'Nicolaes Maes: Dutch Master of the Golden Age' at the National Gallery

There's a lovely small exhibition of works by Nicolaes Maes at the National Gallery at the moment, apparently the first exhibition of his works in the UK. He was a pupil of Rembrandt before becoming a popular master in his own right.

The exhibition is in three distinct sections over three rooms in the ground floor galleries. The first room displays his early works, some of which have been considered as by Rembrandt in the past, mainly religious works. The second room is made up of small 'genre' paintings which were great fun. The third room is made up of Maes' portraits, including a late self-portrait. Apparently he painted 900 portraits so he must have been well off.

My favourite of his early paintings was his 'Adoration of the Shepherds' which is a copy of an etching by Durer from 150 years earlier. I spent a gleeful few minutes trying to find all the health and safety hazards - those bricks could tumble down any minute and just look at the wooden roof that could easily crash down on Joseph at the slightest breeze and I'm not even mentioning the shepherd's crook sticking out waiting to trip up someone. Then I had to find the donkey and the ox and there they are, at the back in the shadow. It can't be a nativity scene without the donkey and the ox.

Dutch genre paintings of the 17th Century aren't really my favourites but I thought these were delightful.

My favourites were the 'eavesdropper' paintings in which the figure in the foreground is listening to what's happening in the darkened background, the servant listening to their master's goings on or to what other servants are up to. They're quite simple in a way but you need to spot the details to understand what's going on, and that forces you to look carefully. Often you can see tiny lovers in a dark corner, sometimes flirting and sometimes being discovered, the servants always know.

It was quite fun to notice that the same model was used for two of these paintings, and quite probably many more. I wonder who she was and how much she was paid for her modelling? I wonder what she might think if she knew people were looking at here 350 years later?

There were also some of Maes's drawings on show and I particularly liked these two drawings of old women. They're quite small but are incredibly detailed or slightly smudged to make them look detailed. These were made from red chalk on paper.

The final room is made up of portraits, some more dramatic than others. Some were in their original frames and I really liked these two, a pair of betrothal portraits in individual frames. The lady is Ingena Rotterdam and the gentleman is Jacob Benkes and they were painted in about 1676. As portraits they're nice enough but look at those frames. They were made to personalise the portraits so his has a figure of Mars at the top and she has Venus - he was a soldier so it is particularly apt. Sadly they never married since he was killed fighting the French in the new world. 

There is also a self-portrait in which he shows himself as a prosperous and important man, be-wigged in his curly finery. It's a nice little exhibition in the ground floor galleries and is free to view. Sadly, of course, the National Gallery is currently closed but hopefully it'll still be on when the current shut-down is over.

'Titian: Love, Desire, Death' at the National Gallery

The new exhibition at the National Gallery is 'Titian: Love, Desire, Death' which brings together Titian's 'poesie' series of paintings for the first time in nearly 500 years. The paintings are all of mythological scenes based on the tales of Ovid and others. The exhibition is basically in two rooms in the main gallery, the first does some scene setting explaining the background to the paintings and Titian's relationship with Phillip II of Spain, his patron at the time, and the paintings are all in the next room, seven large paintings in gilded frames.

Seven paintings? you might ask, but the 'poesie' series includes only six paintings. To which the National Gallery replies that it's included its 'Death of Actaeon' in the London exhibition since it was originally conceived as part of the series but was actually painted later. I don't know if it will be part of the exhibition when it moves on to other museums but it fits in nicely with the rest of the series. One of the other paintings is 'Diana and Actaeon' showing the moment when the young hunter Actaeon stumbles across the goddess bathing in the woods. For that sin the goddess turns him into a stag and he's attacked and killed by his own hunting dogs. In the 'Death' painting we can see Actaeon in the middle distance with the head of a stag, caught mid-transformation as Diana shoots him and his dogs attack him.

I prefer the painting in which Actaeon finds the goddess for the brighter colours and all the details, such as the nymph peeking from behind a pillar and the little lapdog growling and baring its teeth at the intruder.

Another scene of transformation is 'The Rape of Europa' and a detail of that painting is on the poster for the exhibition. The story behind the painting isn't the most pleasant but it's a lovely painting. Zeus has turned himself into a bull to capture Europa, his latest lust, who he carries off. Poor Europa looks very unsteady on the bull's back, her scarf whipping in the wind and little cupids doing their best to try to make it a love scene, but it's not. My favourite cupid is the one riding the dolphin in the sea, lower left.

A painting I hadn't seen before was 'Danae' with its dramatic light and dark sections. It shows Danae being visited by Zeus as a golden shower and who then gives birth to Perseus. There's a lovely contrast between the light, luminous Danae and the old, weathered woman looking after her (and not doing a very good job of it with Zeus around - you can't trust him around beautiful young women).

There's a little bit extra Titian in the way the exhibition is laid out in London. You exit through the shop and then into Room 8 of the Gallery which has been re-hung with the other Titian paintings the National Gallery owns. So, if you're looking for any Titian paintings, that's where they are for the moment (and the room is open to the public). To add context, paintings by other leading contemporary artists are also on display, including Michelangelo, Sebastiano (the huge 'Lazarus' painting), Parmigianino and Andrea del Sarto. It was a nice surprise to leave the exhibition only to have yet more Titians to look at.

Once it closes in London, the exhibition is travelling up to Edinburgh (two of the paintings are jointly owned by the National Galleries of Scotland with the National Gallery in London), then goes to the Prado in Madrid (which owns a painting) and then to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston (it owns 'The Rape of Europa'). 

