Niagara Falls from the American side

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Jul

Exhibition: ‘In Focus: Sound’ at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Categories: American, american photographers, beauty, black and white photography, colour photography, Diane Arbus, digital photography, documentary photography, exhibition, existence, gallery website, light, Man Ray, memory, photographic series, photography, portrait, psychological, quotation, reality, Robert Frank, space, time and works on paper
Tags: 'Life' magazine photographer Larry Burrows (far left) struggles through elephant grass and the rotor wash of an American evacuation helicopter, A child crying, Abbot Rousselot's Collection of Tuning Forks, Albert Harlingue, Albert Harlingue Abbot Rousselot's Collection of Tuning Forks, Alfred Stieglitz, Alfred Stieglitz Songs of the Sky, André Kertész Cellist, André Kertész Traveling violinist, André Kertész Violoniste ambulant, Andre Kertesz, Andre Kertesz Eiffel Tower Summer Storm, Ansel Adams Nevada Fall Profile, Ansel Adams Upper Yosemite Fall, Arnold Newman, Arnold Newman Igor Stravinsky, Bar Las Vegas, Blast #0608, Boy With Cello Balaton, Carrie Mae Weems, Carrie Mae Weems From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried, Carrie Mae Weems Musical Score of "God Bless the Child", Carrie Mae Weems Untitled 1995, Christian Marclay, Christian Marclay Untitled (Death), Church Organ and Pews, Columbia Records, Diane Arbus, Diane Arbus A child crying, Diane Arbus The House of Horrors, dorothea lange, Dorothea Lange Man Stepping from Cable Car, E. K. Nyame the legendary Ghanaian musician, Eiffel Tower Summer Storm, Eugène Atget Street diversions (or B organ), Eugene Atget, Eva Besnyö Boy With Cello Balaton, FATAL BULLET HITS OSWALD, Florence Henri, Florence Henri Columbia Records, From Here I Saw What Happened And I Cried, Ghost train, Gjon Mili, Gjon Mili Tap Dancer, Gjon Mili Tap Dancer September 29 1949, Gordon Parks, Gordon Parks Shooting Victim in Cook County Morgue, Henri Huet, Henri Huet 'Life' magazine photographer Larry Burrows (far left) struggles through elephant grass and the rotor wash of an American evacuation helicopter, Henri Huet The body of an American paratrooper killed in action in the jungle near the Cambodian border, i listen to the wind that obliterates my traces, Igor Stravinsky, In Focus: Sound, Infinitesimal Residual Vibration of An Unknown Sound, j. paul getty museum, Jack Ruby (52) shoots Lee Harvey Oswald (24), Jack Ruby fires bullet point blank into the body of Lee Harvey Oswald at Dallas Police Station, James Barnor, James Barnor E. K. Nyame the legendary Ghanaian musician, John Cage chez Dorothea Tanning, John Williams, John Williams Open Air Shower Bronte Beach, Julia Margaret Cameron, Julia Margaret Cameron The Echo, Kaho Yu, Kaho Yu Infinitesimal Residual Vibration of An Unknown Sound, Larry Fink Studio 54 New York City, Lisette Model, Lisette Model Singer Sammy's Bar New York, Lisette Model Tillie, Lookout Hotel Ogunquit, Man Ray, Man Ray Record, Man Stepping from Cable Car, Marion Kalter, Marion Kalter John Cage chez Dorothea Tanning, Milton Rogovin, Milton Rogovin Storefront Churches, minor white, Minor White The Sound of One Hand Clapping, Motion-Sound Landscape, music in vernacular photographs, Musical Score of "God Bless the Child", Naoya Hatakeyama, Naoya Hatakeyama Blast #0608, Nevada Fall Profile, niagara falls, Niagara Falls from the American side, Open Air Shower Bronte Beach, Opening Song Hand Clapping and Bells, Phonograph Demonstration, photography and sound, Platt D Babbitt Niagara Falls from the American side, Platt D. Babbitt, Platt D. Babbitt Niagara Falls, Platt D. Babbitt Scene at Niagara Falls, Political Rally Chicago, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Ralph Eugene Meatyard Motion-Sound Landscape, Ralph Eugene Meatyard Untitled 1969, Robert Frank, Robert Frank Bar Las Vegas, Robert Frank Political Rally Chicago, Robert H. Jackson, Robert H. Jackson FATAL BULLET HITS OSWALD, Robert H. Jackson Jack Ruby (52) shoots Lee Harvey Oswald (24), Roger Scott, Roger Scott Ghost train, Santu Mofokeng, Santu Mofokeng Opening Song Hand Clapping and Bells, Scene at Niagara Falls, Shooting Victim in Cook County Morgue, Singer Sammy's Bar New York, Songs of the Sky, sound, sound and photography, stephen shore, Stephen Shore Lookout Hotel Ogunquit, Steve Roden i listen to the wind that obliterates my traces, Storefront Churches, Street diversions (or B organ), Studio 54 New York City, Surf Sequence #3 San Mateo County Coast, Survivors of the atomic bomb attack of Nagasaki walk through the destruction, Tap Dancer, Tap Dancer September 29 1949, The body of an American paratrooper killed in action in the jungle near the Cambodian border, The Echo, The House of Horrors, The Movie Star (David Gulpilil), the photograph and the phonograph, The Sound of One Hand Clapping, Tracey Moffatt, Tracey Moffatt The Movie Star (David Gulpilil), Traveling violinist, Untitled (Death), Upper Yosemite Fall, Violoniste ambulant, Walker Evans, Walker Evans Church Organ and Pews, Will Connell, Will Connell Sound

Exhibition dates: 28th June – 2nd October 2022

Curator: Karen Hellman, assistant curator in the Department of Photographs.

Maker unknown (American)
Phonograph Demonstration
about 1900-1905
Gelatin silver print
27 × 37.1cm (10 5/8 × 14 5/8 in)
Getty Museum

“Sometimes theory leads to an over determination. Something is gained but at a price. Finding images that evoke a sound can only be saved by paying the higher price of remembering how images look when their sound is removed.”

~ Ian Lobb

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From my knowledge of photography, I have added further images that I can hear … but not in the exhibition that I know of. You may like to recall other photographs that you could include in the exhibition.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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Many thankx to the J. Paul Getty Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Though photographs are silent, photographers have long conjured sound in their images. Whether depicting crowded urban spaces, musicians performing, people engaged in conversations, or even more abstract depictions of sound, the pictures in this exhibition show photography’s power to communicate beyond the visual. The images date from the 19th century to the recent past, and in each, the audible plays as much of a role as the visual. As you look at these photographs, you are invited to imagine what you might “hear” as well.

Text from the J. Paul Getty Museum website

Florence Henri (American, 1893-1982)
Columbia Records
1931
Gelatin silver print
24.8 × 39.1cm (9 3/4 × 15 3/8 in)
Getty Museum
© Martini & Ronchetti, courtesy Archives Florence Henri

Gjon Mili (American born Albania, 1904-1984)
Tap Dancer, September 29, 1949
1949
Gelatin silver print
33.8 × 26cm (13 5/16 × 10 1/4 in)
Getty Museum
© Gjon Mili / The LIFE Picture Collection / Shutterstock

Photographs may be silent, but photographers have long conjured sound in their images.

Whether depicting crowded urban spaces, musicians performing, or people engaged in conversation, the pictures in this exhibition prove photography’s power to communicate beyond the visual.

