Series - Windows in Art
Van Eyck, in the "Virgin to Chancellor Rolin" from 1435, shows an interior scene with an opening onto the world.
Van Eyck represents the chancellor kneeling before the Virgin and Child. The ostentatious nature of the figure of the donor, dressed in gold brocade and fur in the style of a prince, reflects the latter's desire to be perceived as a high court figure. The composition is built on either side of an opening made up of three arcades. On one side, the earthly figure in a prayer position on a prie-dieu covered with a chiseled velvet sheet and on the other, the holy figures. The Virgin is seated on a marble throne and wears a large embroidered and jeweled cloak. The capitals on the left represent scenes from the Old Testament which emphasize the faults of humanity: the expulsion from paradise, the sacrifice of Cain and Abel, God receiving the offering of the latter, the murder of Cain, Noah in the ark and finally Noah covered by one of his sons. The whole thing is composed in the style of a "Holy conversation", a genre that Van Eyck helped to establish and which will be very popular in Italy.
Berthe Morisot painted "Eugène Manet on the Isle of Wight" in 1875.
In 1874, Berthe Morisot married Eugène Manet. Brother of the painter, Édouard and the politician, Auguste.
Eugène leads a discreet and idle existence. Berthe and her husband are free from material worries, which allows them to devote themselves fully to their passion for the arts.
Encouraged by her husband, Berthe pursued her career as a painter under her maiden name. This small painting that she painted during their honeymoon in England was the first that she dedicated to him.
Installed at the Globe Cottage hotel in Cowes on the Isle of Wight, the couple took the time to savor these calm, very sweet moments, perfectly transcribed in this painting.
Wight is whight is like a sun, in the gray of the sky, Whight is Wight… Hippie, hippie-pie.
André Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst and Leonora Carrington, in New York in 1942, with "Nude at the Window", 1941, by Morris Hirshfield, extraordinary American painter of Polish origin, oscillating between surrealism and naive art. Died in 1946. My grandfather dedicated a retrospective exhibition to him at the Galerie Maeght in 1951, accompanied by Behind the Mirror.
They are in front of a painting by Max Ernst, exceptional in its dimensions and its subject, I will present it to you later.
So many geniuses here who knew how to have fun and live intensely. Amazing what Leonora holds between her knees in front of the painted nude!
Very few of Hirshfield's works are visible; fortunately MoMA has a few.
Henri Matisse, “Interior of the violin case”.
Marcel Duchamp "Man at the Window", 1907.
Unbelievable that Duchamp was so "conventional" in 1907, remember that "The Bicycle Wheel", considered one of the first "Ready made" dates from 1913
“Storm in Nice” by Henri Matisse, painted in 1919.
Coming to the south to treat bronchitis, Henri Matisse, a man from the north, discovered Nice at the end of 1917. Until 1921, he stayed in hotels during the winter seasons, then settled on the Cours Saleya.
“Tempête à Nice” is painted from the window of the Hôtel de la Méditerranée where the painter moved in November 1918.
Disappointed by the bad weather, he is ready to leave, "I left Estaque because of the wind and then I caught bronchitis there. I came to Nice to treat her, but it rained there for a whole month Finally I decided to leave the city. The next day the mistral chased away the clouds, the weather was magnificent... When I understood that every morning I would see this light again, I could not believe my happiness."
Charles Camoin, (1879 - 1965).
"Window open to the port of Saint Tropez", circa 1950.
Charles Camoin, like all his Fauvist painter friends, knew Saint-Tropez at the beginning of the 20th century. Signac was the first to settle there. The “eighth wonder of the universe” was discovered! He was followed in 1903 by Henri Matisse and Henri Manguin. During the summer of 1905, Albert Marquet and Charles Camoin, originally from Marseille, joined him. Until the 1920s, Camoin traveled to Morocco and stayed in Collioure and Toulon, then returned to Saint-Tropez, from then on, he shared his existence between the South and Paris.
Paul Gauguin, “Vase of flowers at the window”, 1880. So not Gauguin!
Samuel Van Hoogstraten, “the man at the window” 1653. There, the window is used completely differently from usual. The man is as if locked into the composition of the painting. Caught between the stone blocks.
“Window” René Magritte, 1898 - 1967.
Masterpiece of photography, André Kertész
"The concierge's dog", 1926. I love everything this photo says. And what she says is different for everyone, that’s a work!
