Cezanne "Bathers at Rest" at Barnes

Each time I go to the Barnes Foundation, as I did yesterday, I am almost overwhelmed by the Cezanne paintings (also by the Renoirs, the Matisses, the Picassos, the Rousseaus, the Van Goghs, the El Grecos, even the Glackens', etc.). There are so many Cezannes, and they span his career so there are different styles, that I come away awestruck again. Deja vu as they say.

Cezanne painted many subjects, landscapes, still life, portraits, and nudes (often bathers). Each type of subject has its own charms and contribution to his style. Today I am featuring a fairly well-known painting from 1875-1876 called Bathers at Rest. The male bathers lounging around a pond with Mont Sainte-Victoire, a frequent subject of Cezanne's landscapes, in the background, was groundbreaking in composition, color, and paint-handling when it was shown at the Third Impressionist Exhibition in 1877. It's one to be seen in person.

You can see some of my 3-D mixed media paintings on my website at www.jayrolfe.com/.

Barnes Foundation - Picasso, Renoir, Matisse, and Cezanne

Today I'm at the Barnes Foundation in Merion PA. It's a great way to celebrate my birthday! I love being at the Barnes. I feel so good, and inspired too. In case you don't know, the collection included the largest number of Matisse paintings in any collection in the world, 59. I believe it also has the largest number of Cezanne paintings in any collection in the world at 69. The Barnes also has by far the largest number of Renoir paintings in any collection in the world at an astounding 181.

Almost missed in the excitement over Renoir, Cezanne, and Matisse is the large number of significant Picasso paintings, 46. That's a huge number by any standard. There are also paintings by El Greco, Titian, Rubens, Degas, Van Gogh, Rousseau, Seurat, Soutine, Modigliani, Manet, Monet, and American Horace Pippin of West Chester PA. Here is the Barnes Foundation website: http://www.barnesfoundation.org/

I've featured one of my favorites, Matisse's Le Bonheur de Vivre (The Joy of Life) several times in the past, so today I'll show Modigliani's Reclining Nude From The Back, painted in 1917.

You can view some of my 3-D paintings on my website at www.jayrolfe.com/.

Who's Who in Renoir's The Luncheon of the Boating Party

First, here's a link to Renoir's The Luncheon of the Boating Party on the website of the Phillips Collection which I featured in my post on Tuesday. http://www.phillipscollection.org/collection/boating/index.aspx

Second, on Tuesday I mentioned that art history people know the identity of all the people pictured in Renoir's The Luncheon of the Boating Party. Here's a link to the info. http://www.phillipscollection.org/collection/boating/whoswho.aspx Also, I'm including the diagram here, and the text below.

"The Luncheon of the Boating Party includes youthful, idealized portraits of Renoir's friends and colleagues as they relax at the Maison Fournaise restaurant. Wearing a top hat, the amateur art historian, collector, and editor Charles Ephrussi (8) speaks with a younger man in a more casual brown coat and cap. He may be Ephrussi's personal secretary, Jules Laforgue (5), a poet and critic.

At center, the actress Ellen Andrée (6) drinks from a glass. Across from her in a brown bowler hat is Baron Raoul Barbier (4), a bon vivant and former mayor of colonial Saigon. He is turned toward the smiling woman at the railing, thought to be Alphonsine Fournaise (3), the proprietor's daughter. She and her brother, Alphonse Fournaise, Jr. (2), who handled the boat rentals, wear straw boaters'. They are placed within, but at the edge of, the party. At the upper right, the artist Paul Lhote (12) and the bureaucrat Eugène Pierre Lestringuez (11) seem to be flirting with actress Jeanne Samary (13).

In the foreground, Renoir included a youthful portrait of his fellow artist, close friend, and wealthy patron, Gustave Caillebotte (9), who sits backwards in his chair and is grouped with the actress Angèle (7) and the Italian journalist Maggiolo (10). Caillebotte, an avid boatman and sailor, wears a white boater's shirt and flat-topped boater's. He gazes at a young woman cooing at her dog. She is Aline Charigot (1), a seamstress Renoir had recently met and would later marry. "

You can view some of my shaped 3-D paintings on my website at www.jayrolfe.com/.

El Greco and Goya at the Phillips

The Phillips Collection, which I visited on Saturday in Washington DC, calls itself "a museum of both modern art and its sources." Some of its sources are old masters including El Greco and Goya who painted the same dramatic subject, "The Repentant St. Peter," about 200 years apart.

The top painting is by Doménikos Theotokópoulos, known as El Greco, painted in 1600-1605. The lower painting is by Francisco Jose de Goya painted in 1820-1824. They are displayed in the same huge gallery with a number of other older paintings by famous artists, but at different ends of the gallery. Both are very powerful paintings when seen in person. I hope you take the opportunity to see them at the Phillips Collection.

You can view some of my 3-D mixed media paintings on my website at www.jayrolfe.com/.

Phillips Collection, Renoir

On Saturday I visited the Phillips Collection in Washington DC. I was struck again by what is perhaps their most famous painting, Luncheon of the Boating Party by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. It is large, animated, brilliantly colored, and depicts a fun scene with recognizable people (if you've studied impressionist art history) painted in 1880-1881. Every time I visit the Phillips Collection I am wowed by this painting. It's beautiful!

Of course, there are many other great paintings in the collection, ones you will recognize from art books you may have seen.

You can see some of my 3-D paintings on my website at www.jayrolfe.com/.

National Portrait Gallery

I spent the weekend in Washington DC visiting art museums, one of my favorite pastimes. My photo of the day is one I had another visitor take of me at the National Portrait Gallery. You probably read in the newspaper that this iconic portrait of Barack Obama was recently donated to the National Portrait Gallery. It's a mixed media stenciled collage by Los Angeles artist Shepard Fairey.

You can view some of my 3-D paintings at www.jayrolfe.com/.