Drawn from Getty’s permanent collection, In Focus: Sound, on view June 28 through September 2, 2022, unites two sensory perceptions – sight and sound – in photographs that record the visual while also imitating the audible.

“Photography and sound have more in common than one might expect,” says Karen Hellman, curator of the exhibition. “Photographs can evoke a sensory perception that they cannot actually depict. Looking at photographs while thinking about sound could provide a new way of viewing and appreciating photography.”

The 19th century saw a keen scientific and philosophical interest in reproducing ephemeral phenomena. This led to the development of the photograph as well as the phonograph. This interlinked history perhaps explains photography’s connection to sound and why photographers, even subconsciously, have endeavoured to picture it. In each image in this exhibition, which date from the 19th century to the recent past, the audible plays as much of a role as the visual.

This exhibition includes works by known and lesser-known makers from the 19th century to the recent past, including Julia Margaret Cameron, Walker Evans, Man Ray, Graciela Iturbide, Marco Breuer, Naoya Hatakeyama, and Christian Marclay.

In Focus: Sound will be on view June 28 through September 2, 2022, at the Getty Center.

Text from the J. Paul Getty Museum website

Naoya Hatakeyama (Japanese, b. 1958)
Blast #0608
1995
Chromogenic print
Getty Museum
Gift of James N. and Susan A. Phillips
© Naoya Hatakeyama

Man Ray (American, 1890-1976)
Record
1933
Gelatin silver print
28.9 × 22.5cm (11 3/8 × 8 7/8 in)
Getty Museum
© Man Ray Trust ARS-ADAGP

Albert Harlingue (French,1879-1963)
Abbot Rousselot’s Collection of Tuning Forks
about 1924
Gelatin silver print
17.9 × 12.7cm (7 1/16 × 5 in)
Getty Museum

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India,1815-1879)
The Echo
1868
Albumen silver print
27.1 × 22.7cm (10 11/16 × 8 15/16 in)
Getty Museum

Milton Rogovin (American,1909-2011)
Storefront Churches
1958-1961
Gelatin silver print
12.5 × 12cm (4 15/16 × 4 3/4 in.)
Getty Museum
Gift of Dr. John V. and Laura M. Knaus
© Milton Rogovin

Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Untitled (Musical Score of “God Bless the Child”)
1995
From the series From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried
Chromogenic print with sandblasted musical notations on frame glass
45.6 × 45.6cm (17 15/16 × 17 15/16 in)
Getty Museum
Gift of Mary and Dan Solomon in honour of Weston Naef
© Carrie Mae Weems

Will Connell (American, 1898-1961)
Sound
1936
Gelatin silver print
34.2 × 26.7cm (13 7/16 × 10 1/2 in)
Getty Museum
Gift of Trish and Jan de Bont
© Will Connell

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983)
[Singer, Sammy’s Bar, New York]
about 1940-1944
Gelatin silver print
Getty Museum
© Estate of Lisette Model, courtesy of Baudoin Lebon/Keitelman

“Bowery old-timers claim her voice has had no match for power and ferocity since Maggie Cline used to stun with “Knock ‘Em Down McCloskey”.”

The uncredited text, referring to this photograph of the bar singer known as “Tillie,” accompanied a group of Lisette Model’s photographs made at Sammy’s Bar that were reproduced in the September 1994 Harper’s Bazaar magazine. Taken from below and at a slight diagonal angle, the image captures the vitality and vibrancy of the performer belting it out on the stage at Sammy’s, a local favourite in the Bowery district of New York, also visited by photographers Weegee and Diane Arbus. The angle from which the photograph was made also emphasises the gleaming microphone, which seem to rise up to meet the challenge of projecting Tillie’s already powerful voice.

Text from the J. Paul Getty app

Ralph Eugene Meatyard (American, 1925-1972)
Untitled (“Motion-Sound” Landscape)
Negative 1969, printed 1974
Gelatin silver print
Gift of Weston J. and Mary M. Naef
© Estate of Ralph Eugene Meatyard

Christian Marclay (American-Swiss, b. 1955)
Untitled (Death)
2020
Chromogenic print
Courtesy of the artist, and Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
© Christian Marclay

Further images that I can hear … but not in the exhibition that I know of

Tracey Moffatt (Australian, b. 1960)
The Movie Star (David Gulpilil)
1985
Type C photograph on paper
Image: 50.7 x 77.3cm
Frame: 74.5 x 99.0cm
Gift of the artist 1998. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program
Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
© Tracey Moffatt

Marion Kalter (Austrian, b. 1951)
John Cage chez Dorothea Tanning, Paris
Paris 1979
Gelatin silver print
Courtesy of the artist
© Bildrecht, Vienna, 2022

Larry Fink (American, b. 1941)
Studio 54, New York City
May 1977
Silver gelatin print

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946)
Songs of the Sky
1924
Gelatin silver print

Eva Besnyö (Dutch, 1910-2003)
Boy With Cello, Balaton, Hungary
1931
Gelatin silver print
42.5 x 39.2cm (16.7 x 15.4 in)

Arnold Newman (American, 1918-2006)
Igor Stravinsky
1945
Gelatin silver contact sheet

Santu Mofokeng (South African, b. 1956)
Opening Song, Hand Clapping and Bells
1986
From the series Train Church
Gelatin silver print
Image: 19 x 28.5cm

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
The Sound of One Hand Clapping, Pultneyville, New York
1957
Gelatin silver print
24.4 x 25.1cm (9 5/8 x 9 7/8 in.)
Purchased in part with funds provided by Daniel Greenberg, Susan Steinhauser, and the Greenberg Foundation
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Street diversions (or B organ)
1898-1899
Albumen print

Walker Evans (Walker Evans, 1903-1975)
Church Organ and Pews
1936
Gelatin silver print

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Bar, Las Vegas
1955-1956
Gelatin silver print

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Political Rally, Chicago
1956
Gelatin silver print
35.1 x 23.7cm (13 13/16 x 9 5/16 in)

André Kertész (Hungarian, 1894-1985)
Cellist
1916
Gelatin silver print

André Kertész (Hungarian, 1894-1985)
Violoniste ambulant, Abony
Traveling violinist, Abony
1921
Gelatin silver print

André Kertész (Hungarian, 1894-1985)
Eiffel Tower, Summer Storm
1927
Gelatin silver print

Platt D Babbitt (American, 1822-1879)
Niagara Falls from the American side
c. 1855
Whole plate daguerreotype

Platt D Babbitt (American, 1822-1879)
[Scene at Niagara Falls]
c. 1855
Daguerreotype

Platt D Babbitt (American, 1822-1879)
Niagara Falls
c. 1860
Daguerreotype

Henri Huet (French, 1927-1971)/AP
‘Life’ magazine photographer Larry Burrows (far left) struggles through elephant grass and the rotor wash of an American evacuation helicopter as he helps GIs carry a wounded soldier on a stretcher from the jungle to the chopper in Mimot, Cambodia
4 May 1970
Gelatin silver print

Henri Huet (French, 1927-1971)
The body of an American paratrooper killed in action in the jungle near the Cambodian border is raised up to an evacuation helicopter, Vietnam
1966
Gelatin silver print

James Barnor (Ghanian, b. 1929)
E. K. Nyame, the legendary Ghanaian musician, photographed for a record cover, Accra
c. 1975
Gelatin silver print

Roger Scott (Australian, b. 1944)
Ghost train
1972
Gelatin silver print

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
The House of Horrors
1961
Gelatin silver print

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
A child crying, N.J.
1967
Gelatin silver print

Stephen Shore (American, b. 1947)
Lookout Hotel, Ogunquit, Maine, July 16, 1974
1974
Chromogenic colour print, printed 2013
17 × 21 3/4 in. (43.2 × 55.2cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Acquired through the generosity of an anonymous donor
© 2017 Stephen Shore

Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006)
Shooting Victim in Cook County Morgue, Chicago, Illinois
1957
Pigmented inkjet print, printed 2019
11 7/8 × 17 15/16″ (30.1 × 45.6cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
The Family of Man Fund
© 2021 Gordon Parks Foundation

Robert H. Jackson (American, born 1934)
FATAL BULLET HITS OSWALD. Jack Ruby fires bullet point blank into the body of Lee Harvey Oswald at Dallas Police Station. Oswald grimaces in agony
November 24, 1963

Robert H. Jackson (American, b. 1934)
Jack Ruby (52) shoots Lee Harvey Oswald (24)
24 November 1963

Originally published in the Dallas Times Herald, November 25, 1963. Cropped from the source image to the portion that was published in 1963. Winner of the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for Photography.

