Art Of The Day Weekly
#436 - from 23 June 2016 to 29 June 2016
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, ‘Italian Woman, or Woman with Yellow Sleeve (L'Italienne)', about 1870 © The National Gallery, London
Painters and collectors
LONDON – Painters paint. They also collect. Rembrandt had a beautiful personal collection and it is well known the Impressionists exchanged their works, just as rivals Picasso and Matisse did. Starting with the beautiful Italian woman by Corot, which Lucian Freud donated to the museum, the National Gallery explores these secret gardens, and travels all the way back to the XVIIth century and Van Dyck, who had an unlimited appetite for works by Titian (it seems he owned 19). The exhibit also examines the great mandarins of the Royal Academy, such as Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Lawrence – who amassed 4300 drawings!-, or Degas who was a relentless buyer of classical masters as well as of works by Cézanne and his friend Manet, notably to piece together the dismembered Execution of Maximilian. The question remains, why did they buy? To hoard, to admire or rather, pushed by a sense of emulation, to surpass their idols?
• Painters’ Paintings at the National Gallery, from 23 June to 4 September 2016.