'Van Gogh: Self Portraits' at the Courtauld Gallery

The Courtauld Gallery re-opened in late 2021 after being closed for several years for renovations to make better use of the limited space it has in Somerset House, a listed building. Its first major exhibition of 2022 is a selection of Van Gogh's self-portraits, about half of all the self-portraits he painted in his short life. 

There are 15 paintings and one drawing self-portrait, one symbolic self-portrait and one portrait of his friend Eugene Boch. The Courtauld owns one of the paintings, the self-portrait of Vincent with a bandaged ear, and the other works come from various collections around the world. They're all roughly the same size and shape and most have a plain background rather a scene of a room or landscape behind him. 

I wandered from painting to painting wondering what Van Gogh was trying to achieve with these paintings. Was he just practicing and using himself as a convenient model? His style clearly changed between the paintings, sometimes noticeably, using his brush markings in different ways to evoke the image of his face but was there more to it? His colour palette changes frequently, from rather dark and 'formal' self-portraits to freer, lighter paintings, sometimes in a hat and formal coat or jacket and sometimes in more informal or work clothes. No doubt there'll be a learned essay in the catalogue about this.

In only one of the paintings does he present himself as a painter, with a canvas, palette and brushes, wearing his painters' smock. Artists have been painting themselves like this for as long as they've done self-portraits.

One of my favourite paintings is of Van Gogh in a straw hat, in which the only dark element is his eyes. It's slightly smaller than the others but is very attractive in the gentle, almost dappled, colours he's chosen for it. Perhaps that's why it's in the chunky black frame? It would look very different in a lighter and thinner frame (my hint to the Detroit Institute of Art where it normally resides).

Mr Van Gogh is known for his bright ginger beard and in one painting it almost jumps off the canvas at you. He was experimenting with pointillism at the time, using dots of contrasting colours to create the image. It's fascinating to look at his brush marks with dots and little dashes of colour on his jacket and filling the background with more usual marks on his face, particularly over his nose to create the contours, a definite mix of styles creating his own style. 

It's interesting to note the different frames his works are placed in, presumably the frames they came in when loaned to the Courtauld. Most are quite thick and chunky in different styles and colours and I can't help but think they'd look better in simpler frames. They're not big paintings so having a chunky frames makes them appear bigger by taking up more wall space but I don't think that adds anything to the paintings themselves. 

There is also only one full face self-portrait with Vincent looking straight out at the viewer. Apparently he didn't like showing his full face since it demonstrated his gaunt, sunken cheeks due to losing his teeth.

A final two paintings for you, the famous self-portrait with a bandaged ear that is the only one in the exhibition with a background of what looks like his room with art on the wall. In none of the paintings does he look particularly happy or relaxed. There must have been bright moments in his life but you wouldn't guess that from the self-portraits. 

A painting I am very familiar with is Van Gogh's painting of his chair, a symbolic self-portrait, since it's normally in the National Gallery. I don't have a problem with including this painting since it is a representation of him, his chair with his pipe and tobacco on the seat is saying 'this is me'. It was a companion piece to the painting he did of Gauguin's chair from the short time they lived and painted together. He signs it simply as 'Vincent'.

This is a lovely exhibition and I'm pleased I've seen it (several times now). It hasn't shown me different side to Van Gogh the man or the painter but it does emphasise his constant experimentation, even in relatively small ways. He died very young but left behind a wealth of paintings. Highly recommended.

'Raphael' at the National Gallery

The big exhibition at the National Gallery is all about Raphael, with works on display from across his career. Raphael is one of the big three of the high renaissance and stands beside Leonardo and Michelangelo in the pantheon of the greats in artistic achievement. Where they both lived long lives, Raphael died at the age of 37 in 1520 so who knows what he might have gone on to achieve? The National Gallery is blessed in having a good selection of his paintings in its collection and these are added to by works from around the world creating a rather large exhibition. 

The exhibition starts in Room 1 beside the portico entrance and then winds through other rooms so the Gallery is using the Getty entrance as the way into the exhibition. Exhibitions are usually in the purpose built exhibition space downstairs in the Sainsbury Wing but I like it when they use other spaces for exhibitions since it changes the atmosphere of the place. It's appropriate that these old paintings are on the original walls of the Gallery.

One of the first paintings you see is a small head of Saint Sebastian painted when Raphael was about 20 years old. Not for Raphael the usual near naked figure with arrows in him, he shows us a rather plump-cheeked saint idly playing with an arrow wearing sumptuous robes. The colours are gorgeous and immediately attracted me from across the room. Another early painting that immediately drew my eye was a small Saint George fighting the poor dragon. I liked the broken lance, the genteel landscape, the princess running away in the distance and just look at that big, barrel-chested horse - that's a war horse and half! The painting is about 12" x 9" and in an interesting tabernacle-style wooden frame. I'd be happy to have it on my wall but I'd be on the dragon's side.