Unknown photographer
Survivors of the atomic bomb attack of Nagasaki walk through the destruction as fire rages in the background Aug. 9 1945
1945

John Williams (Australian, 1933-2016)
Open Air Shower, Bronte Beach
1964
Gelatin silver print

Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965)
Man Stepping from Cable Car, San Francisco
1956
Gelatin silver print

Ansel Adams (American, 1902-1984)
Upper Yosemite Fall
1946
Gelatin silver print

Ansel Adams (American, 1902-1984)
Nevada Fall Profile
1946
Gelatin silver print

Kaho Yu (Australian)
Untitled from the series Infinitesimal Residual Vibration of An Unknown Sound
2009-2011

The photographs in this series were taken during a period when I was feeling existentially bored. Instead of distracting myself with activities and accumulating new sensations, I decided to “look” at boredom, to study, and perhaps to understand it. The most natural strategy was to observe the immediate environments where my daily activities take place – train stations, cubicles, copy machines room, etc. I carried a medium format camera on a tripod and spent the odd hours wandering alone through those familiar spaces.

My “study” did not lead me to any revelation or answer. Instead, I found myself spending a lot of time waiting in a long silence, between the opening and the closing of the camera shutter.

Charles Babbage, a scientist in 1837, postulated that every voice and sound, once imparted on the air particles, does not dissipate but remains in the diffused movements of all the particles in the atmosphere. Thus, there might one day come a person equipped with the right mathematical knowledge of these motions who will be able to capture the infinitesimal vibrations and to trace back to their ultimate source.

Taking a long exposure, letting the light slowly accumulate an image on the celluloid surface, to me, is not unlike a sound seeker searching in the air particles, for the tiny residual movements that have been conveyed through the history of mankind, from the beginning of time.

Kaho Yu artist statement

… i listen to the wind that obliterates my traces

… i listen to the wind that obliterates my traces brings together a collection of early photographs related to music, a group of 78rpm recordings, and short excerpts from various literary sources that are contemporary with the sound and images. It is a somewhat intuitive gathering, culled from artist Steve Roden’s collection of thousands of vernacular photographs related to music, sound, and listening. The subjects range from the PT Barnum-esque Professor McRea – “Ontario’s Musical Wonder” (pictured with his complex sculptural one man band contraption) – to anonymous African-American guitar players and images of early phonographs. The images range from professional portraits to ethereal, accidental, double exposures – and include a range of photographic print processes, such as tintypes, ambrotypes, cdvs, cabinet cards, real photo postcards, albumen prints, and turn-of-the-century snapshots.

The two CDs display a variety of recordings, including one-off amateur recordings, regular commercial releases, and early sound effects records. there is no narrative structure to the book, but the collision of literary quotes (Hamsun, Lagarkvist, Wordsworth, Nabokov, etc.). Recordings and images conspire towards a consistent mood that is anchored by the book’s title, which binds such disparate things as an early recording of an American cowboy ballad, a poem by a Swedish Nobel laureate, a recording of crickets created artificially, and an image of an itinerant anonymous woman sitting in a field, playing a guitar. The book also contains an essay by Roden.

Text from the Dust to Digital website Nd [Online] Cited 23/07/2022. Published by Dust-to-Digital, 2011. The book is out of stock but available on Abe.com website.

… i listen to the wind that obliterates my traces book cover (2011)

The J. Paul Getty Museum
1200 Getty Center Drive
Los Angeles, California 90049

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Nov

Exhibition: ‘The Greats: masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland’ at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Sydney Part 2

By Dr Marcus Bunyan Leave a Comment

Categories: beauty, exhibition, existence, gallery website, intimacy, landscape, light, memory, painting, portrait, psychological, reality, space and time
Tags: AGNSW, Alex Reid, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Atuona, Basilica of San Marco, Boucher l'aimable pastorale, Boucher l'offrande à la villageoise, Boucher The offering of the village girl, Boucher The sleeping gardener, Camille Corot, Camille Corot Ville-d'Avray: entrance to the wood, Camille Pissarro, Camille Pissarro The Marne at Chennevières, Canongate Church, Claude Monet, Claude Monet Poplars on the Epte, Colonel Alastair Ranaldson Macdonell, Colonel Donald Murchison, Deuteronomy 9:10, Diego Martelli, Domestic annals of Scotland, Edgar Degas, Edgar Degas Diego Martelli, European painting, fêtes gallant, François Boucher, François Boucher The pleasing pastoral, Francesca da Rimini, Francesco Guardi, Francesco Guardi The Piazza San Marco Venice, Frederic Edwin Church, Frederic Edwin Church Niagara Falls from the American side, Georges Seurat, Georges Seurat La luzerne Saint-Denis, God writing upon the tables of the Covenant, graces of antiquity, history painting, Hivaoa, Horace Walpole, Impressionism, Jean-Antoine Watteau, Jean-Antoine Watteau Fêtes vénitiennes, John Campbell 4th Duke of Argyll, John Constable, John Constable The Vale of Dedham, John Singer Sargent, John Singer Sargent Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, la jardinière endormie, La luzerne Saint-Denis, La Varenne-Saint-Hilaire, Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, Lady Anna Horatia Waldegrave, Lady Charlotte Maria, Lady Elizabeth Laura, Michael Clarke, Michael Clarke Director of the National Galleries of Scotland, Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Peña, National Galleries of Scotland, Niagara Falls from the American side, Nichola Vleugxhels, Paul Cézanne, Paul Cézanne The big trees, Paul Gauguin, Paul Gauguin Three Tahitians, Poplars on the Epte, Procurator Nuove, Procurator Vecchio, Rent-day in the wilderness, River landscape with a view of a distant village, Robert Chambers Domestic annals of Scotland, Royal Academy, Sir Edwin Landseer, Sir Edwin Landseer Rent-day in the wilderness, Sir Henry Raeburn, Sir Henry Raeburn Colonel Alastair Ranaldson Macdonell, Sir Henry Raeburn Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster, Sir Henry Raeburn The Reverend Robert Walker skating on Duddingston Loch, Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir Joshua Reynolds The Ladies Waldegrave, The big trees, The Greats: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland, The Ladies Waldegrave, The Marne at Chennevières, The offering of the village girl, The Piazza San Marco Venice, The pleasing pastoral, The Reverend Robert Walker skating on Duddingston Loch, The sleeping gardener, The Vale of Dedham, Thomas Butts, Thomas Gainsborough, Thomas Gainsborough John Campbell 4th Duke of Argyll, Thomas Gainsborough River landscape with a view of a distant village, Three Tahitians, vedute, Venetian pleasures, Ville-d'Avray, Ville-d'Avray: entrance to the wood, Watteau Fêtes vénitiennes, Watteau Venetian pleasures, William Blake, William Blake God writing upon the tables of the Covenant, William Dyce, William Dyce Francesca da Rimini

Exhibition dates: 24th October 2015 – 14th February 2016

Michael Clarke, Director of the National Galleries of Scotland, with Paul Cézanne’s The big trees (c. 1904)
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

The second part of this monster two-part posting.