Paul Delvaux "The Window" from 1936.
The window is a recurring subject of the avant-gardes in the history of 20th century art. Metaphysical painting and surrealism use the window extensively to question perceptual habits. It is one of the favorite motifs of Magritte and Delvaux who, playing on its banality and apparent innocence, give it a key role in the visual enigmas posed by their paintings.
Inside or outside? Dream or reality ? Window or table? Image or idea? For the surrealists, the window allows the transition between the space of reality and that of the mind. Magritte particularly used this motif in strange, even contradictory compositions, which invert logical patterns. Architectural elements, defining spaces and serving as physical boundaries, transition zones, such as facades, screens and doors, are for him ideal motifs to introduce a confusion of plans. This confusion is fully expressed by Paul Delvaux in “The Window” of 1936.
Kees van Dongen shows himself with his back to the window. A dark mass stands out from the window. It is the soul of the artist that is delivered here with these shades of blue running through the canvas. We can barely make out the features of his face against the light.
The Japanese Chiharu Shiota was born in Osaka in 1972. She has lived and worked in Berlin since 1997. And the window is made at home.
Profile at the window of Marc Chagall, 1918.
The sun of the Côte d'Azur by Pierre Bonnard to light up our lives, "Open Window", 1921.
Dazzling! What a fantastic composition with this black blind which responds to the little cat and the verticals... Everything seems to be just an assembly of geometric shapes which create a perfect balance.
Edward Hopper, "Night Windows", 1928.
This painting makes us voyeurs. In this New York night scene, a furtive view of a lit interior from the dark street, we see the partially concealed body of a scantily clad woman. This painting is often linked to a short story by Sherwood Anderson, of which Hopper was a reader, featuring a pastor confronted with the temptations of the flesh after discovering that he could observe his neighbor's bedroom from his home. On several occasions, the pastor allows himself to contemplate the naked body of the young woman who neglects to lower the blinds of her windows once night falls. The city at night is a frequent subject in Hopper's work. Here, the three windows allow a spectacular, almost panoramic staging of the illuminated interior set against the dark night, a juxtaposition that the artist identified as "a common visual sensation".
Victor Brauner, fortunately brought to light last spring by the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris.
“Lion, light, freedom”, from 1941.
“Pablo Picasso, rue des Grands-Augustins” in 1945, it’s rare Picasso who doesn’t look at the lens! photo by Pierre Jahan.
This painting dazzled me in my youth.
She remains forever in my heart, in my guts.
Pierre Bonnard, “The mimosa workshop”.
Master Nabis began this painting in 1939 in Le Cannet then resumed it in 1946 in Fontainebleau. In 1922, Bonnard discovered Le Cannet, won over by this haven of peace. Bonnard comes to spend each winter in Le Cannet in various houses that he rents. In 1925, Bonnard bought "Le Bosquet", a modest villa located on the hill. The workshop, on the first floor, was very cramped; Bonnard had the walls modified to create a glass roof overlooking a lush garden and the roofs of the village below.
Around 1930, Bonnard painted a first version of this corner of the studio where the view of the garden occupies only a small part of the canvas. In the second version, this one, begun in 1939, resumed and completed in Fontainebleau in 1946, it is the window and especially the immense mimosa which occupy almost the entire surface. A device of intersecting lines, created by the fittings of the glass roof and the slant of the mezzanine in the foreground, reframes and multiplies the moving, dazzling and golden mass of the mimosa.
No wonder my grandfather chose this work to appear on the cover of the catalog of the exhibition "Bonnard in his light" which he presented in 1975 at the Maeght Foundation. The following year, the work will enter the French national collections, it is today visible at the Center Pompidou.
"Bedroom at Arles", 1992, by Roy Lichtenstein, is a huge, pop interpretation of van Gogh's "Bedroom in Arles." We find the same layout as van Gogh's work but the furniture has had a little facelift!
“The walls are a pale purple. The floor is red tiles.
The wood of the bed and the chairs are fresh butter yellow.
The very light lime sheet and pillows. The scarlet red cover. The green window. The orange dressing table and the blue basin. The lilac doors.”
Excerpt from a letter from Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Théo.
Screenprint produced for the release of the book “Tardi par la Fenêtre”, in 1996.
Tardi who made us dream and thrill with “The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec”.