of the flashier shows, but the payoff is there.
It was also a gift to be there with my daughter, an artist herself, and watch as she began to understand and see for herself. She began to be able to talk about what might first appear crude and unfinished and start to talk about what this might mean for her own art and her own move away from realism.
Randy