Highlights include the delicacy and strength of the William Blake, the stunning beauty of the John Singer Sargent portrait Lady Agnew of Lochnaw (1892), the perceived movement and presence of The Reverend Robert Walker skating on Duddingston Loch by Sir Henry Raeburn (c. 1795). Watteau’s Fêtes vénitiennes (1718-1719) confirmed my pleasure when looking at his paintings, the stillness, romanticism and intensity of vision while the muscularity and intensity of the painting in Constable’s The Vale of Dedham c. 1827-1828 was a revelation.

Gainsborough’s pastoral River landscape with a view of a distant village (c. 1748-1750) was a surprise while the impressionists did not disappoint. Favourite among the last room, though, was the joyous spaces and overlaid patches of light and colour in Paul Cézanne’s The big trees (c. 1904). One of the great treasures of the exhibition.

View Part 1 of the posting.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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Many thankx to the AGNSW for allowing me to publish the art work in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. All installation photographs © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Installation view of the exhibition The Greats: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney with at left, Sir Joshua Reynolds’ The Ladies Waldegrave (1780-1781) and at right, John Singer Sargent’s Lady Agnew of Lochnaw (1892)
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Installation view of the exhibition The Greats: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney with, in the corner, William Blake’s God writing upon the tables of the Covenant (c. 1805) and at right, Sir Joshua Reynolds’ The Ladies Waldegrave (1780-1781)
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

William Blake (England, 1757-1827)
God writing upon the tables of the Covenant (installation view)
c. 1805
Ink and watercolour over pencil and some sketching with a stylus on paper
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
William Findlay Watson Bequest, 1881
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

This superb watercolour comes from a group of over 80 illustrations to the Bible executed from Blake’s most significant and loyal patron, Thomas Butts. Artist and patron probably first met in 1799, when Butts commissioned Blake to produce 50 small tempera paintings of biblical subjects. This initial commission seems to have developed into an open-ended series of watercolours, painted over a period of nine years, for which Butts paid Blake a regular stipend. The original mount belonging to this work, now lost, was inscribed with a reference to the relevant biblical text, which in this case is Deuteronomy 9:10.

Sir Joshua Reynolds (England, 1723-1792)
The Ladies Waldegrave (installation view)
1780-1781
Oil on canvas
143 x 168.3cm
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh Purchased with funds from the Cowan Smith Bequest and with the aid of the Art Fund, 1952
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

The first president of the Royal Academy, Reynolds worked to raise the status of portraiture in Britain by painting people in the ‘grand manner’ more commonly associated with history painting. This informal portrait, a ‘conversation piece’, features the three sisters Lady Charlotte Maria, Lady Elizabeth Laura and Lady Anna Horatia Waldegrave. Depicting interlocking figures, Reynolds subtly alludes to trios of goddesses or graces of antiquity – a reference that would have been understood by classically educated viewers of the late 18th century. Reynolds’s triple portrait was commissioned by the sitters’ great-uncle, the celebrated antiquarian, connoisseur and critic Horace Walpole.

John Singer Sargent (USA, 1856-1925)
Lady Agnew of Lochnaw (installation views)
1892
Oil on canvas
125.7 x 100.3cm
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
Purchased with the aid of the Cowan Smith Bequest Fund, 1925
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

One of the best-loved pictures of the National Galleries of Scotland, this portrait of 27-year old Lady Agnew of Lochnaw is the first Sargent to be exhibited in Sydney in 35 years. As one of Sargent’s most glamorous and beguiling characterisations, it was pivotal in establishing the renown of both artist and sitter. The painting was first exhibited at the Royal Academy exhibition in 1893 to wide public acclaim and cemented Sargent’s position as a sought-after, fashionable portraitist of high society. For Lady Agnew, it launched her as a society beauty who later established her own private salon in London. Ironically, the costs of sustaining such fine style led Lady Agnew to sell her own portrait to the Scottish National Gallery in 1925.

In an ornate plush chair and surrounded by swathes of Chinese fabric, Lady Agnew gazes out at the viewer, confidently but enigmatically. Her pose is gracious, but relaxed. The chair and fabric were Sargent’s own props, and along with the generous, gauzy swathes of the sitter’s dress they give the painting a sense of comfort and luxury. Sargent’s brushstrokes are wide and fluid, and in some areas the canvas shows through the thin, sketchy layers of paint. But it is also very carefully composed to present Lady Agnew as an assured and elegant society woman.

Installation view of the exhibition The Greats: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney with at left, John Singer Sargent’s Lady Agnew of Lochnaw (1892) and at right, Sir Henry Raeburn’s Reverend Robert Walker skating on Duddingston Loch (c. 1795)
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Sir Henry Raeburn (Scotland, 1756-1823)
The Reverend Robert Walker skating on Duddingston Loch (installation view)
c. 1795
Oil on canvas
76.2 x 63.5cm
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Raeburn was the leading Scottish portrait painter of his time. This striking portrait of Robert Walker (1755-1808), minister of Edinburgh’s Canongate Church and a leading member of the city’s exclusive skating society, has come to be regarded as one of Raeburn’s greatest works. It is the most famous painting in the Scottish National Gallery, often described as the quintessential Scottish painting, and is listed in a recent publication as one of the 1000 paintings you must see before you die.

Its simple composition bestows the painting with an extraordinary visual impact. Walker is shown gliding across the icy surface of one of the small lochs near Edinburgh, his arms folded nonchalantly across his chest and his right leg lifted balletically behind him. Raeburn has cleverly created the effect of ice scored by the skater’s blades by scratching back into the paint surface. Unlike most of his artistic peers, Raeburn received no formal artistic education, instead pursuing other academic studies before being apprenticed to a local goldsmith at the age of sixteen.

Raeburn’s approach to painting reflected this unusual path into his profession. He avoided the meticulous production of preparatory drawings and sketches, instead preferring to work straight onto the canvas with minimal formal planning. While this approach invariably meant having to deal with compositional changes in the process of painting, it also enabled Raeburn to produce portraits that were unrivalled in their directness and spontaneity.

Sir Henry Raeburn (Scotland, 1756-1823)
The Reverend Robert Walker skating on Duddingston Loch (detail)
c. 1795
Oil on canvas
76.2 x 63.5cm
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Botticelli. Cézanne. Gauguin. Leonardo. Monet. Raphael. Titian. Turner. Velázquez. Vermeer.

One of the most significant collections of European old master paintings ever seen in Australia is now open at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, providing a once in a lifetime opportunity for Australians to contemplate the extraordinary quality of over 70 masterful paintings and drawings from across four centuries. The Greats marks the first time these artworks have been exhibited in Australia, with the exception of Rembrandt’s A woman in bed (c. 1647) and Seurat’s La Luzerne, Saint-Denis (1884-1885).

