Some modest suggestions for Rochester’s Memorial Art Gallery

When you visit an art museum, do you ever find yourselves mentally relocating one of its Cezannes or Rembrandts to the walls of your own home? This weekend in New York City, Emsworth was thinking, instead, that certain paintings might improve the galleries of his hometown art museum, Rochester’s Memorial Art Galley.

Money permitting, of course. In New York City for the weekend, we found ourselves vainly resisting the vices of envy and covetousness at Sotheby’s, the formidable art auction house. It is one of the great tragedies of Emsworth’s life that he was blessed with the ability to appreciate fine art, but denied the wealth to acquire it.

Sotheby’s occupies a ten-story building in Manhattan’s upper West Side, at the corner of York Avenue and East 72nd Street. It is unfortunately many blocks from any subway station — but, we suppose, people with enough money to be serious art collectors would never take the subway anyway. We took the elevator up to the 7th floor and wandered into a live auction of antique furniture.

We were fascinated. Instead of having assistants bring the pieces out and hold them high while they’re hammered down, Sotheby’s displays the lots on a large videoscreen. The auctions go quickly. Banks of drones sat at phones putting in bids for customers in London and Dubai, we imagined. Occasionally somebody in the crowd (several hundred people) would hold up his sign to bid. We arrived just in time to see an antique chest of drawers go for $1.5 million.

We had never visited Sotheby’s (or Christie’s) before, and an exhibition entitled “Important Old Master Paintings and Sculpture,” consisting of art to be auctioned off this Thursday, January 29, gave us a pretext. And we have good news! The collection of European art at our own Memorial Art Gallery could be dramatically improved with just a few successful bids on paintings at this auction! Herewith our urgent recommendations:

1. Joseph M. W. Turner, The Temple of Jupiter Panellenius Restored. Let’s cut to the chase: the MAG should go for broke and buy this Turner. It will be the focal point of the auction, and it won’t be cheap — Sotheby’s expects the bidding to go to at least $10 million.

But it’d be worth it. Turner is conspicuously missing from the MAG’s collection; the MAG has only a Turner watercolor (which we’ve hardly ever seen). This gracious classical scene, nearly six feet wide, is mercifully free of the oppressive orange that dominates so many Turner landscapes, and it’s in excellent condition. The Temple of Jupiter Panellenius Restored would instantly become the highlight of the MAG’s collection.

2. John Singleton Copley, John Wombwell with a Grey Hunter. My fellow Rochesterians, aren’t you tired of Copley’s unfinished portrait of Nathaniel Hurd? Don’t you feel sorry for the docents who have to explain why we have an unfinished painting in our museum? Don’t you resent the Cleveland Museum of Art for having the finished version of Hurd’s portrait?

The unfortunate Nathaniel Hurd

Let’s put Nathaniel Hurd out to pasture. The kids will find this portrait of a English gentlemen with his horse a lot more interesting. And the price for this Copley will be a relief, especially after the MAG (or some philanthropic angel) drops all that swag on the Turner. Sotheby’s doesn’t expect to get more than $30,000 for John Wombwell.

3. Cranach, Old Man Beguiled by Courtesans. There’s no Cranach at the MAG, a gaping hole in its collection. In fact, the MAG has precious little by any German artists. (See this post by Emsworth on the MAG’s fine painting by German expressionist George Grosz.)

Here we were indecisive. Should we recommend that the MAG bid on Old Man Beguiled by Courtesans, this lively genre painting? Or should it go for Lucretia, the striking Cranach painting toward the top of this post? (Sotheby’s estimates that both will go for about $1 million.) In favor of the suicidal, bare-breasted Lucretia is the fact that the MAG could kill two birds with one stone: Lucretia represents a collaboration between Lucas Cranach the Elder and Lucas Cranach the Younger. On balance, however, we think Old Man Beguiled by Courtesans, painted by Cranach the Younger in the early 1600s, has more narrative interest.

4. Jan Steen, A Village Wedding and The Doctor’s Visit. Yes, we know, the MAG already has a picture by Steen. But why not more? We love Dutch genre paintings, and these two, together with the MAG’s The Pancake Woman, would make for a nice group. The Doctor’s Visit, shown at the very top of this post, is full of double entendres and symbolism and is in prime condition. A Village Wedding has perhaps darkened over the years, but this large party scene is fraught with interest. Let’s get them both!

5. Maerten Ryckaert, River Landscape with Flight into Egypt. This marvelous picture just slays us. None of the Dutch painters ever went to Palestine, so their paintings of Biblical scenes show people with Dutch features in Dutch garb, and landscapes with Low Country topography.

