SNAPSHOTS

Middleton, George

SNAPSHOTS : By George Middleton SEVERAL times during the past two weeks I have- dropped in to Klein-bergcr's new gallery to set the extraordinary collection of French Primitives which he has...

...It is impossible to analyze in detail these pictures...
...The latter, probably the pupil of the older Clouet, came originally from The Hague, but having broken all the ties with his own country, painted exclusively in Lyon...
...and Mrs...
...but somehow I always get back to the Primitives...
...It is no-ntirely national, for intc :.s expression poure<l Italian and Flemish influ ences as the artists carried their nationality to the various centers where art was ordered...
...The presence of the Italian...
...The thirty or so examples, to which one must add the remarkable Fouquet of Louis Eleventh, would alone make this a distinguished exhibition...
...lacking photographs, this was the method of exchange uL,c-d to transmit the living likeness...
...But these subjects were often painted many times by the artists, for...
...SNAPSHOTS : By George Middleton SEVERAL times during the past two weeks I have- dropped in to Klein-bergcr's new gallery to set the extraordinary collection of French Primitives which he has gathered front many private galleries...
...This lovely triptych is in perfect condition and I know of nothing more joyous than the impertinent angels who peek out from unexpected places in their own childish glee, as more reverential monks and Saints adore the Holy Virgin Herself...
...Simon Marmion, born in Amiens, also carries Flemish influence, as revealed in several engaging pictures in this same room...
...Each ! ainter means some particular thing...
...Arthur Sachs have loaned...
...I recall a Clouet in the Morgan Library and another here, which Colonel Friedsam has loaned, that have this same quality...
...As they hang side by side one cannot help but wonder what the entire altar piece must have been like, for these are only fragments saved from what was destroyed in the French revolution...
...Originally in four panels painted on both sides, they have "been cut through so that all eight are now available...
...But there is something so ineffably delicate and rose-leaf-like in the hands of a Clouet, when some elegant indolent Princess or Lady sits before him and he looks on the fragile fingers lhat never did a stroke of work...
...The Dukes of Burgundy invited many Flemish painters to their court near Dijon, and it is interesting to learn that one of the most beautiful Bellegambes, of the three here shown, came into Colonel Friedsam's great collection from a house in that lovely old city...
...peculiar things in which an artist excels...
...Chicago may have a pro-British mayor who will burn the history of Bill Thompson...
...It has been said that the hands are hardest of all to paint and one can undoubtedly test many portraits by that stanelard...
...There is a certain similarity in many of these pictures to those one has seen abroad...
...Popes at Avignon, for example, with their entourage of Italian artists, explains the Italian influence to be seen in such a lovely little Annunciation which Mr...
...Flanders speaks quite positively in a number of panels which are very entrancing...
...Known as a great miniaturist, these gorgeous examples of a larger method are very moving in their persuasive painting...
...d French Primitive env is a wide field...
...I met a stranger in the .galleries the other day and we fell to talking, as the saying gc>es...
...Here he founded a school and it is practically impossible to know exactly which are his paintfhgs, so closely was he imitated by his many pupils...
...There are about a half dozen pictures of this Avignon school and some of countries even further South—the latter marked by a trifle more dramatic treatment...
...It is a joy to search for such qualities, to pick out the...
...Once before, at* the Seligman exhibition last Spring, I saw this little gem and it is one of the best in quiet beauty which the present show offers...
...only a casual lover of this great art...
...the same costumes, the same arrangement of jewels and the like...
...I am no expert...
...I suppose what lingers most in recalling this collection, gathered for the benefit of the French Hospital in New York, are the Clouets and the group of portraits as attributed to Corneille de Lyon...
...The eight panels which Mr...
...For those who have trailed about among pictures will see in its motifs certain influences which have come down from Giotto, such as the Infant being projected by God towards the mother's womb...
...I recall one thing he said: "It is very curious how I find myself trying to like moderns...
...Ryerson has lent are in a class by themselves...
...But that's another story...
...It is odd I can never feel a Clouet is a real one— and not a studio replica some of his assistants painted—unless I can see the mark of his hands...
...To all these must be added at least five examples of the anonymous painter known as le Maitre de Moulins whose famous triptych in Moulins all those who love art make special "ilgrimages to see...
...But the generic artist, together with the two Clouets, themselves, are the glories of early French portraiture...
...To one who has felt the charm of this school this exhibition must equal the famous showing made in Paris some years ago when the art world itself woke up to tbe "ict 'hat •' he . accepted supremacy t' Italian and Flemish : limitives was challenged, it is true that the so-cal...
...But I have seen many pictures in the last few years and slowly certain characteristics reach out and beckon...
...I f"el that way, too, with the added thought that so many of the Primitives are moderns— so far as paint methods are concerned...
...The awful thought intrudes that, sometime...

Vol. 19 • November 1927 • No. 11


 
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