Deputy Premier and Minister for the Arts, Troy Grant, said with works by some of the world’s most well-known artists, The Greats alongside the Art Gallery of NSW’s own impressive collection is bound to draw big crowds this summer. “An exhibition of this calibre is a real coup for the State and builds on our standing as the cultural capital of Australia,” Minister Grant said. “These incredible works from Scotland may never be on Australian soil again, so art-lovers and novices alike should visit the Art Gallery of NSW and see this historic exhibition while they can.”

Michael Brand, director of the Art Gallery of NSW said The Greats is a rich and intimate show of remarkable quality. “Each masterpiece – whether it be Titian’s luminous Venus rising from the sea (c. 1520-1525) or Gauguin’s striking Three Tahitians (1899) – tells its own unique story. Through robust and engaging public programs, the Gallery looks forward to sharing these stories with visitors of all ages.”

The Greats: masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland unfolds in rooms devoted to the art of the Italian Renaissance, the Baroque in Southern and Northern Europe, the French and British Enlightenment, nineteenth century Scotland, and Impressionism. The exhibition has been carefully designed and installed to accentuate the grandeur of the paintings and foster an intimate experience with each of the artworks.”

Text from the AGNSW

Thomas Gainsborough (England, 1727-1788)
John Campbell, 4th Duke of Argyll (installation views)
1767
Oil on canvas
235 x 154.3cm
Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburg
Purchased 1953
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

The Scottish Duke of Argyll, Chief of Clan Campbell, whose hereditary seat is Inverary Castle, commissioned Thomas Gainsborough, one of the most celebrated English portraitists of the 18th century, to paint his likeness. The artist’s talents were sought by the wealthy elite both in London and in the fashionable resort town of Bath, where he established a studio in 1759. Gainsborough applied dense and feathery brushwork to convey Argyll’s ducal robes, his collar of the Order of Thistle, and the baton of his hereditary office of Master of the King’s Household.

Thomas Gainsborough (England, 1727-1788)
John Campbell, 4th Duke of Argyll (installation detail)
1767
Oil on canvas
235 x 154.3cm
Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburg
Purchased 1953
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Francesco Guardi (Italy, 1712-1793)
The Piazza San Marco, Venice (installation views)
c. 1770-1775
Oil on canvas
55.2 x 85.4cm
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh Accepted by HM Government in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to the Scottish National Gallery, 1978
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Like his fellow painter Canaletto, Guardi capitalised on the market of tourists eager for topographical views – vedute – of the spectacular urban spaces of Venice. This composition features the Piazza San Marco, which Napoleon would later call ‘the most splendid drawing room in Europe’. On either side, the receding arcades of official buildings, the Procurator Vecchio and Procurator Nuove, lead the eye towards the Basilica of San Marco, its mosaics shimmering in the sunlight. Behind the bellower is a glimpse of the Doge’s Palace. The scene is enlivened by traders, uniformed government officials, and fashionably dressed tourists – all portrayed through only a few deft strokes of the brush.

Jean-Antoine Watteau (France, 1684-1721)
Fêtes vénitiennes (Venetian pleasures) (installation views)
1718-1719
Oil on canvas
55.9 x 45.7cm
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh. Bequest of Lady Murray of Henderland, 1861
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Jean-Antoine Watteau (France, 1684-1721)
Fêtes vénitiennes (Venetian pleasures) (installation detail)
1718-1719
Oil on canvas
55.9 x 45.7cm
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh. Bequest of Lady Murray of Henderland, 1861
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

At the beginning of the 18th century, Watteau pioneered the fêtes gallant, a type of painting depicting a group of men and women enjoying flirtatious love, music and conversation, generally in a park or a garden setting. His paintings inspired a generation of artists who sought to capture the light-hearted elegance of the period. This painting is one of his few compositions that portray real people: the figure on the left can be identified as Watteau’s friend and fellow artist Nichola Vleugxhels, and the lovelorn bagpipe player on the right is considered a self-portrait of Watteau himself.

François Boucher (France, 1703-1770)
The pleasing pastoral: l’aimable pastorale
1762
Oil on canvas
231.5 x 91cm

The offering of the village girl: l’offrande à la villageoise
1761
Oil on canvas
229 x 89cm

The sleeping gardener: la jardinière endormie
1762
Oil on canvas
232 x 91cm

Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
Purchased by private treaty from the estate of HMV Showering, 1986
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Boucher, considered the pre-eminent painter of the French rococo, effectively invented this genre of elegiac, erotic pastoral which found a parallel in the pantomimes devised by his friend Charles-Simon Favart. In these three pastoral scenes set in a luxuriant and entirely unthreatening nature, shepherds engage in a perpetual drama of frustrated courtship, reflecting the polished etiquette and suppressed passions of aristocratic society in pre-revolutionary France.

Installation view of the exhibition The Greats: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney with at left, John Constable’s The Vale of Dedham (c. 1827-1728) and at right, Thomas Gainsborough’s River landscape with a view of a distant village (c. 1748-1750)
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

John Constable (England, 1776-1837)
The Vale of Dedham (installation view)
c. 1827-1828
Oil on canvas
145 x 122cm
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
Purchased with funds from the Cowan Smith Bequest and with the aid of the Art Fund, 1944
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Constable was born in Suffolk, and he dedicated most of his career to painting the surrounding English countryside with a marked romantic idealism. He was influenced by the grand tradition of European landscape painting, which he learned from artists and dealers he met in London early in his career. This composition, for instance, is indebted broadly to that of Claude Lorrain’s work Hagar and the angel 1646 (National Gallery, London). Constable referred to his own mature masterpiece in al better of June 1828: ‘I have painted a large upright landscape, perhaps my best.’

John Constable (England, 1776-1837)
The Vale of Dedham (installation details)
c. 1827-1828
Oil on canvas
145 x 122cm
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
Purchased with funds from the Cowan Smith Bequest and with the aid of the Art Fund, 1944
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Thomas Gainsborough (England, 1727-1788)
River landscape with a view of a distant village (installation view)
c. 1748-1750
Oil on canvas
76 x 151cm
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh. Purchased 1953
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Thomas Gainsborough (England, 1727-1788)
River landscape with a view of a distant village (installation details)
c. 1748-1750
Oil on canvas
76 x 151cm
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh. Purchased 1953
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Although best known for his portraits, Gainsborough consistently painted landscape throughout his long career. Rich in detail and carefully composed, this painting reveals his firsthand knowledge of 17th-century Dutch landscapes. During the 1740s, collectors in London admired and sought out works by such artists of Holland’s Golden Age as Meindert Hobbema and Jacob van Ruisdael. The especially horizontal format of this work suggests that it may have been part of a decorative cycle for a domestic interior, perhaps hanging above a fireplace.

Camille Corot (France, 1796-1875)
Ville-d’Avray: entrance to the wood (installation views)
c. 1825, with later retouching
Oil on canvas
46 x 35cm
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
Purchased with the aid of AE Anderson in memory of his brother Frank, 1927
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Camille Corot (France, 1796-1875)
Ville-d’Avray: entrance to the wood (installation detail)
c. 1825, with later retouching
Oil on canvas
46 x 35cm
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
Purchased with the aid of AE Anderson in memory of his brother Frank, 1927
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Corot, whose career spanned more than 50 years, emerged from the classicism of the 1820s to found the ‘school of nature’ that would find its culmination after his death in the art of the impressionists. This bucolic early work was painted at Ville-d’Avray, a small town west of Paris, where Corot’s parents owned a modest country house with grounds. The painting was retouched around 1850, at least in part by Corot’s friend and fellow artist Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Peña, who added the red cap of the seated woman as a bold implement to the otherwise cool palette.