Here, the Antwerp master Maerten Ryckaert, one of van Dyke’s colleagues, shows the Dutchman Joseph, his good wife Mary, baby Jesus, and their donkey being ferried down a Dutch canal, alongside of which we see a charming Dutch town and a castle featured in the landscape. The colors are precious. It’s a relatively large canvas (28 x 38 inches), and the MAG has nothing like it. Sotheby’s doesn’t expect the bidding to go beyond $500,000. If it were up to us, we’d snap it up.

Hals's most famous portrait, "The Laughing Cavalier," belongs to the Wallace Collection, in London, and is not a candidate for acquisition by the MAG

6. Franz Hals, Portrait of a Man and Portrait of a Woman. Heck, let’s blow the budget. Two of the sharpest pictures on the block at Sotheby’s are a pair of portraits by Franz Hals, being auctioned off together. If the MAG is the high bidder on all these Dutch masterpieces, we’ll will have the finest collection of old Dutch masters between New York and Chicago.

Unfortunately, we have no image of these Hals pictures to show. But take our word for it: they are highly polished, penetrating character studies of a man and his wife. Both are in formal dress, as in other Dutch portraits from the first part of the 17th century. Sotheby’s expects to get up to $20 million for the pair.

7. Guercino, St. Peter Penitent. The 17th-century Italian master Guercino has become a favorite of Emsworth’s over the last five years. Suffice it to say that he is not represented at the MAG. This may not be be one of Guercino’s major works, but the quality is high, and St. Peter’s tear is real.

8. Claude Lorrain, An Evening Landscape with Mercury and Battus. Over the past few years, our appreciation for the two great 17th-century French masters Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain has grown enormously. Regrettably, the MAG has nothing by either. This lyrical landscape by Claude, painted in 1654, would fill an enormous gap. If the MAG could acquire just one of the works that Sotheby’s will auction off on Thursday, this would be Emsworth’s choice.

We don’t mean to find fault with Tom Golisano; he’s been extremely generous to the Rochester community. But unless Sotheby’s has seriously underestimated the market, these impressive Old Masters could be had, and the MAG’s collection could be dramatically improved, for considerably under $50 million — which is a lot less than Golisano blew on his most recent, futile attempt to be elected governor!

Ten pictures you shouldn’t miss at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

In Philadelphia on business last week, this art museum junkie was able to spend a pleasant afternoon at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where he found the usual tourists posing for souvenir photos at the top of the famous steps in triumphal “Rocky” poses. Unfortunately for the photos, most of this fine building is temporarily covered with scaffolding (even more than in this 2007 shot).

Inside, the collection is as rewarding as ever, but can’t be seen all in a day. If you have a chance to visit, Emsworth offers a modest list of ten pictures at this museum that he wouldn’t want his friends to miss.

1. Interior (Edgar Degas). Never mind the famous paintings of ballet rehearsals and nudes getting into their baths — this melodramatic 1868 painting is the Degas that appeals to me most. There’s a story here, but what is it?

The room, with its old-fashioned wallpaper, looks like a set from a play. The painting has been subtitled The Rape, as if the impassive man has just taken from the unfortunate, half-dressed woman something she can never get back. Is this a pictoral re-telling of the story of Amnon (son of King David), who tricked and raped his half-sister Tamar? “Then Amnon hated her exceedingly; so that the hatred wherewith he hated her was greater than the love wherewith he had loved her.” 2 Samuel 13:15 (KJV). But what to make of the oddly lit jewelry box on the table in the middle of the room?

2. Rhetoricians at a Window (Jan Steen). Even without a Rembrandt or a Vermeer, the collection of Dutch and Flemish old masters at the Philadelphia Museum of Art is outstanding. It includes at least half a dozen marvelous genre paintings by the Dutchman Jan Steen, of which Rhetoricians at a Window, painted in 1661, is my favorite by an eyelash. Most of these portray working-class citizens in everyday activities, although one illustrates the Exodus scene of Moses striking the rock in anger to get water for the Israelites.

3. A Temperance Meeting (Homer). But Dutch genre paintings have nothing on American genre paintings. The Dutch peasant with the cup in Steen’s painting isn’t drinking milk, but the American farmboy in Winslow Homer’s scene, painted in 1874, is.

