Art Of The Day Weekly

Göring, the master looter

Hermann Göring (1893-1946) was a brilliant aviator during World War I and he became one of Hitler’s closest lieutenants. As head of the Luftwaffe, and the authorizing officer of the four-year plan, he loved pomp and honours. He accumulated a phenomenal wealth, built himself a sumptuous house in the country, Carinhall, which he furnished with the most beautiful European works of art. He did this sometimes by purchasing the goods, now and then by exchanging, and most of the time by confiscating large Jewish collections. Once Germany had occupied France he was an attentive visitor of the Jeu de paume where the most beautiful trophies were presented to him, like in a gallery. An extraordinary document summarises the bulimia of the obese potentate, the hand written catalogue in which all 1 376 works of his collection were recorded. Among them we read some 50 Cranach, 40 Van Goyen, 30 Boucher, as well as works by Botticelli, Georges de la Tour, Courbet, Renoir or Picasso. Rose Valland (1898-1980), one of the heroines of the movie Monuments Men and the deputy curator at the Jeu de paume found this catalogue and her precise repertoires allowed for many stolen works to be found. Her work was sitting patiently in the boxes of the Diplomatic Archives at La Courneuve. It has finally been published in a truly scientific way. The photographs that accompanied the notes have been restored and are reproduced. We would love to know what happened to the works – whether they were returned to their owner, lost, waiting – but that would have demanded much more research and pagination. In the case of number 13 for example, the Judgement of Pâris by Cranach the Elder, confiscated in 1936 in exchange for the right to emigrate to Switzerland, was it ever returned in 1954 to its owner, Robert van Hirsch, who donated it to the Kunstmuseum in Basel in 1977. Each painting could push the reader to carry out his or her own investigation.
• Le catalogue Goering (in French) by the Archives diplomatiques and Jean-Marc Dreyfus, Flammarion, 2015, 608 p., €29.

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Seven decades of Hayez

He is a major figure of XIXth century Italian painting, but his reputation hardly went beyond his country’s borders. From beyond the grave he can find consolation in the fact that his Kiss is better known than he is and inspired, they say, the Baiser de l’Hôtel de Ville by photographer Doisneau. Francesco Hayez (1791-1882) received a very classical training, was inspired by Canova and became the incarnation of Romanticism and a great interpreter of historical painting. He alternated with penetrating portraits, large mural compositions, biblical paintings and even flower bouquets. This book, which accompanies a large retrospective at the Gallerie d’Italia in Milan until 21 February 2016, reviews all this surprising diversity. We could add that his career was as long as that of his compatriot Titian – they were both native from Venice – as he lived to the age of 71! One of his first known paintings (1807) shows him with his family, at age 16. One of the last, from 1878, is a Selfportrait at 88. The only thing missing in this book are the erotic drawings that were shown in London in 1997, by a man who was also a great seducer.
• Francesco Hayez (in Italian), directed by Fernando Mazzocca, Silvana Editoriale, 2015, 384 p., €34.

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Seductive ecstasies

It is quite daring to present the great mystics under the appearance of beautiful women in ecstasy (even if it often the truth – it would suffice to read again Therese of Avila or Jeanne de la Croix – their emotion has deeply erotic accents). It is not sure after all that these brides of God, scantly dressed here, could have such irreproachable beauty. Pignon-Ernest’s impeccable drawings and the writing of André Velter embrace two thousand years of extreme religious passion, from Marie-Madeleine to Madame Guyon, including Angèle de Foligno and Louise du Néant (1639-1694), who was placed in the hospital of la Salpêtrière and willingly declined drastically as she licked crumbs off the floor or her neighbors’ wounds, and drank out of a skull.
• Pour l’amour de l’amour, (in French), Ernest Pignon-Ernest, texts by André Velter, Gallimard, 2015, 176 p., €35.

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McCurry, a certain idea of India

In his introduction, William Dalrymple reminds the reader that India is a land of contrasts: on one side huge, shiny malls, on the other, barefoot peasants with their hoes and their hand-pulled cart; on one side, 55 billionaires (twice the number ten years ago), on the other, 72% of the population living with less than two dollars a day. The India which Steve McCurry (born in 1950), a great reporter at Magnum, has traveled far and wide for the last thirty years, is at a crossroads between thousand year old traditions and pitiless globalization. Bicycles pedaling in the puddles due to the monsoon, women in the fields, children in the streets, slums in the middle of rusty pipes, a deluge of colors in Rajasthan, and so much more. There are strong images everywhere, both in the wild nature of Ladakh as well as in overpopulated cities, the Hindu singing under the shadow of the Banyan tree as well as the old steam engines. And always, in the middle of all this, the human beings who have this changing and colorful decor for their every day surroundings.
• India (in English) by Steve McCurry, Phaidon, 2015, 208 p., £39.95.

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