I have been a fan of graphic art, paintings and drawings, most of my life; I suspect that is true of most of us. My exposure has been primarily to reproductions, photographs in magazines, etc., an experience that is generally sufficient to permit me to sort out the ones I like from the rest. Occasionally, however, I have had the opportunity to see originals of famous paintings in museums or special exhibitions. These have been memorable occasions. The collections I have seen at the great museums – the Louvre, the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, etc. – are impressive, but so have been those at lesser known museums, including the Carnegie Museum here in Pittsburgh.
Special exhibits, usually focusing on a specific theme provide a separate opportunity. Several times we have seen exhibits of Japanese wood-block prints; I have always preferred those heavy with Hiroshige and Hokusai landscapes. I fondly remember an exhibit of Pennsylvania Primitives at the Carnegie, with works by Edward Hicks (half a dozen versions of “The Peaceable Kingdom”!), John Kane, and Horace Pippin. This summer we are favored with an exhibit at the Frick Art Museum entitled “Vermeer, Monet, Rembrandt: Forging the Frick Collection”. Henry Clay Frick began collecting fine art in 1880, got serious about it in the 1890s, and continued to add to his collection up until his death in 1919. His acquisitions are the basis of “the Frick Collection” in a museum in Manhattan that was formerly his mansion. After Mr. Frick died, his daughter, Helen Clay Frick, inherited the bulk of his estate; she then built her own collection of old masters, which is currently housed in the Frick Art Museum in Pittsburgh’s Point Breeze neighborhood, adjacent to Clayton, the Frick Mansion. This exhibition is a combination of classic works from the two collections.
I had very little difficulty persuading my daughter Elizabeth and my grand-daughter Rachael to spend an afternoon with me at the exhibit. Rachael was home briefly in the interval between the end of her second year at Bryn Mawr, where she is majoring in French and Political Science, and her departure for six weeks of “Study Abroad” in Avignon, France. This specific exhibition was just the right size, big enough to permit a wide variety of artists and styles, and small enough to provide enough time for visitors to examine each item closely. It took me a while to realize which paintings were here temporarily from New York (about three dozen) and which were permanently on display in Pittsburgh.
It is not surprising that “Girl Interrupted at Her Music”, by Johannes Vermeer is the headliner in this exhibit. Vermeer’s reputation has grown significantly in recent years, partly because of several videos popular in social media. “Tim’s Vermeer” is an entertaining documentary film produced in 2013 documenting Tim Jenison’s attempt to test the hypothesis that the photographic-like quality of Vermeer’s work is the result of his use of the “camera obscura” (pinhole camera). The result was a very respectable copy of Vermeer’s “The Music Lesson”, produced by an amateur artist. The other interesting occurrence was the discovery of a Cupid, that had been painted over by some well-meaning critic, in Vermeer’s “Girl Reading a Letter in an Open Window”, a discovery that changes the context of the work significantly. The Vermeer in the Frick exhibit is a perfect prototype of the type of painting the public associates with the artist; seeing it “in the flesh” was a real treat.
Much as I like the Vermeers, my preference always is for landscapes rather than portraits. Consequently my interest gravitated toward works produced by lesser known painters. I particularly liked Salomon van Ruysdeal’s “River Scene: Men Dragging a Net” with its excellent composition and a remarkable contrast between a bright sky and shaded fishermen in the foreground. Similarly, I made a point of taking a picture of Francesco Guardi’s “View on the Grand Canal at San Geremia, Venice”. I am unfamiliar with the artist, but have learned since that he is one of the most prominent practitioners of a genre called “veduta”, which is defined as a highly detailed depiction of a cityscape or other vista. No wonder I was attracted to him! James McNeill Whistler’s “Symphony in Gray and Green: The Ocean” probably qualifies as a landscape, but has its own unique characteristics. Elizabeth and I both had the same reaction to it; sure enough, the description that accompanied the painting confirmed that it was heavily influenced by Whistler’s admiration for the Japanese woodblock prints that were popular in Europe in his era.
There were, indeed, numerous portraits, including, Frans Hals’ “Portrait of a Man”, Titian’s “Portrait of a Man in a Red Cap”, Rubens’ “Portrait of Charlotte-Marguerite de Montmorency”, and Rembrandt’s famous “Self Portrait”. I am always suspicious of self-portraits. Is this what the artist really looked like? Or thought he looked like? Or wished he looked like? The ability of portrait painters to produce images that truly “come to life” is remarkable. An exception in this exhibition is “Sir Joshua Vanneck and his Family” by Arthur Devis, in which ten members of a family are depicted on the grounds of their estate in their “Sunday best”. On close inspection all ten have the same, vacuous face! Or were they clones?
I was surprised there were only a few examples of the Impressionists, notably Degas’ “The Rehearsal” and Monet’s “Banks of the Seine at Lavancourt”. We will leave that genre to another exhibition. This one is very interesting, easily warranting a visit to Point Breeze. The background story of Mr. Frick’s ambitions, his ascent into the Hall of Robber Barons vilified by contemporary historians, and Helen Clay Frick’s lifelong crusade to ameliorate his negative legacy provide an interesting perspective for this valuable collection of art work.