4. Christ Bearing the Cross (Murillo). The Gospel of John tells us that, after his trial, Jesus was forced to carry his own cross to Calvary, where he was to be executed by crucifixion. In this large picture by the great Spanish master Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Jesus meets his mother Mary and kneels to rest, with his cross on his shoulder. Mary holds out her hands as if to ask Jesus whether he truly must give up his life, a conversation she surely had with her son long before his arrest at Passover. Jesus confirms his mission with an expressive look.

Murillo’s picture is not a literal portrayal of the scene on the road to Calvary, because Jesus was guarded and whipped along by His tormentors on his way to Calvary, and it seems unlikely that they left Him alone for a private moment with His mother. Its meaning is, I think, figurative. Jesus surely knew long before his arrest that He had been sent to yield up His life as a sacrifice for the sins of mankind, and in a real sense He was carrying the cross throughout the years of His ministry. None of the many works of art with Christian themes in the Philadelphia Museum of Art will speak more movingly to believers than this 1665 picture.

5. Pont Neuf, Afternoon Sunshine (Pissarro). The Philadelphia Museum of Art has a spectacular collection of French impressionist paintings, but the sheer pleasure afforded by this heavily textured view of the most famous of the Paris bridges that cross the Seine is unmatched. Every part of this 1901 painting, from the colorful wagons and figures on the bridge to the fantastical greens and mauves of the river itself, is a sensual treat. To my great disappointment, it was not on the gallery walls during my mid-July 2008 visit.

6. Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2) (Duchamp). This cubist painting made a stir when it was first exhibited nearly a century ago (in 1914), but it’s not at all salacious. In fact, it’s difficult to find the nude subject of this monochromatic painting at all, let alone identify any particular parts of her anatomy. Nude Descending a Staircase may be the best-known cubist painting in the world. The Philadelphia Museum of Art has an excellent collection of other cubist works, especially by Picasso, Leger, and Juan Gris.

The museum has devoted an entire gallery to Marcel Duchamp. What a sad case study is his career! Some early paintings by Duchamp in the gallery, in what might be considered a post-impressionist style, show his exceptional talent. These include, for example, a fine portrait of his father. But Duchamp was caught up in the rapidly changing artistic and intellectual movements of the day. First, in a cubist phase, as represented by Nude Descending a Staircase, he abandoned representational art. Then, perhaps finding that celebrity and notoriety suited him more than artistic achievement, Duchamp abandoned his discipline altogether. He gave up painting, bought a bicycle wheel, mounted it on a pedestal, and announced that it was art.

Gratified with the attention, Duchamp repeated the trick over the years with a urinal, a comb, and other objects, a number of which are exhibited in this gallery. Remarkably, people took these stunts seriously; apparently some still do. The gallery chronicles Duchamp’s fall. The visitor will marvel at a century of public gullibility.

7. William Rush Carving His Allegorical Figure of the Schuykill River (Thomas Eakins). In the shadows, the famous sculptor chips away at his masterpiece. Neither Rush nor the elderly chaperone look at the nude model, who holds a box on her shoulder to help hold her pose. The model’s clothing, laid on a chair, is by far the brightest part of the painting.

8. The Large Bathers (Cezanne). It’s the picture that’s large (83 by 93 inches), not the bathers. Cezanne painted three versions of The Large Bathers, one in the London’s National Gallery, one at the Barnes Foundation, in the Philadelphia suburb of Merion, and this 1906 work, which is the finest of the three.

Paul Cezanne’s masterpiece can be seen 50 yards away down the long gallery lined with impressionist masterpieces that leads to the circular fountain court gallery.

9. The Rialto (Sargent). If Emsworth ever visits Venice, it will be because of John Singer Sargent’s evocative paintings of scenes from that city.

Visitors to the Philadelphia museum who want to see all the Sargents are led a merry chase. The curators have hung The Rialto among the works of late 19th-century European, presumably for no other reason than that it is a European scene. Portrait of Lady Eden is in the same gallery, presumably because the subject was British. But other Sargent paintings, including several fine portraits and a strikingly modern late landscape, are found among the works of his fellow Americans.

10. Mademoiselle Yvonne Landsberg (Matisse). In 1914, while Picasso and Braque were painting the same Cubist painting over and over again, Henri Matisse was using art’s new-found freedom to paint this unique portrait. As an afficionado, Emsworth was frustrated no end to find on his recent visit to Philadelphia (July 2008) that hardly anything by Matisse was on the walls.

These are not necessarily the finest or the most famous paintings in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I have not forgotten Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, Rubens’s Prometheus Unbound, Renoir’s Large Bathers, Eakins’s The Gross Clinic, or Monet’s Japanese Footbridge and Lily Pool. But you’d see them anyway.