Tuesday, May 8, 2018

Obstinate Faith in Painting (after 1900)

Odilon Redon
The Chariot of Apollo
ca. 1907-1910
oil on panel
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

from The Triumph of Life

Swift as a spirit hastening to his task
Of glory & of good, the Sun sprang forth
Rejoicing in his splendour, & the mask
Of darkness fell from the awakened Earth.
The smokeless altars of the mountain snows
Flamed above crimson clouds, & at the birth
Of light, the Ocean's orison arose
To which the birds tempered their matin lay,
All flowers in field or forest which unclose
Their trembling eyelids to the kiss of day,
Swinging their censers in the element,
With orient incense lit by the new ray
Burned slow & inconsumably, & sent
Their odorous sighs up to the smiling air,
And in succession due, did Continent,
Isle, Ocean, & all things that in them wear
The form & character of mortal mould
Rise as the Sun their father rose, to bear
Their portion of the toil which he of old
Took as his own & then imposed on them;
But I, whom thoughts which must remain untold
Had kept as wakeful as the stars that gem
That cone of night, now they were laid asleep,
Stretched my faint limbs beneath the hoary stem
Which an old chestnut flung athwart the steep
Of a green Apennine: before me fled
The night; behind me rose the day; the Deep
Was at my feet, & Heaven above my head
When a strange trance over my fancy grew
Which was not slumber, for the shade it spread
Was so transparent that the scene came through
As clear as when a veil of light is drawn
O'er evening hills they glimmer; and I knew
That I had felt the freshness of that dawn,
Bathed in the same cold dew my brow & hair
And sate as thus upon that slope of lawn
Under the self same bough, & heard as there
The birds, the fountains & the Ocean hold
Sweet talk in music through the enamoured air.
And then a Vision on my brain was rolled.

– Percy Bysshe Shelley (1822)

George Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle
Minster in Thanet
before 1911
watercolour, bodycolour
British Museum

Spencer Gore
View from the window at 6 Cambrian Road, Richmond
before 1914
oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Harold Gilman
Nude on a bed
ca. 1914
oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

William Strang
Self-portrait
ca. 1919
oil on canvas
National Galleries of Scotland

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Interior with nude woman and man
1924
oil on canvas
National Galleries of Scotland

William Orpen
Self-portrait
ca. 1924
oil on panel
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Christopher-Wood-
The Seine at Passy
1924
oil on canvas
Dorset County Museum

Matthew Smith
Circus Woman
1925
oil on canvas
National Galleries of Scotland

William McCance
The Awakening
1925
oil on panel
National Galleries of Scotland

Roger Fry
Still-life of Fish
1928
oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Leo Gestel
Hands with brushes painting monogram of P.A. Regnault
ca. 1931
drawing (design for magazine illustration)
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

John Hoyland
29-3-69
1969
acrylic on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Bridget Riley
Shadow Play
1990
oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge