MoMA Room 506

Matisse:

"Audacious experimentation with form and color was inseparable from his dedication to an art of harmonious expression'.   So it is written as you enter room 506.  What is also written or more precisely reported from a 1908 essay by Matisse, ' Notes of a Painter' is the fact that Matisse dreamed of an art of balance or purity and serenity, devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter.

Matisse's vision of joy and serenity:

1904-6 'Study for Luxe, calme, et volupte', e.i., 'Richness, calm and pleasure' from a line by Baudelaire's escape to an imaginary tranquil refuge.

The early works in this room 1904-1905 with bold strokes of color labelled him and his colleagues by critics 'les fauves', the wild beasts 

1905 "Landscape at Collioure'

His colleagues:

'Bridge over Riou' 1906 Andre Derain

Georges Braque: 1907 ' Landscape at La Ciotat'

Matisse

 'Dance' 1909

'Rose Marble Table', 1917

'The Piano Lesson' 1916

'The Moroccans' 1915-16

'The Blue Window' 1913

'Composition' 1915

'Jeanette' l and V, 1916

'The Red Studio' 1911

and from a modern 'Colleague' Alma Thomas,  "Fiery Sunset", 1973

  

Meanwhile

 In another part of the city is the Morgan Library & Museum which is currently exhibiting: 'David Hockney: Drawing from Life'.  The exhibit, focusing on his work on paper, features over 100 drawings of friends and family.  You'll see a few of them here.  

Hockney was born in 1937 and is still active.

Celia Birtwell: fashion and textile designer, has been a close personal friend and confident since the 1960's.

Gregory Evans: Lover and studio assistant, curator and trusted advisor

The Artist's Mother: a devout Methodist and vegetarian she was his earliest supporter

Pablo Picasso: developer of different etching techniques that Hockney used such as his 'sugar lift' method

Maurice Payne: encourager of Hockney's work in innovative ways such as the wire brush to create texture and volume

Himself:

I haven't been back to MoMA because they replaced some of their art and I didn't know what to do about that.  They are doing seasonal presentations of their permanent collection replacing some work for other pieces.  I haven't seen this 'Fall Show', but I've decided to add the new pieces per room and to go on with the rest of the permanent collection on Floors 5 and 4.  

Baring another lockdown I will return to MoMA.  

Here at home we are experiencing the second wave and it is exactly what the experts said it would be: worse.  I've read it's because our immune system is weaker in cold weather and we are indoors more often where it spreads easily.  So keep getting that fresh air and Sunny Vitamin D.  And Art.

Room 505

 Circa 1913

Between 1911 and 1914 , a new generation of artists made a radical shift toward abstraction. Rather than depict objects in the world, they experimented with interactions between forms and colors. ' These colored planes are the structure of the picture'. said artist Robert Delaunay, 'and nature is no longer a subject for description but a pretext.'

The trailblazers of Abstraction hailed from a number of European cities, but many of them flocked to Paris, the burgeoning center of the art world. Some used shifting, kaleidoscopic forms to create the dynamism of modern, mechanised life. Others, reacting warily to the effects of industrialization, turned inward to explore the spiritual dimensions of pure color.  As painter Frantisek Kupka remarked: 'The creative ability of an artist is manifested only if he succeeds in transporting the natural phenomena into 'another reality'.

The Entrance

'Mde. Kupka among Verticals', Frantisek Kupka, 1911.  Male painters and their wives' portraits have been psychologically very interesting.  Does anyone else feel she is being suffocated.  

Hilma of Klint, 'The Dove No. 2', 1915

  

Fernand Leger, 'Exit the Ballet Russes', 1914

Georgia O'Keeffe, 'Lake George, Coat and Red', 1919

Stanton Macdonald Wright, 'Synchromy', 1917

'Dynamism of a Soccer Player', Umberto Boccioni, 1913

Robert Delaunay, 'Simultaneous Contrasts: Sun and Moon', 1913

Umberto Boccioni, 'Unique Forms of Continuity in Space', 1913

Raymond Duchamp-Villon, 'The Horse', 1914

Vladimir Baranoff-Rossine, 'Symphony Number l', 1913

Marc Chagall, 'I and the Village', 1911

Kazimir Malevich, 'Woman with Pails', 1912

 Pablo Picasso, 'Glass of Absinthe' 1914

Diego Rivera, 'Cubist Landscape', 1912

Juan Gris, 'Grapes', 1913

Natalia Goncharova, 'The Forest', 1913

Sonia Delaunay-Turk, ' Portuguese Market', 1915

Liubov Popova, 'Objects from a Dyer's Shop', 1914 

To rest in the Garden: