UP IN THE COSMOS
What really enticed me to go to this exhibition was the name - Kandinsky. You can hardly see it on the poster!
Well, I said to myself, let’s see what is mystical about it. Thank goodness I arrived soon after opening time and was through security in seconds. The Orsay is one of the rare museums where Icom card holders don’t have to get a pass to go into an exhibition. The card is sufficient.
The first room was called « Contemplation » and the first works I see, I know….practically all of them. Claude Monet, Van Gogh and far off in the corner I saw a Kandinsky. My first reaction was disappointment. Japanese were all over the place photographing the Haystacks and other Monet works. I took a few in that gallery and here they are.
I must admit that Monet’s (1840-1926) painting « The effect of wind on the poplar trees » were only vaguely familiar. The first one is in the permanent collection at Orsay - the second in a private collection, so I hadn’t seen it.
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| "Effect of the wind on poplars" -1891 |
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| "Poplars" 1891 |
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| "Olive Trees" 1889 |
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| "The Golden Islands" 1891-92" |
Henri-Edmond Cross (1856-1910) work is known to me but I’m not a real an enthusiast. This however, surprised me as it seemed to belong to the pointillism period.
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| "Rose Trees under trees"" around 1905 |
Just as the Klimt did(1862-1918). Although this is in the Orsay collection, I have no recollection of seeing it. I like it. It’s definitely Klimt but unlike his usual style.
Kandinsky (1866-1944). I know this painting so well. « Reciprocal Agreement » done in 1942. It’s at the Beaubourg and has a nice wall to itself.
The second painting too « Study for Improvisation » 1911-12. So there would be nothing new. I felt somewhat despondent. There has got to be something new…
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| "Reciprocal agreement" 1942 |
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| "Study for Improvisation 26" 1911-12 |
But certainly new was the Piet Mondrian (1872-1944).Mondrian, along with Kandinsky was one of the founders of abstract art. From what I read, this is suppose to produce a sense of « transcendence in the spectator »!! Kandinsky said that every form of art had an inner resonance which made the soul vibrate. That’s why I like his work so much. It exhilarates me. Mondrian feels the same way. His apple tree which is also partly pointilliste had a lot of energy. But I can’t say that it is mystical.
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| "Apple Tree - Pointilliste version" 1908-09 |
There are many more paintings in the first gallery. I went into the second pretty rapidly. This is called « Sacred Woods » I imagine now that you understand the description of this exhibition. Le Paysage Mystique or the Mystical Landscape. Sacred Woods is a term embraced by the Nabi painters (The Nabis ) -not really my line. It’s one of the most important examples of deeply spiritual Symbolist interpretation of landscape. Forests become symbols. We go into a gallery of tree trunks which seem to be pillars connecting our world to something higher. Many of the paintings are by the Nabi group. Some of them are quite lovely and verging on abstract painting. Maurice Denis (1870-1943) is certainly very symbolic in his work. I like it in small doses. This was enough and yet such paintings have a very calming effect on « my soul ».
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| Georges Lacombe "Forest with red earth" 1891 |
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| Paul Sérusier "The Sacred Wood" 1891 |
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| Emile Bernard "Madeline in the Woods of Love" 1888 |
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| Mogens Ballin (Dutch) "Brittany Landscape" - 1891 |
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| Maurice Denis "Man With cape in a landscape" 1903 |
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| Maurice Denis - "Path with Trees" 1891 |
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| Maurice Denis "The Struggle of Jacob with an Angel" 1893 |
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| Maurice Denis "Landscape with Trees" 1893 |
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| Maurice Denis "The sleeper in a Magic Wood" - 1892 |
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| ??? |
Into a New Gallery. "The Divine in Nature". I don’t think I have to say anymore.
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| Paul Gaugin "At the Edge of a void" -1888 |
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| Odilon Redon "The Bouddha" 1906-07 |
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| Giovanni Segantini (Italian) "Love at the source of life" 1896 |
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| Angelo Morbelli "The First Mess at Burano" 1910 |
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| Giuseppe Pellizza (Italian) "The Miror of life (What on does, others follow)" 1895-98 |
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| Edvard Munch (Norwegian) "The Dance on the River" 1899-1900 |
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| Vincent Van Gogh "The Sower" 1888 |
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| Paul Gaugin "Christ in the Olive Garden" 1889 |
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| Paul Gaugin "The Struggle of Jacob with an Angel" 1888 |
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| Giovanni Segantini "The Angle of Life" 1894-95 |
Now into a gallery where I spent a lot of time. « The Idea of the North ». These were painters I don’t recall seeing at all. Canadian and called the Group of Seven. They were all profoundly influenced by a Scandinavian exhibition organized in Buffalo. The idea of a « mystical North ». Perhaps an intellectualized conception of spiritual feelings? There was not one painting that I didn’t like. Most of them are abstract, bold strokes and colors attracting your attention from a long way off.
