Art I'm Looking At: Musée Fabre, Montpellier

Yesterday visited the Musée Fabre, in Montpellier, to catch the last day of a special exhibition there of sculptures by Houdon and others. I had heard about the show months ago, having read a review of it in The New York Review of Books. It took a while to find the place--French road markings are not the most rational--but it was worth it.

There were about 40 busts by Houdon and others, along with Houdon's allegories of Summer and Winter (Summer is pictured here; photo from The Web Gallery). A few were bronzes, but they were mostly marble, plaster, or terra cotta. The highlights were the Houdon busts of Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon in terra cotta, a marble head of Voltaire, and a bust of Christoph-Willibald Gluck (the composer) in plaster treated to look like bronze (both by Houdon). Houdon had a way of putting a piece of his sitter's soul into his work. You get the feeling that the heads are about to speak. The Franklin and the Gluck busts were particularly good, I thought. There was also a Houdon plaster bust of Molière that I recognized from several reproductions of it I saw the other day in the town of Pezenas, where Molière worked for a spell.

I enjoyed the Houdon sculptures, but the museum's regular collection is of some interest, too. The museum was originally established in the 1820s by Montpellier painter François-Xavier Fabre. It houses paintings of his own that he donated, his collection of paintings by other artists, and several other substantial collections that have been given to the museum over the years, including most recently a large group of paintings by Pierre Soulages donated by Soulages himself (above is his Painting, April 30th, 1972).

There are several good little Corot landscapes, a good Courbet seascape (and several other paintings by Courbet that didn't seem up to his usual standard), a good portrait by Gabriel Metsu--a painter I don't know well, but I noticed several by him in the Louvre last week that I liked very much--, a good Zurburán, and an interesting portrait by Kees Van Dongen in the modern section. The modern paintings were of special interest to me because there are several very early academic works in the collection by painters that became impressionists or modernists. I didn't like these paintings much as paintings, but it is unusual to see, for example, Monet painting an old-fashioned still life of the "fruits of the hunt," or Vlaminck in his pre-Fauves period, or Robert and Sonia Delaunay or Francis Picabia painting traditional subjects rather than the abstractions (the Delaunays) and Dadaist/surrealist work (Picabia) they are best known for. And then there is the large room devoted to Soulages. Definitely worth a visit if you're in the area and you have an interest in this sort of thing.

Afterwards went to Sète and saw canal jousting (by chance) and then spent a couple of hours at the beach between Sète and Agde. I didn't know that jousting from big rowboats was a thing in Sète, but apparently it is. We went to find the beach, but had a hard time of it and ended up at the end of the town's main canal, which seems to empty into the port. There doesn't appear to be any beach in the town proper. We ended up several miles down the road on a stretch of pebbly, shell-strewn (mostly cockles) sand somewhere between Sète and Agde, which was just fine. The water was warm enough to swim in, but cool. I can't remember if I've been swimming in the Mediterranean before....

On the Road: Getty Museum, Santa Monica

Yesterday, spent most of the day at the Getty Museum. These three paintings are among my favorites in the collection. The first is by Belgian painter Fernand Khnopff (1858-1921). This portrait of the daughter of one of the painter's friends (her name is Jeanne Kéfer) is from 1885. I love the limited range of colors and the odd juxtaposition of the tiny figure and the adult-sized world around her that is evocative of Alice in Wonderland--not to suggest that that was intended. Khnopff was one of the Belgian Symbolists. I realize now (writing this having prompted me to do a little research) that that odd painting of the sphinx called The Caresses is by Khnopff, a connection I hadn't made before.

The woman with the musical score is not identified. The painting is attributed to Francesco Ubertini (known as Bacchiacca; 1494-1557). It was painted in the 1540s, but it looks as if the artist might have put down his brushes yesterday. The label suggests this owes a great deal to the influence of Bronzino. I find that interesting because some of my favorite Italian portraits are by Bronzino. 

The man in the red hat is a halberdier (one who wields a halberd), probably Francesco Guardi. The portrait dates from 1528-1530. It is by Jacopo Carucci (known as Pontormo; 1494-1557). I love the way the red of the hat and the red at the bottom of the painting frame the man and contrast with the green background. I love the texture of the shirt, the man's confident but languid gaze.

I saw a very interesting show of photographs by Paul Outerbridge Jr., a photographer I had heard of but knew little about. The highlights were color nudes made using the carbro process (three-color separation prints using highly permanent carbon-based pigments). Ironically, photography was not allowed in the photography galleries, so I can't show any examples here.

I very much liked this portrait bust by Jean-Antoine Houdon. It's a bust of Marie-Sébastien-Charles-François Fontaine de Biré (quite a mouthful) from 1785. Houdon is probably best known for his busts of political figures, pholosophers, and inventors--perhaps most notably George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Napoleon. This sitter, according to the label, was a financial minister of some sort. I know nothing about the man. I just liked the very expressive face.