5 Comments
User's avatar
Andras Kisery's avatar

Great piece, thanks!

Among other stuff, the Vibert is very interesting. Would you not say that one effect of photography in later 19th c painting seems to be the use of diffuse, (photo) studio lighting: no deep contrasts, everything evenly lit as if under a heavily clouded sky, except even more so, with no discernible source—except of course where you introduce one, as for the angel / Victory in this case, but even that looks like light from a north-facing window, not from a direct light source.

As if purposely, aggressively going in the opposite direction from plein air? Or is this wrong?

Expand full comment
Thomas Brown's avatar

Thank you! and interesting, I was just at the Paris 1874 show at the National Gallery of Art, will go through the pictures I took there with these comments in mind

Expand full comment
Andras Kisery's avatar

I look forward to reading your review--almost certainly won't be able to go.

Expand full comment
Thomas Brown's avatar

I got there late in the day and only had half an hour after waiting in the line, so I probably won't write about it, but I just looked through the pictures I took and I think you're right about this style of lighting, also seen in Édouard Joseph Dantan (whose 'Monk Sculpting a Wooden Christ' is in the show) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89douard_Joseph_Dantan

Expand full comment
Deborah Feller's avatar

Having been to the Harvard museums, I enjoyed your review as a memory prod and fellow museum-studies-person take on the place.

Funny about the visiting Polish class. I would have hung around a bit & discreetly eavesdropped.

Maybe the colors on the formerly virginal white surfaces are a bit too satuated, but Persian miniatures are very colorful, & look at the exceptionally colorful jewelry & other objects from Egyptian tombs.

Loved your commentary on "grappling."

Expand full comment