Monochrome London

EXHIBITIONS

Monochrome London

by KATHARINE STAHLBUHK

the exhibition Monochrome: Painting in Black and White organised by the National Gallery, London (to 18th February), and the Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, where it will be shown from 22nd March to 15th July, ad- dresses fundamental questions of colour perception and aesthetics. More than forty years after the first exhibition on monochrome art, at the Rice Museum, Houston, in 1974,1 it offers a historical panorama of reduced-colour painting from the Middle Ages to our time. Such a broad undertaking could have risked becoming a mere illustration of monochrome paintings from different periods and diverging contexts. Instead, the curators have succeed- ed in offering visitors a unique opportunity to enhance their awareness of visual perception. The display is successful in establishing that monochrome has been consistently used to convey meaning beyond narrative. Even if the purposes of colour reduction may have shifted over time, certain concerns regard- ing the nature of visual apprehension and the guidance of the beholder’s gaze seem to 8. St Christopher carrying the Infant Christ and St Anthony Abbot, from the Donne triptych, by Hans have persisted. Whatever the epoch, context Memling. c.1478. Panel, each 71 by 30.5 cm. (National Gallery, London). or technique, a reduced-colour work of art consciously or unconsciously sets the view- in light and shadow’, continues with sections enigmatic works in this section, clearly seeks er in a position of bewilderment due to the on independent grisaille paintings, mono- to do much more than simply pretend to estrangement from reality created by chrom- chromes and sculpture, printmaking, pho- be a sculpture, but it is not easy to explain atic abstraction. tography and film, and ends with ‘Abstrac- the complexities of emulation, imitation Like the catalogue,2 the exhibition is divid- tion in black and white’. This is a coherent or evocation to visitors in the context of an ed into seven thematic sections. Following a arrangement, which presents the ‘evolution’ exhibition. more or less chronological progression, it be- of monochrome painting in a clear didactic Significant absences – aside from the ques- gins with ‘Painting the sacred’ and ‘Studies manner. Yet the largely chronological display tionable decision to exclude non-Western art discourages direct, concrete comparisons be- – include fourteenth- and fifteenth-century tween such seemingly unrelated artists as, for Italian murals or drawings on carta tinta example, Albrecht Dürer and Joseph Albers or (coloured paper), which could have served as Hans Memling and Kasimir Malevich. early examples of stand-alone monochromes, In the first room, which contains the long before the astonishing Odalisque in gris- exhibition’s first two sections, the visitor is aille by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres confronted with – and may be overwhelmed (1824–34; Metropolitan Museum of Art, by – a series of works from different periods New York; no.28), one of the masterpieces and diverse contexts executed in a variety on show. The beauty of Ingres’s painting, of media and techniques. But the common free from the distraction of colour, is in the thread soon becomes evident: paintings end not so far from Gerhard Richter’s ‘de- in ‘tones of grey’. Unfortunately, a subtler, sire for chromatic quietness’.3 His eulogy of more precise consideration of the colours ac- grey, ‘able to convey both objectivity and tually used – which, despite the exhibition ambiguity’, 4 establishes the poetic quality title, are more than black and white – is not of his works that use photography as source pursued. Noteworthy in the first room is the material, such as Helga Matura with her fiancé installation of Hans Memling’s Donne triptych (no.56; Fig.9). Here, however, the abstrac- with its grisaille shutters (cat. no.9; Fig.8) tion, or better the estrangement, lies not so slightly open, offering a glimpse into the ful- much in chromatic reduction (since he cop- ly polychrome face of the Virgin inside, and ies black-and-white photographs) as in the thus demonstrating the performative aspect monumental enlargement and resulting blur of such altarpieces. imposed on the portrayed object. The relationship between monochrome Richter’s Grey mirror – 765 (1992; Statens painting and sculpture is ancient, harking Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen; no.70), back to Pliny’s use of the term ‘color lapidum’ which puts the reflected image of the view- 7. Head of a woman, by Albrecht Dürer. 1520. Black and grey bodycolour heightened with white on and persisting in Dürer’s discussion of Stein- er in greyscale, prepares the beholder for the paper, 32.4 by 22.8 cm. (British Museum, London; farben (literally stone colour). Dürer’s Head final work on display, Olafur Eliasson’s Room exh. National Gallery, London). of a woman (no.33; Fig.7), among the most for one colour (1997; no.71). Here the visitor is