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| Frederic Varley (Canadian) "The Open Window" 1932 |
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| Emily Carr (Canadian) "Sea and Sky" 1933 |
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| Marsden Hartley (Canadian) "Storm Clouds, Maine" 1906-07 |
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| August Strindberg (Swede) "Wave Vl" - front |
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| "Wave Vlll" Back |
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| Frederick Varley "The Cloud, Red Mountain" 1927-28 |
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| Marsden Hartley "Cosmos" 1908-09 |
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| Gustaf Fjaestad (Swede) "Clair de Lune in WInter" 1895 |
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| Lawren Stewart Harris (Canadian) "Decorative Landscape" 1917 |
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| Frederick Varley "Early Morning" around 1928 |
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| Frederick Varley |
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| Lawren Stewart "Above Lake Superior" around 1922 |
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| Tom Thomson (Canadian) "Algonquin Park" 1915 |
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| Emily Carr "Forest, British Columbia" 1931-32 |
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| Emily Carr (Canadian) "Trees in the Sky" 1939 |
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| Tom Thomson (Canadian) "The West Wind" 1916-17 |
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| "Isolation Peak" around 1929 |
The painting which could be seen from other galleries was by Lawren Stewart Harris (1885-1970 : Canadian) It was hypnotic and there I would say, mystical. It drew me back to that gallery several times.
« Night » You don’t have to think too hard when you see such paintings. However, I do not remember this being Van Gogh’s « Starry Night ». In fact I know it’s not. Van Gogh was obsessed with representing the effect of night time. When he was in Arles (February 1888) he wrote to his sister
« It often seems to me that night is even more highly colored than day »
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| Vincent Van Gogh "The Starry Night" 1888 |
The blues and yellows in such paintings seem to explode - photographs do not bring this out as much as I hoped they would.
From a little way off, I though Eugène Jansson, (1862-1915 : Swede) was a Van Gogh. There is so much more mystery in his painting of Hornsgatan, Night.
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| Eugene Jansson "Hornsgatan at night" 1902 |
Other artists too were able to express this mystery (for me anyway) . The Scandinavian artists were unknown to me (Jansson I did know). I liked what I saw.
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| Eugene Jansson "Dawn on the Ridarfjärden" 1899 |
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| Grace Henry "Evening" 1842 (?) |
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| Tom Thomson |
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| Charles-Marie Dulac (French) "The Valley of Tibre in Assise "1898 |
« Ravaged Landscapes » was a little more difficult to take. War impacted on man and nature alike. The artists who saw or experienced war painted pretty bleak landscapes to express their feelings.
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| William Degouve de Nuncques (Belgium) "The Swamp of Blood" 1894 |
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| Fredrick Varley "Gas Chamber at Seaford" 1918 |
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| A.Y. Jackson (Canadian) "A Corpse, Evening" 1918 |
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| Paul Nash (English) "Void" 1918 |
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| Paul Nash "Chestnut Waters" During World War l, the British Government set up a body bringing together war artists. |
The Cosmos » is the last gallery. The American artists retained an instinctive tenderness for nature. They seem to bring out their feelings. Each artist, European on American had very different approaches to the Cosmos which in many ways was the most mysterious of all the work I had seen in the exhibition to date. I went back and forwards, trying to figure out the differences, obviously looking perplexed as a Gallery supervisor came up to me and said:-
« It’s a very good idea, Madame that you are taking advantage of the exhibition. This afternoon we will not be able to move. There will be too many people ».
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| Marc Chagall "Above Vitebsk" 1914 |
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| Félix Vallotton "Verdun, sketch" - 1917 |
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| James "Jock" Macdonald (Canadian) "Etheric Form" 1934 |
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| Arthus Garfield Dove (Canadian) "Me and the Moon" 1937 |
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| Maurice Chabas "Space and Matter" 1909 |
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| ??? |
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| Augusto Giacometti (Oh yes!) "Starry Night" 1917 |
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| Wenzel Hablik (Germany) "The Cristal Castle in the sea" 1914 |
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| Edvard Munch "The Sun" 1910-13 |
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| George Frederick Watts (English) "The Sower of the Systems" 1902 |
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| Georgia O'Keeffe (USA) "Series l from the Plains" 1919 |
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| Georgia O'Keeffe (USA) "Red Hills, Lake George" 1927 |
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| Arthur Garfield Dove "After the Storm, Silver and Green" 1922 |
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| Arthur Garfield Dove (Canadian) "Sunrise" 1924 |
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| Theo Van Doesburg (Dutch) "Corps causal de l'adepte" 1915 |
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| Hilma AF Klint (Swede) "Group X, n° 3, Retable" 1915 |
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| ??? |
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