Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Painted Scenes - 18th century

Jean-Honoré Fragonard (France)
The Swing
ca. 1775-80
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Enwezor: The nature of the materials you use has been central to the discussion of your work in recent years, especially your proclivity for and insistence on materials that are readily available, cheap, mass-produced; materials that both mimic 'kitsch' and deride the excesses of our throw-away, consumer-driven culture. For me there is, in this choice of cheap, quotidian materials such as plastic, aluminum foil, and cardboard, a strategy to contaminate the very nature of art's relationship to high culture, and to form a critique of the preciousness of sculptural practice. What led you to these types of materials for your work?

Hirschhorn: The choice of materials is important. I want to make simple and economical work with materials that everyone knows and uses. I don't choose them for the value of their appearance. I hate art made of noble materials. I don't understand why one attaches value to a material, whether it is clean metal, marble, glass, fine wood, big screens, empty space, and enormous, heavily framed objects, etc.  I don't believe these are contemporary expressions. I am against using materials or forms that attempt to intimidate, seduce, or dominate rather than encourage reflection. For the activity of reflection, material does not matter. The materials I work with are precarious. This means that their temporal existence is clearly determined by human beings, not by nature.

 from an interview by Okwui Enwezor with Swiss sculptor Thomas Hirschhorn (previously seen and heard here) published by the Art Institute of Chicago in 2000

Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes (France)
Study of Clouds over the Roman Campagna
ca. 1782-85
oil on paper
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes (France)
View of the Convent of Ara Coeli, Rome
1780
oil on paper
Louvre

Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes (France)
Storm by a Lake
1780
oil on paper
Louvre

Simon Denis (Belgium)
View of Monticelli near Tivoli
late 18th century
oil on paper
private collection

Caspar van Wittel (Netherlands)
The Darsena, Naples
ca. 1700-1718
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Francesco Foschi (Rome)
Winter Landscape with Peasant Family
ca. 1750-80
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Francesco Foschi (Rome)
Winter Landscape with Figures
ca. 1750-80
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
 
Marco Ricci (Venice)
Winter Landscape
ca. 1728-29
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Paul Sandby (England)
The Meteor of 1783, Windsor
watercolor
1783
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Giambattista Tiepolo (Venice)
Death of Sophonisba
ca. 1760
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Johan Zoffany (Germany)
Group Portrait with Sir Elijah and Lady Impey
ca. 1783-84
oil on canvas
Museso Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Jacques Antoine Beaufort (France)
The Oath of Brutus
ca. 1771
oil on canvas
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Carlo Innocenzo Carlone (Venice)
Study for Two Angels on a Balustrade
18th century
oil on paper
Los Angeles County Museum of Art