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own magnificent books on sculpture and Canova, Hayez and Cicognara architecture.3 The exhibition, beautifully installed in Venice the ground-floor rooms, reveals Cicognara’s activism on behalf of Venetian art. It shows by PHILIP RYLANDS sensual Neo-classical canvases by Hayez (Fig.10) and his contemporaries and Canova’s the exhibition Canova, Hayez, Cicognara. odd but vivid ‘colossal’ busts, in particular L’ultima gloria di Venezia at the Gallerie that of Cicognara, with his fluffy white hair dell’Accademia, Venice (to 2nd April), and sardonic mouth (1818–22; Musei Civici celebrates the founding of the Accadem- di Arte Antica, Ferrara; no.II.7), as well as ia galleries two hundred years ago and the Bertel Thorvaldsen’s bust of Byron, looking vitality of the Accademia di Belle Arti, of like a dazed pugilist (1817–33; Pinacoteca which they were an extension, under the Ambrosiana, Milan; no.VI.1), and an exqui- leadership of the Ferrarese Count Leopoldo site small marble Bacchus (1819; Museo Cor- Cicognara.1 It covers the years from the Bat- rer, Venice; no.V.11) by the short-lived and tle of Waterloo to the death of Canova in underrated Angelo Pizzi (1775–1819). 1822 but spills out chronologically at either In 1816 seven major paintings from the end. The narrative is dense with sub-plots restitution of Napoleon’s booty were as- that focus on various aspects of the fate of signed to the Accademia galleries, including Venetian art at the end of the Napoleon- Tintoretto’s Miracle of the slave, Pordenone’s ic wars and the establishment of the Acca- S. Lorenzo Giustinian and Veronese’s Feast in demia as a teaching institution. At the cen- the house of Levi. At the same time, the col- tre are the three protagonists of the title: the lections of paintings as teaching resources painter Francesco Hayez, Antonio Canova, for the pupils at the Accademia di Belle Arti whose Wunderkind and protégé he once was, grew rapidly, with such works as Giovanni and the tireless Cicognara, Canova’s close Bellini’s S. Giobbe Madonna and Titian’s Frari friend, whose hand is seen everywhere in Assumption (returned to the church in 1945), this exhibition.2 considered to be endangered in their orig- Cicognara was appointed president of inal locations. In 1816, 118 paintings were the Accademia di Belle Arti in 1808, the bequeathed to the Accademia by Girola- year it moved into the Scuola Grande di S. mo Ascanio Molin. The same year, Cicog- Maria della Carità, the former buildings of nara decided to install the collections in the a lay fraternity order. He resigned in 1826, rooms of the Carità, with thirty-nine major continuing however as its eminence grise un- paintings crammed into the sala del capitolo 9. Helga Matura with her fiancé, by Gerhard Richter. til his death in 1834. He secured profes- (the so-called Hall of Public Functions), in 1966. Canvas, 200 by 100 cm. (Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, © Gerhard Richter 2017; exh. National sors from all over Italy, nurtured the ca- time for an awards ceremony on 10th Au- Gallery, London). reers of the faculty and students and set up gust 1817, a date that effectively marked the two-year scholarships (pensionati) to study founding of the Pinacoteca. with Canova in Rome, from which Hayez In the central room Canova’s The muse Pol- immersed in yellow light, and thus – thanks and Giovanni De Min were to benefit. He yhymnia (1812–17; Hofburg, Vienna; no.III.1) to the suppression of the other colours in found work for Hayez and De Min wher- reigns over the impressive, partial reunifica- the visible spectrum – is transformed into a ever he could, including illustrating his tion of eighteen now-dispersed works of art, ‘black-and-white painting’. Commenting on this work, Eliasson remarked on the power of monochrome to ‘sharp[en our] ability to perceive’,5 a quotation that emphasises one of the fundamental themes of the show: poverty of colour does not mean poverty of meaning; by contrast, its result is often conceptu - al richness. Regrettably the catalogue does not bring together experts in the respective fields to flesh out the nature of such shifts or disruptions in more depth, or to ponder the continuities between the periods. Nev- ertheless, the exhibition inspires us to engage more with ‘monochrome painting’ as it has far from exhausted the subject.

1 D. de Menil, ed.: exh. cat. Gray is the Color: An Exhibition of Grisaille Painting XIIIth–XXth centuries, Houston (Rice Museum) 1974. 2 Catalogue: Monochrome: Painting in Black and White. Edited by Lelia Packer and Jennifer Sliwka. 240 pp. incl. 160 col. ills. (National Gallery Co., London, and Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2017), £19.95. ISBN 987–1–85709–614–9. 3 Ibid., p.23. 4 Ibid. 5 Olafur Eliasson quoted in ibid., p.205. 10. Rinaldo and Armida, by Francesco Hayez. Canvas, 198 by 295 cm. (Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice).

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