Tea at Trianon: Millet, Van Gogh, Dalí Paintings On Display In St. Louis

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, March 7, 2020

Millet, Van Gogh, Dalí Paintings On Display In St. Louis

From St. Louis Public Radio:

The St. Louis Art Museum has opened an exhibition that its curators say acknowledges the contributions of a largely forgotten artist who was instrumental in the birth of modern art: 19th-century French painter Jean-François Millet. The exhibition, “Millet and Modern Art: From Van Gogh to Dalí,” is on display now through May 17. Millet’s work features landscapes, nudes and other work that inspired other artists such as Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet.

On Wednesday’s St. Louis on the Air, host Sarah Fenske talked with Simon Kelly, curator of modern and contemporary art at the St. Louis Art Museum. He is the co-curator of the exhibition along with Maite van Dijk, senior curator at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. One of the highlight pieces set to make its St. Louis debut is van Gogh’s lesser known “Starry Night” — it’s the one “Over the Rhône.”

“It’s a beautiful study of both natural light — you can see the big dipper in the sky … there’s a close study of astronomy there — and then alongside that, there’s a sort of fascination with the artificial light of the city. You can see all the gaslights, which are painted with these amazing kind of [thick] globs of paint,” Kelly said.

“It’s an amazing painting, and it’s really a gift that it’s here in St. Louis.”
There are 14 other van Gogh paintings visitors can expect to see in the exhibit.

Also featured is Millet, who inspired van Gogh, and other influential artists: Camille Pissarro, Georges Seurat, Claude Monet, Giovanni Segantini, Winslow Homer, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Edvard Munch and Salvador Dalí. Kelly added that the exhibit aims to “rediscover” Millet’s radical artistic breakthroughs through his influence on other artists. (Read more.)