As you'd expect, there are quite a few Virgin and Child paintings with various saints. I think my favourite was the round 'Virgin and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist' (also known as 'The Alba Madonna'). It's quite an arresting painting with rather over-muscled infants but what kept me looking were the eyes of all three characters - just look at their sharp gazes. Mary and the infant John are looking at the cross the Child is playing with, his future foretold, while the Child looks at John, the cousin who will later baptise him. Set in a gentle rural landscape with buildings in the background, not the sometimes harsh landscapes painters imagined they were like in the Holy Land or overly lush Tuscan landscapes, it's a bit pared back and all the better for it. 

Imagine my surprise when I walked into another room and 'The School of Athens' filled one of the walls at almost full scale. The painting is a fresco in a private room in the Vatican so it's actually painted onto/into the wall but it was still a delight to see this reproduction. It's debated, but I choose to believe that Raphael painted his fellow masters in this painting with Leonardo centre stage as Aristotle, a brooding Michelangelo on the steps and a self-portrait of himself just coming into the scene on the right. He's the new boy in town after all. 

The exhibition includes some of Raphael's delicate drawings, some on loan from the Ashmolean that held a great exhibition of his drawings a few years ago. Something I didn't know about Raphael is that he also started to produce prints, taking his lead from Durer. This was a very good way of getting his name more widely known and people who couldn't afford a painting might be able to acquire a print. Here is 'The Judgement of Paris' with an awful lot going on.

A large painting that caught me eye, mainly due to the composition, was 'Saint Cecilia with Saints Paul, John the Evangelist, Augustine and Mary Magdalene'. They're almost life-sized but there's a gap above and below them. Saint Cecilia is the patron saint of music but she is so enthralled by the heavenly music above that she drops all her instruments to the ground. I think my favourite part of the painting is the pile of musical instruments that are all so delicately and realistically painted. I also like the almost haughty Magdalene who, unusually, has her hair covered.

There is a room dedicated to Raphael's tapestry designs that, interestingly, had to be drawn backwards so when they were made up by the expert weavers in Bruges they could come out as a mirror image and the right way round. The V&A has the huge cartoons for some of the tapestries he designed for the Sistine Chapel in St Peter's at the Vatican. There is also a small room about Raphael's architectural work. He did a bit of everything it seems.

The final room is given over to Raphael's portraiture. Apparently he was too busy to do many portraits but did important political portraits and portraits of his friends. There's an extravagant portrait of Lorenzo de Medici in incredible fabrics but the painting I'll show is much simpler, his 'Self Portrait with Giulio Romano', possibly completed in the year Raphael died. Romano was one of Raphael's main assistants and the pose suggests that Raphael is almost saying if you get a Romano painting it's like you have one of mine, he's that good. It's quite a touching painting and sad when you realise he died shorty after completing it.

A final painting is the poster boy for the exhibition, one of Raphael's good friends 'Bindo Altoviti' on loan from the National Gallery of Art in Washington. It's a very delicate painting, just look at the strands of hair and the light hair growing on his cheek, so much detail added for his friend.

It's a very good exhibition and bigger than I was expecting. Highly recommended.

Exhibitions Unblogged

I've been very bad at blogging this year, especially about some excellent exhibitions I've seen, so here is a catch-up bloggie to get them into the Plastic Bag. 

'Durer's Journeys: Travels of a Renaissance Artist' at the National Gallery

Follow Durer on his journeys to Italy and the Low Countries through drawings, paintings and prints, the architecture and the strange animals he saw in zoos.  

'Surrealism Beyond Borders' at Tate Modern

I always think of surrealism as a European/American thing so who knew there was an active group of surrealists in Cairo and a thriving scene in Mexico. The exhibition does what it promises and shares the surrealist experience from around the world.

'Helen Frankenthaler: Radical Beauty' at Dulwich Picture Gallery

A real eye-opener in how to make prints. I still can't get my head around what I saw were really prints, even after watching a video of how she made the prints. Astonishing and beautiful. "No rules".

'Van Gogh: Self Portraits' at the Courtauld Gallery

A small but lovely exhibition of how Van Gogh saw himself throughout his painting career and how his painting developed.

'Virtual Veronese' at the National Gallery

Put on the virtual reality headset and you head back to the 15th century and see a Veronese painting in the chapel it was originally painted for, a very strange experience.

'Life Between Islands' at Tate Britain

A great selection of paintings, photographs and installations by artists with Caribbean heritage but associated with the UK

'Raphael' at the National Gallery

A wonderful romp through the artistic career of Raphael ending with his time in Rome before he died in 1520. Painting, drawings, bronzes, prints, designs for tapestries and even his architecture works. 

'Beyond Bloomsbury: Life, Loves and Legacy' at York Art Gallery

Lots of portraits of and by the Bloomsbury group of artists, forever painting each other, plus some lovely still lifes, a sampling of the Omega Workshop works and the ongoing legacy of Bloomsbury.