Colours of Impressionism - National Gallery Special Exhibition

Palace of the Popes, by Paul Signac

The National Gallery held a special exhibition, Century of Light from 16 Nov 2017 to 11 March 2018.  It was actually features two exhibitions, Colours of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d'Orsay and Between Worlds: Raden Saleh and Juan Luna, who hail from Indonesia and Philippines respectively.

Impressionism is one of my favourite periods in art - the use of light, the freshness and the spontaneity of the paintings are what appeals to me most.  So I was indeed very happy to view the beautiful artworks from the Musee d'Orsay which had been specially brought over to Singapore, by artists such as Cezanne, Renoir, Manet, Pissaro, Monet and so on.

As always, it was a fascinating learning journey.  I did not know that actually Impressionism was not just a new approach towards art, but that it was also made possible through newly invented pigments and colours which made it possible to capture the colours of the world so much more vividly than before.  That's why as time went by, the artist's palette itself changed, from more dark colours (and black) to the bright, fresh greens and blues, rosy pinks and glowing yellow which we see in so many paintings of the era.  To further illustrate the point, the exhibition also featured a palette of one of the Impressionist painters (I think it was Renoir) with the little blobs of paint still on it.

I didn't take that many photos (there are so many good photos of the paintings on line, and in any case the photo is a pale shade of the actual artwork).  What I did do was to record paintings which had a special meaning for me.  For example, this painting by Paul Signac, because it is of the Palais des Papes at Avignon, which I had visited a few years back.  I had not really heard of Signac before but he was a painter of the Pointilism school (made famous by Georges Seurat) where each painting is composed of carefully placed dots, or points!  Indeed, the whole is more than the sum of its parts.  Just like the painting is so much nicer than any of the photos I took of the Palace.

Family of J.C. Baud by Raden Saleh

Whilst the d'Orsay paintings showcased the famous artists of the day, what I really appreciated about the National Gallery is that they also try to remind us visitors that we should be proud of our own painters from this part of the world.  Hence, the second exhibition on the works of two South East Asian painters who had in their own different ways also achieved international standing.

Detail from "House of the Resident of Banyuwangi, East Java"
by Antoine Auguste Joseph Payen

The first was Indonesian painter Raden Saleh. Born in 1811, Raden's talent was first nurtured by Belgian painter Antoine Auguste Joseph Renoir who was working for the Dutch colonial administration.  Thereafter, Raden went to Europe to further his training.  He painted quite a few portraits, including this charming family scene (J C Baud was a friend and mentor), but also was well known for his paintings of tigers and other wild animals (there was quite a disturbing painting of a tiger just waiting to pounce on two innocent travellers, and yet another one of a hunting scene with the poor tiger as the victim).  He returned to Indonesia in his later years. 

Besides paintings by Raden Saleh, this segment of the exhibition also featured some paintings by his teacher, Antoine Payen.  I find it amusing that this picture of an Indonesian scene was done by a European whilst the picture of the European family was done by an Indonesian!  I suppose however both were done through a European lens.

La Mestiza, by Juan Luna

The other artist featured, Juan Luna was a Filipino painter and activist.  He too would travel to Europe to study painting and in fact, ended up winning an award at a Spanish art exposition, the National Demonstration of Fine Arts, for his painting, "The Death of Cleopatra".  However, tragedy struck in later life when he murdered his wife and mother-in-law in a fit of jealousy.  He was arrested but eventually was acquitted of murder on grounds of temporary insanity.  

All in all, it was an engrossing weekday afternoon, spent "Between Two Worlds" of European and South East Asian painters and subjects.  For a much better review, read the Straits Times article here.  More of my photos of the paintings here.

Houses by a Lotus Pond

I have always liked Vietnamese art.  A few years ago, I bought one piece by Le Thiet Cuong.  And last year, when I visited Hanoi for the first time, I bought another piece. But where the first piece was an original, this was a work in the style of Minh Son, and similar to some of his paintings (a sort of impressionistic, water liles-like foreground, with a more delicate background.  Hanoi has a number of little reproduction shops which churn out copies of more famous works, or paintings in the style of a famous artist.

The original would probably have cost me upwards of US$600. But I was not comfortable carrying such an expensive piece back to Singapore.  My copy, on the other hand, cost me all of US$35.  I carried it from Hanoi to Halong Bay, all rolled up.  I had to get it reframed once back in Singapore and after some procrastination, finally hung it up on my bedroom wall today.  I should say, that the original work was more refined and more "finished", altogether.  But I hope you like it, as I do.

Singapore Biennale

The Singapore Biennale was first held in 2006. I was in the US at the time and so could not check it out. This time round, I decided to make the effort to visit the Biennale. So I took half-day leave and went to two of the venues - City Hall and the South Bank Development, taking in one exhibit at Raffles City en route.

I rather enjoyed the City Hall exhibits. My favourite - the great Google map of Singapore which covered the floor of the City Hall Chamber. It did not seem to be very exciting or innovative in the first instance but I was surprised at my own reaction to it. I felt really compelled to find my home and workplace and to stick a little label on the map. Unfortunately someone stuck a label on top of my house (they shd hv given out smaller labels). So it was a little frustrating. But what was also quite compelling was to watch other people's reactions/response to the map. Some just walked in and out. Others spent a long time pouring over the map, locating the buildings they knew. (I took a little video, available here - unfortunately the timing wasn't too good so there were not many people in the room.) A few other exhibits can be seen on my flickr site. There were a number of videos in the exhibition which sort of inspired me to take a few videos too. For many of the installation art pieces in the exhibition, it is important to walk around the exhibit and take it in from various angles. So the videos were trying to imitate the human eye's experience looking at the artwork. Does that sound like an attempt at art too, or just a little bit pretentious...

I rather liked the South Bank Development building. This was where the former Singapore Volunteer Corps was headquartered. It is a large, sprawling site with a few buildings on it, built in art deco style. My colleague had tied up with a friend of his, who is a volunteer guide, to give a little tour of the building so I met him and the little group he had gathered, to go through the exhibits.

It was good that we had a guide, as I didn't feel that the exhibits were as compelling and interesting as those in City Hall and so it was useful to have someone to raise points of interest, and engage the group in discussion. Of course, it was the notorious sugar sculpture Sweet September that everyone had to see. But the symbolism of the piece had been brought up so many times in the press that by the time I saw it, it had lost a little of its interest and novelty for me. Not to mention that it had decomposed considerably and was a little smelly downwind. I rather preferred instead some of the other exhibits - the charcoaled rooms, with black & white videos of the elements of the old South Bank building (creating a certain sense of nostalgia for days gone by), and the series of gorgeous photos of a man who wished for the moon, found it and didn't know what to do with it.

Ah yes - a profitable afternoon/evening.