Installation view of the exhibition The Greats: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney with at centre, Sir Henry Raeburn’s Colonel Alastair Ranaldson Macdonell, 15th Chief of Glengarry c. 1812
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Installation view of the exhibition The Greats: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney with at left, Sir Henry Raeburn’s Colonel Alastair Ranaldson Macdonell, 15th Chief of Glengarry (c. 1812) and at centre, William Dyce’s Francesca da Rimini (1837)
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Installation view of the exhibition The Greats: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney with at centre, Sir Henry Raeburn’s Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster, 1st Baronet (mid to late 1790s)
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Installation view of the exhibition The Greats: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney with at left, William Dyce’s Francesca da Rimini (1837) and at right, Sir Edwin Landseer’s Rent-day in the wilderness (1868)
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Sir Edwin Landseer (England, 1802-1873)
Rent-day in the wilderness (installation view)
1868
Oil on canvas
122 x 265cm
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
Bequest of Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, 1871
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Sir Edwin Landseer (England, 1802-73)
Rent-day in the wilderness (installation details)
1868
Oil on canvas
122 x 265cm
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
Bequest of Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, 1871
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Lands became famous for his paintings of the Scottish Highlands. This unusual history painting is based on the heroic exploits of Colonel Donald Murchison, as recounted in Robert Chamber’s Domestic annals of Scotland (1858-1860). Murchison, a lawyer turned guerrilla fighter, supported the rebellion to reinstate the Stuart dynasty to the throne of Great Britain. he brazenly defied the government by collecting rents illegally from Scottish tenants to finance local armed resistance. In this painting – commissioned by Murchison’s great-grandson – Landseer conflates several distinct episodes, including the colonel’s daring and notorious ambush of government-appointed agents, escorted by British redcoats, in 1721.

Frederic Edwin Church (USA, 1826-1900)
Niagara Falls, from the American side (installation view)
1867
Oil on canvas
260 x 231cm
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
Presented by John Stewart Kennedy, 1887
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Installation view of the exhibition The Greats: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney with at left, Camille Pissarro’s The Marne at Chennevières (c. 1864-1865) and at right, Claude Monet’s Poplars on the Epte (1891)
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Installation view of the exhibition The Greats: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney with at left, Claude Monet’s Poplars on the Epte (1891) and at right, Paul Cézanne’s The big trees (c. 1904)
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Camille Pissarro (France, 1830-1903)
The Marne at Chennevières (installation views)
c. 1864-1865
Oil on canvas
91.5 x 145.5cm
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
Purchased 1947
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Camille Pissarro (France, 1830-1903)
The Marne at Chennevières (detail)
c. 1864-1865
Oil on canvas
91.5 x 145.5cm
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
Purchased 1947
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland

Pisarro, the oldest and perhaps the most paternal of the impressionists, was the only artist to show at all eight of the group exhibitions. He painted this large riverscape early in his career, while renting a house at La Varenne-Saint-Hilaire, a village to the southeast of Paris, situated on the river Marne. The diagonal composition and the use of a palette knife to create this bucolic scene reflect the painter’s admiration for such diverse artists as Charles François Daubigny and Gustave Courbet.

Claude Monet (France, 1840-1926)
Poplars on the Epte (installation view)
1891
Oil on canvas
81.8 x 81.3cm
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
Purchased 1925
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

In the 1880s, Monet gradually developed a more schematic and decorative approach to landscape, which led to his ‘series’ paintings of the 1890s, beginning with the Haystacks in 1891 and culminating in his water lily paintings. This painting belongs to a series of twenty-three canvases that Monet, the founder of French impressionism and one of the most celebrated artists in Western art history, completed in the late spring and autumn of 1891.

For the series, Monet painted poplar trees on the river Epte, close to where it joins the river Seine, just more than a mile from his home at Giverny. The clear blue sky and sunlit clouds express a fresh atmosphere. Monet painted the scene on the river from his boat, which served as a floating studio. This explains the low vantage point, with the trees towering above, the river bank at eye level, and the vast expanse of water dominating the lower half of the painting. Unlike most of the series paintings which are vertical, the Edinburgh picture’s format is square, emphasising the gentle curve of the bank and the verticality of the slender trees trunks and their reflection in the water.

Monet had already started to create these works when municipal authorities decided to cut down the trees for lumber and sell them at auction. In order to preserve his motifs, Monet partnered with a timber merchant, and successfully saved the poplars, allowing him to complete his series for exhibition in 1892. The painting was the first impressionist picture to enter the National Galleries of Scotland’s collection. It was sold to the Gallery in 1924 by the important Scottish art dealer Alex Reid, who was responsible for introducing impressionism to many British collectors. Degas’ Portrait of Diego Martelli 1879 also passed through his hands (see below).

Claude Monet (France, 1840-1926)
Poplars on the Epte (installation details)
1891
Oil on canvas
81.8 x 81.3cm
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
Purchased 1925
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Edgar Degas (France, 1834-1917)
Diego Martelli (installation views)
1879
Oil on canvas
110.4 x 99.8cm
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
Purchased 1932
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

This portrait of the Florentine art critic Diego Martelli, a close friend of Degas and an important champion of impressionism, was painted in Martelli’s Paris apartment. The high viewpoint flattens the composition, throwing the sitter’s legs into sharp perspective. The work’s asymmetry and the cropping of such elements as the discarded slippers reflect Degas’s interest in Japanese prints. The curved picture behind the sofa is a map of Paris: the river Seine is visible, running through coloured segments denoting the city’s new souther neighbourhoods.

Paul Cézanne (France, 1839-1906)
The big trees (installation view)
c. 1904
Oil on canvas
81 x 65cm
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
Presented by Mrs Anne F Kessler, 1958; received after her death, 1983
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

This painting dates from the last years of Cézanne’s career. It is one of a series of works executed in the forest around the Bibémus quarry and the Château Noir, areas in which he often painted in his native Aix-en-Provence. The twisting limbs of the tree at left and the dramatic diagonal of the tree at right inject a sense of dynamism into the composition. Cézanne often left his pertaining in seemingly unfinished states, with areas of the primed white canvas showing through; here, they function not only as markers of the painter’s practice but also as patches of reflected sunlight.

Paul Cézanne (France, 1839-1906)
The big trees (installation details)
c. 1904
Oil on canvas
81 x 65cm
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
Presented by Mrs Anne F Kessler, 1958; received after her death, 1983
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Installation view of the exhibition The Greats: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney with at left Paul Gauguin’s Three Tahitians (1899) and at right, Georges Seurat’s La luzerne, Saint-Denis (1884-1885)
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Paul Gauguin (France, 1848-1903)
Three Tahitians (installation views)
1899
Oil on canvas
73 x 94cm
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
Presented by Sir Alexander Maitland in memory of his wife Rosalind, 1960
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Three Tahitians epitomises the decorative intensity of Gauguin’s late Polynesian works. Painted in the artist’s final years, during his second period in Tahiti, the work is said to depict a silent conversation in which the man appears to be undecided about the choice offered by the two attractive women – the choice between sensuality and piety. Although ambiguous, it has been suggested these two women are respectively symbolic of vice and virtue.

