Soutine, Modigliani and Cezanne - Portraits Exhibitions

It seems to be portraits season in London at the moment, with three major portraits exhibitions open at the same time: Soutine at the Courtauld, Modigliani at Tate Modern and Cezanne at the National Portrait Gallery. I've no idea why this is the year of the portrait (apparently) but it's nice to see the very different treatments of the portrait by three different artists who didn't live so far apart.

The Soutine exhibition is, as ever, rather bijou, using the usual two rooms at the top of the Courtauld Gallery. The price of entry to the exhibition is included in the general entry ticket so, as well as looking at the Soutines, you can see the rather impressive Courtauld collection as well (and don't forget the early Renaissance works on the ground floor that too many people seem to walk past - there are three Fra Angelico panels in there).

My abiding impression of the Soutine portraits is gorgeous colours and distorted bodies and faces. The portraits are of hotel and restaurant workers and, probably, some in domestic service, all the opposite of the type of people who usually have their portraits painted. Some seem to be humble whereas others swagger and you probably wouldn't want to meet them in a dark alley. One of my favourites was the narrow-faced and big eared pastry chef in his acres of uniform umpteen times too big for him, shrinking away from the artist and slightly concerned. Of course, all that white isn't necessarily white as you see all different colours smeared into the overalls. There are a few other pastry chef paintings, seemingly of different sitters but I liked this one.

Another painting I liked was this one of a hotel worker described as having different jobs (Soutine, apparently, rarely titled his paintings so dealers gave different names to them). There are actually four different painting of this bloke, two with hands on hips, one with hands lying flat on his thighs and one close-up. In each the facial features are distorted but he wears the same uniform. Apparently he was't a good sitter and got bored very quickly and started fidgeting. I like knowing things like that about portrait sitters - it helps to bring them alive. From the pose and expression I can well understand it in his case, too.

A much bigger exhibition is the series of portraits by Madiglioni at Tate Modern on the other side of the river from the Courtauld and a bit further downstream.

It was a very busy exhibition when I visited so I really need to go back again to get a closer look at the paintings. My overall impression was of a lack of eyes in any of the portraits - eyes left blank or painted in black but few depictions of eyes. There was a quote somewhere from Modigliani to the effect that he'd paint in the sitters eyes when he had seen his or her soul. That's an interesting supposition but I wonder whether he just found them difficult to portray in a non-mannered way so avoided the problem. I'd be tempted to do that.

There's a nice selection of paintings in a big exhibition, nudes and society women, workmen to gentlemen. A bit of this and a bit of that. There's even an opportunity to try out a virtual reality headset but I didn't bother because of the queue, maybe next time.

The extended and simplified shapes of bodies and features was a bit odd but eventually drew me in. What was missing - although I may have passed them due to the crowds - were early works before he developed his style that demonstrated that he actually was an excellent draughtsman and knew how to draw and paint 'properly', that would help us understand how he developed his own style. Or did he just launch his 'style' and start selling paintings that encouraged his to keep using the style.

In an odd way it's both a bit repelling and attractive at the same time, the elongated figures, faces and features, no real sense of proportion in many of the paintings and no clear rationale for what he chose to do. Does that matter? The further into the exhibition I went the more compelled I felt to look and appreciate, to wonder and to start making up stories about the sitters. It's worth taking a close look at the paintings, all with a high finish, but wonder why he chose an elongated nose and tiny eyes here or an exaggerated pose there?

I certainly want a second viewing and intend to go back when, hopefully it is less busy. I'll leave you with a self-portrait of the man himself with blacked out eyes.

An exhibition that I'd already seen in Paris was the Cezanne portraits exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. I first saw it at the Musee D'Orsay in Paris back in September, before it travelled to London. It heads off to Washington after London.

When I say i'd already seen this exhibition, that's not entirely true. What I should say is that I'd *most* of this exhibition before since it's not exactly the same - some of the paintings on show in Paris aren't on show here, and some are shown here that weren't on show in Paris. The most obvious are some rather cold paintings of the artists's son that I hadn't seen before.

The central paintings are, of course, here, including the boy in the red waistcoat that is, again, the poster for the exhibition. I have to say that, much as I love the D'Orsay, I preferred the layout of the paintings in the National Portrait Gallery which gave them more space and seemed less crowded despite being just as busy. On the other hand, the shop in the D'Orsay had more themed merchandise and cards than the National Portrait Gallery ( I notice such things).

Having done a painting course inbetweenseeing the exhibition for the first and second times, I looked at the paintings with a different eye, looking at the obvious brush strokes in some paintings and wondering what sort of brush he used and wondered why some brush-strokes go *that* way while others go *this* way. If you're interested in painting then this is an excellent exhibition to visit to get some ideas on technique as well as style.

If I could only go to one of these exhibitions then I'd definitely choose Cezanne - without him then the other two painters probably wouldn't have developed their distinctive styles. Well done Mt Cezanne and, especially, your long-suffering wife whom you kept on painting.