'French Impressions' - Prints at the British Museum

The British Museum has just opened a new, small exhibition about prints-making by the Impressionists and their successors, 'French Impressions: Prints from Manet to Cezanne'. It's upstairs in Room 90, a single room, but it has some great works that are well worth seeing. They seem to be mainly lithographs, rather than other forms of print-making, with some etchings on display as well. I've seen many paintings by some of the artists featured in this exhibition, but those were in oil paints rather than the mainly monochrome prints so it's interesting to see how they manage with a largely monochrome palette.

One of the first prints I saw was a lovely small portrait of the painter Berthe Morisot that also serves as the picture for the poster of the exhibition. It's by Manet, who was friend of hers. You've probably heard of Manet but possibly not heard of Morisot. I saw an exhibition of her works a few years back in Paris and all the exhibits were small, warm and very welcoming. Morisot also has a couple of prints in the exhibition that were more like line drawings, quite delicate and small, one of which was a self-portrait with her daughter.

One of the more experimental print-makers was Degas and there's one of his 'bather' prints on display. Apparently the first time he made this print if came out too dark so all the detail was lost so he scraped it clean and tried again and this is the result. Not as feminine as his pastels but still, obviously, a Degas.

There was, of course, the inevitable print by Toulouse-Lautrec but the one that surprised me was a portrait by Vincent Van Gogh of Dr Gachet, with whom he was staying in Auvers after his release from the mental asylum. It's an etching and is Van Gogh's only etching which he gave to the doctor and his son donated it to the British Museum in 1923. Apparently Dr Gachet taught Vincent how to etch.  

There were a few other portraits in the exhibition and one of my favourites was a portrait of the art dealer Ambroise Vollard by Renoir, a lithograph from 1904. They were friends and I think this comes across in the portrait which seems quite gentle and intimate.

Another portrait I liked was a self-portrait by Cezanne. Apparently Cezanne only made eight prints and this is a lithograph self-portrait from around 1896. He also knew Dr Gachet and stayed with him in Auvers in 1873 (it was a smaller world back then). This doesn't look like any of Cezanne's other self-portraits which were all painted in oil  but is really quite charming, sitting in front of a canvas (or mirror?) he was working on. There was a great exhibition of his portraiture a few years ago that I saw in Paris and in London and it's a great shame that this print wasn't included in it - it would've helped shed more light on his approach to portraiture.

In the display case beside the self-portrait was another of Cezanne's rare prints, this time a print of one of his 'Bathers'.

A final print I'll highlight is a colourful one to show that they also used colour back then and not everything was monochrome. This is another lithograph by Henri Gabriel Ibels from 1893, 'At The Circus, The Clown'. Lovely warm colours and simple lines and so very effective.

If you're in the area you could do worse than pop in to see the exhibition - it's free!

'The Visit' at the National Theatre

'The Visit, or The Old Lady Comes To Call' is the new play at the National Theatre that uses all the tricks and whizzes of the Olivier stage. It's a new version of the play, written by Tony Kushner (who wrote 'Angels in America' so he's used to writing long plays) and is set in the small town of Slurry in small-town America. I wonder if Americans know what 'slurry' means in British English? I suspect the playwtite does but still...

The richest woman in the world is set to visit the small town where she was born and grew up in before escaping in her teenage years and beginning her adventures that made her rich and famous. The townsfolk are suddenly proud of her since the town is dying, industries closing and poverty spreading, and proud of the local shopkeeper who was her boyfriend in high school.

Then, suddenly, Claire Zachanassian arrives in the smoke from the train that wasn't scheduled to stop in the small town but she pulls the emergency chord to get it to stop. She can buy her way out of everything. The climax to Act I comes with Mrs Zachanassian promising $1 billion to the town if it delivers justice for her and this justice is the death of her former boyfriend that got her pregnant as a schoolgirl and then lied in court so she had to leave the town in shame.

Ooooh big moral decisions here and $1 billion in the 1950s was a lot more than it is today. The townsfolk can't possibly agree to kill one of their own, the owner of the local store they all use, but they can still dream. And then they start opening charge accounts that will be paid off one day when they have the money. But when will they ever have the money with local industry closing down?  There is only one source of new money. I won't go any further in telling the story in case you're planning to see the play.

The leads of Mrs Zacharassian and her old boyfriend are played by Lesley Manville and Hugo Weaving, both of whom are excellent. They worked well together and led the rather large cast with ease. Once Manville appears in the first act, all haughty and laden with money, the act is hers as she's centre-stage and not about to give up an inch. I've seen Lesley Manville on stage before but not Hugo Weaving - I've seen some of his films, of course, ('Priscilla', 'The Matrix', 'Lord of the Rings', etc) but it was nice to see him on stage doing the acting thing and he was very good indeed. I also really liked Sara Kestelman as the school headteacher who's seen her town slowly die and who made a particularly fine drunk towards the end.

It was nice to see the big Olivier stage used to good effect, to see the set rotating away and changing, and a forest emerging from below the stage - the spectacle of those moments shouldn't be underestimated since they're so rarely seen. The large cast, the clouds of smoke that appear every time a train comes near, the lighting, all of these add to the atmosphere of the play, the almost claustrophobia of small town America with dubious morals and the need to get on.

I enjoyed the play and I suspect you will too, so go along and see it.