The bare-chested woman, holding a small posy of flowers and wearing a wedding ring, would seem to represent goodness, her gaze directed to the man. While the woman who turns to face the viewer, her sensuous lips in an enigmatic smile, and holds a mango, may be a reference to the biblical figure Eve who tempted Adam with an apple. These two women recur in several other compositions by Gauguin around this time. In the 1880s, the French post-impressionist fled urban civilisation in search of a tropical Garden of Eden, in which he felt his art could flourish. His final two years of life were spent on the remote island of Hivaoa in the tiny village of Atuona.

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Nov

Exhibition: ‘Photography – A Victorian Sensation’ at the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh

By Dr Marcus Bunyan Leave a Comment

Categories: American, american photographers, beauty, black and white photography, documentary photography, English artist, exhibition, existence, gallery website, Henry Fox Talbot, intimacy, landscape, light, London, photographic series, photography, portrait, psychological, quotation, reality, space, time and works on paper
Tags: 1851 Great Exhibition, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Amateur photographers: Julia Margaret Cameron, Balmoral Castle, Balmoral Castle from the N.W., British art, British photography, British stereoscopes, Calotype, Calotype images, calotype photography equipment, Cramb Brothers, Cramb Brothers Dr E W Pritchard, D.O. Hill and Robert Adamson, daguerreotype, Daguerreotype camera, daguerreotype portraits in Scotland, Dr E W Pritchard, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Dr John Adamson, early cameras, early photographic processes, early photography, Edinburgh, Elliot & Fry, Elliot & Fry Alfred Lord Tennyson, Francis Bedford, Francis Bedford Lydstep - the Natural Arch, Gathering Water Lilies, George Washington Wilson, George Washington Wilson Balmoral Castle from the N.W., Giroux et Cie, Giroux et Cie Daguerreotype camera, Great Eastern, Henry Frederick Van Der Weyde, Henry Frederick Van Der Weyde Richard Mansfield as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Hill and Adamson, Hill and Adamson Mrs Elizabeth (Johnstone) Hall, Idylls of the King, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Isambard Kingdom Brunel Standing Before the Launching Chains of the Great Eastern, Julia Margaret Cameron, Julia Margaret Cameron Alfred Tennyson, London School of Photography, London School of Photography Portrait of a horse held by a groom, London Stereoscopic and Photographic Company, London Stereoscopic and Photographic Company The Armstrong Trophy and Naval Court, Lydstep - the Natural Arch, Marcus Guttenberg, Marcus Guttenberg Portrait group of four unidentified children, Mayall, Mayall The Queen gazing at a bust of Prince Albert, Mrs Elizabeth (Johnstone) Hall, National Museum of Scotland, niagara falls, Niagara Falls from the American side, Pencil of Nature, Peter Henry Emerson, Peter Henry Emerson Gathering Water Lilies, Photography - A Victorian Sensation, Platt D Babbitt Niagara Falls from the American side, Platt D. Babbitt, Poet Laureate, Portrait group of four unidentified children, Portrait of a horse held by a groom, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria, Richard Mansfield, Richard Mansfield as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Howlett, Robert Howlett Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Robert Howlett Isambard Kingdom Brunel Standing Before the Launching Chains of the Great Eastern, Ross and Thomson, Ross and Thomson Unknown little girl sitting on a striped cushion, Salt print, Scottish daguerreotypes, Scottish photographer, Scottish photographers, Scottish photography, Scottish portrait photography, Scottish stereoscopes, Talbot The Pencil of Nature, Talbot's calotype photography equipment, Talbot's home-made camera, The Armstrong Trophy and Naval Court, The Ladder, The Open Door, The Pencil of Nature, The Queen gazing at a bust of Prince Albert, Thomas Davidson, TR Williams, Unknown little girl sitting on a striped cushion, William England, William Henry Fox Talbot, William Henry Fox Talbot The Ladder, William Henry Fox Talbot The Open Door

Exhibition dates: 19th June – 22nd November 2015

William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877)
The Open Door
1844-1846
Salt print from a calotype negative
Plate VI from the Pencil of Nature, the first book to be illustrated with photographs
© National Museums Scotland

In our contemporary image-saturated, comprehensively mediated way of life it is difficult for us to understand how “sensational” photography would have been in the Victorian era. Imagine never having seen a photograph of a landscape, city or person before. To then be suddenly presented with a image written in light, fixed before the eye of the beholder, would have been a profoundly magical experience for the viewer. Here was a new, progressive reality imaged for all to see. The society of the spectacle as photograph had arrived.

Here was the expansion of scopophilic society, our desire to derive pleasure from looking. That fetishistic desire can never be completely fulfilled, so we have to keep looking again and again, constantly reinforcing the ocular gratification of images. Photographs became shrines to memory. They also became shrines to the memory of desire itself.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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Many thankx to the National Museum of Scotland for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Hill and Adamson

Dr Sara Stevenson, photo historian, talks about the origins of Hill and Adamson’s partnership and their photography skills.

Scottish daguerreotypes

Dr Alison Morrison Low, Principal Curator of Science, National Museums Scotland, talks about daguerreotype portraits in Scotland and the work of Thomas Davidson.

Amateur photographers: Julia Margaret Cameron

Anne Lyden, International Photography Curator, National Galleries of Scotland, talks about photographer Julia Margaret Cameron.

George Washington Wilson

Emeritus Professor Roger Taylor talks about George Washington Wilson’s life and work.

TR Williams

Dr Brian May, CBE, musician and collector of stereo-photography talks about the photography of TR Williams.

William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877)
The Ladder
1844-1846
Salt print from a calotype negative
Plate XIV from the Pencil of Nature, the first book to be illustrated with photographs
© National Museums Scotland

Calotype images are not as pin-sharp as daguerreotypes, but they had one great advantage: more than one image could be produced from a single negative. Yet both processes were cumbersome and very expensive. What was needed was a faster, cheaper method to really fuel the fire of Victorian photomania.

This camera was bought by WHF Talbot in October 1839.

Some of his early equipment appears to have been constructed to his design by the estate carpenter.

William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877)
Talbot’s calotype photography equipment
c. 1840
© National Museums Scotland

Camera, printing frame, small domestic iron and chemical balance.

Platt D Babbitt (American, 1822-1879)
Niagara Falls from the American side
c. 1855
Whole plate daguerreotype
Platt D Babbitt ensconced himself at a leading tourist spot beside Niagara Falls, from 1853
© Howarth-Loomes Collection at National Museums Scotland

Platt D Babbitt (American, 1822-1879)
Niagara Falls from the American side (detail)
c. 1855
Whole plate daguerreotype
© Howarth-Loomes Collection at National Museums Scotland

Platt D Babbitt ensconced himself at a leading tourist spot beside Niagara Falls, from 1853.

Ross and Thomson of Edinburgh
Unknown little girl sitting on a striped cushion holding a framed portrait of a man, possibly her dead father
1847-1860
Ninth-plate daguerreotype
© Howarth-Loomes Collection at National Museums Scotland

D.O. Hill (Scottish, 1802-1870) and Robert Adamson (Scottish, 1821-1848)
Mrs Elizabeth (Johnstone) Hall, a Newhaven fishwife, famous for her beauty and self-confidence
1843-1848
From an album presented by Hill to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1850
Salt print from a calotype negative,
© National Museums Scotland

Robert Howlett (British, 1831-1858)
Isambard Kingdom Brunel Standing Before the Launching Chains of the Great Eastern]
November 1857
Carte-de-visite
Sold by the London Stereoscopic Company
© Howarth-Loomes Collection at National Museums Scotland

Calotype photographs from an album compiled by Dr John Adamson, among the earliest in Scotland

Photograph burnt in on glass, a group of workmen, Paris 1858

A major exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland explores the Victorian craze for photography and examine how it has influenced the way we capture and share images today, when more photographs are taken in two minutes than were taken in the whole of the 19th century. Photography: A Victorian Sensation takes visitors back to the very beginnings of photography in 1839, tracing its evolution from a scientific art practised by a few wealthy individuals to a widely available global phenomenon, practised on an industrial scale.

