Exhibitions

The Hermitage in the Prado
Prado Museum /8.11.2011 - 25.3.2012 / 12 € / Official Website

Lute Player (1595-96)
Caravaggio (Detail)

A wall-size photo of the Hermitage greets you as you enter this year's blockbuster exhibiton at The Prado. As part of the Dual Spain-Russia Year, after lending a handful of its masterpieces in early 2011, The Prado now receives some 170 works of the Hermitage's collection.
  Portraits of the tsars greet you in a short introduction on the creation of the museum. A black room follows, housing the most unique feature of the exhibit: exquisite gold from ancient Greece and the Scythian tribes of the Black Sea -the epic, sculptural detail of the Solokha Comb is not to be missed.  The next room is the highlight of the show, the Renaissance and Baroque masters, with too many treasures to describe: Titian's powerful Saint Sebastian, El Greco's poignant Saints Peter and Paul and Caravaggio's relaxed Lute player versus Rembrandt's Portrait of a Scholar, who looks rather surprised with his new location, in contrast to Velazque's merry Almuerzo. Continuing in chronological order, works by Rubens and Van Dyck set a courtly mood alongside lavish dresses; and the Enlightenment comes with Canova's eroticly penitent Mary Magdalen. Lastly, luxurious Imperial jewels glimmer next to Eastern weapons. 

   The spacious first floor starts by confronting Friedrich's Romantic landscapes with Monet's Impressionism. Following is the modern art collection ammased by the Muscovites Schukin and Morozov, which heavily features Picasso and Matisse, as well as Russian avant-garde like Kandinsky's large Composition VI  and Malevich's Black Square.

Solokha Comb (430-390 BC)

Conversation (1909-1912). Henri Matise

The best... A unique opportunity to enjoy one of the finest selections of artworks that would be impossible to see together in the State Hermitage proper, creating a cultural timeline, from ancient crafts to suprematism. Also, interesting parallels are drawn throughout the exhibit (and probably without realising it): From the aformentioned ones to Picasso's rose period's Absinthe Drinker and his cubist Seated Woman to the wonderful complexity of the Chinese hairpins opposite the strikingly realistic Bouquet of cornflowers in a vase by Fabergé.

The worst... A chaotic organization that focuses too much on the history of the collection rather than its actual components, even various gemstone jars are dotted around the rooms to give us an idea of the Hermitage's inside apearance. And the flocks of hungry audio guiders crowding around a piece might just spoil your visit. 

Masterpiece of the Month

Thought (1895).
Auguste Rodin (1840-1917). Marble.  Musée d' Orsay, Paris.

 November 17 is World Philosophy Day. A day to stop and think; think that we're now over 7 billion on Earth, think about the political changes in the Arab world, about our grim economic crisis... Just one moment of introspection, like the one created by Rodin some 116 years ago.

 A characteristic work of Rodin's mature years, Thought is a striking bust of his -presumed- lover Camille Claudel. Her head leans forward with a sombre look - a foreboding of her unrequited love? Leaving private matters aside, Rodin manages to create a vivid "solidification" (for lack of a better word) of what thoughts may look like. They are born from the jumbled, inconsistent mass of our mind -here represented by the raw, unworked marble block- for us to shape them, work with them, polish them into what we desire, be it a witty comment or a refined portrait of a young woman. Appropriately, it's original title was Thought emerging from Matter.
 And sculpture, of all the visual arts, is the one that best represents philosophy , simply because of the fact of being three-dimensional: the enigma philosophy seeks, i.e.: the bust of Camille; needs a multiple approach to be understood. If we look from the side, she's in profile, but we can also see her from the back, front and all sorts of different angles -just like we can choose to be biased or neutral, or have, continuing with this optical theme, various points of view on a subject. .

 Rodin must have been pretty sure of his enormous role in art, creating stuff  that would change culture for ever by changing society's views on it; that being the goal of many philosophers. Because Rodin, either knowingly or not, became the philospher of stone.

   

Artist of the Month

Auguste Rodin (Paris, 1840 - Meudon, 1917)
French Sculptor

Photograph of Rodin (1812)
Henri Manuel. Musée Rodin

 Rodin is, after Michelangelo, the best-known sculptor in the world -or, rather, his sculptures are the  famous ones. For he created icons such as The Kiss (1888-89) and The Thinker , works that have caused such a great impact they have seeped into our popular culture as archetypes of human behaviour.

The Hand of God (1898-1902) Marble.
Musée Rodin, Paris   

 Born in Paris to a very poor, dysfunctional and sick family (that would later influence his subject matter greatly). His beginnings were difficult, rejected by art school and working only on small projects. Not until 1880, when he joined the Sèvres porcelain factory, did his works became widely appreciated, not without the controversy that was always with him. Three years later, his tempestous relationship with 18-year-old Camille Claudel started: being his apprentice, they served each other as models and inspiration; but as a result of unrequited love, Camille suffered from paranoia and depression. Probably to forget this dark period, Rodin married his long-life companion in 1917, to die in peace nine months later at the age of 77.

 Ground-breaking (at the time) and essential to art history is the best definition of Rodin's style. A great admirer of Renaisance art, his early sculptures (1870s) show a typically Classical staticity that evolved to a freer, more original style during the 80s and 90s: rough surfaces, unfinished fragments and complex compositions aimed to capture the monumentality of humanity. His favourite materials were marble and clay, where he could model his imagination with great ease, and bronze to produce casts that would spread his fame. He always worked from life, and his most beautiful and innovative pieces are studies of hands and feet, where the spontaneity of movement is best explored, like in The Hand Of God. As Rodin said: "...isolated hands still had the complete capacity to express emotions..."