The exhibition showcases National Museums Scotland’s extensive early photographic collections, including Hill and Adamson’s iconic images of Victorian Edinburgh, and the Howarth-Loomes collection, much of which has never been publicly displayed. Highlights include an early daguerreotype camera once owned by William Henry Fox Talbot; an 1869 photograph of Alfred, Lord Tennyson by Julia Margaret Cameron; a carte-de-visite depicting Queen Victoria and Prince Albert as a middle-class couple and an early daguerreotype of the Niagara Falls. The exhibition covers the period from 1839 to 1900, by which point photography had permeated the whole of society, becoming a global sensation. Images and apparatus illustrate the changing techniques used by photographers and studios during the 19th century, and the ways in which photography became an increasingly accessible part of everyday life.

From the pin-sharp daguerreotype and the more textured calotype process of the early years, to the wet collodion method pioneered in 1851, photography developed as both a science and an art form. Visitors can follow the cross-channel competition between photographic trailblazers Louis Daguerre and William Henry Fox Talbot, enter the world of the 1851 Great Exhibition and snap their own pictures inside the photographer’s studio. They can also discover the fascinating stories of some of the people behind hundreds of Victorian photographs. These range from poignant mementos of loved ones to comical shots and early attempts at image manipulation. Photographs of family members were important mementos for Victorians and on display is jewellery incorporating both images of deceased loved ones and elaborately woven locks of their hair.

Sharing images of loved ones drove the craze for collecting cartes-de-visite. The average middle class Victorian home would have had an album full of images of friends and family members as well as never-before-seen famous faces ranging from royalty to well-known authors and infamous criminals. Such images sold in their hundreds of thousands. Also hugely popular were stereoscopes, relatively affordable devices which allowed people to view 3D photographs of scenes from around the world from the comfort of their own homes. On display are a range of ornate stereoscopes as well as early photographs showing views from countries ranging from Egypt to Australia. The increasing affordability of photographs fuelled the demand for the services of photographic studios, and visitors have the opportunity to get a taste of a Victorian studio by posing for their own pictures. They also have the chance to see typical objects from the photographer’s studio, including a cast iron head rest, used to keep subjects still for a sufficient period of time to capture their image.

Alison Morrison Low, Principal Curator of Science at National Museums Scotland commented: “Just as today we love to document the world around us photographically, so too were the Victorians obsessed with taking and sharing photographs. Photography: A Victorian Sensation will transport visitors back to the 19th century, linking the Victorian craze for photography with the role it plays in everyday life today. The period we’re examining may be beyond living memory, but the people featured in these early images are not so different from us.”

A book, Scottish Photography: The First 30 Years by Sara Stevenson and Alison Morrison-Low has been published by NMSEnterprises Publishing to accompany Photography: A Victorian Sensation.

Text from the National Museum of Scotland website

Taken by a photographer of the London School of Photography, based at Newgate Street and Regent Circus, London
Portrait of a horse held by a groom
1858-1860
Quarter- plate ambrotype
© Howarth-Loomes Collection at National Museums Scotland

George Washington Wilson (Scottish, 1823-1893)
Balmoral Castle from the N.W.
1863
Stereo albumen prints from a wet collodion negative
© Howarth-Loomes Collection at National Museums Scotland

Staff photographer of the London Stereoscopic and Photographic Company (probably William England)
The Armstrong Trophy and Naval Court
1862
Stereo albumen prints from a wet collodion negative
From the series of International Exhibition of 1862, No. 133
© Howarth-Loomes Collection at National Museums Scotland

It shows material lent to the exhibition by the Northern Lighthouse Board, Edinburgh, now in the collections of National Museums Scotland.

Mayall, London & Brighton
The Queen, gazing at a bust of Prince Albert, together with the Prince and Princess of Wales, married 10 March 1863
1863
Carte-de-visite
© Howarth-Loomes Collection at National Museums Scotland

Cramb Brothers, of Glasgow
Dr E W Pritchard, His Wife, Mother-in-Law and Family
1865
Carte-de-visite
© Howarth-Loomes Collection at National Museums Scotland

Edward William Pritchard (1825-65) was notorious for poisoning with antimony his wife and mother-in-law, both seen in this family portrait in happier days. He was the last person to be publicly executed in Glasgow.

Cramb Brothers, of Glasgow
Dr E W Pritchard
1865
Carte-de-visite
© Howarth-Loomes Collection at National Museums Scotland

Cramb Brothers advertised this image, Price 1 shilling each. They stated: These Portraits are all Copyright, and bear the Publishers’ Names. Legal Proceedings will be taken against any one offering Pirated Copies for Sale.

Marcus Guttenberg (British born Poland, 1828-1891)
Portrait group of four unidentified children
1860s-1870s
Carte-de-visite
© Howarth-Loomes Collection at National Museums Scotland

Elliot & Fry, 55 Baker Street, Portman Square, London
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
1865-1886
Carte-de-visite
© Howarth-Loomes Collection at National Museums Scotland

Tennyson (1809-1892) became Poet Laureate in 1850, after the death of William Wordsworth; his poems In Memoriam (1850) and Idylls of the King (1859) were hugely popular during Victorian times, but less so today.

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
Alfred Tennyson
3 June 1870
Albumen print from a wet collodion negative
© Howarth-Loomes Collection at National Museums Scotland

Henry Frederick Van Der Weyde, 182 Regent Street, London (English born Holland, 1838-1924)
Richard Mansfield as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
c. 1888
© Howarth-Loomes Collection at National Museums Scotland

Mansfield made his name in the title role of R.L. Stevenson’s novella, made into a play and shown in London in 1888.

Henry Frederick Van Der Weyde, 182 Regent Street, London (English born Holland, 1838-1924)
Richard Mansfield as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (detail)
c. 1888
© Howarth-Loomes Collection at National Museums Scotland

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894)
Lydstep – the Natural Arch
1860s
Half of a stereoscopic albumen print
From his series South Wales Illustrated
© Howarth-Loomes Collection at National Museums Scotland

Peter Henry Emerson (British, 1856-1936)
Gathering Water Lilies
1886
Platinum print
© Howarth-Loomes Collection at National Museums Scotland

Peter Henry Emerson (British, 1856-1936)
Gathering Water Lilies (detail)
1886
Platinum print
© Howarth-Loomes Collection at National Museums Scotland

National Museum of Scotland
Chambers Street,
Edinburgh,
EH1 1JF
Phone: 0300 123 6789

Opening hours:
Daily: 10.00 – 17.00
Christmas Day: Closed
Boxing Day: 12.00 – 17.00
New Year’s Day: 12.00 – 17.00

National Museum of Scotland website

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Dr Marcus Bunyan

Dr Marcus Bunyan is an Australian artist and writer. His art work explores the boundaries of identity and place. He writes Art Blart, an art and cultural memory archive, which posts mainly photography exhibitions from around the world. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy from RMIT University, Melbourne, a Master of Arts (Fine Art Photography) from RMIT University, and a Master of Art Curatorship from the University of Melbourne.