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Category Archives: Fine Art Gallery

Art encounter in Munich: ‘Reading Woman’ by Pieter Janssens Elinga

18 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by Galleria Laura in Fine Art Gallery

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Alte Pinakothek, Art, Dutch art, Gallery, Germany, Munich, Pieter Janssens Elinga, Reading Woman, Woman Reading

A recent BBC Radio interview considered the importance of viewing paintings in the flesh, so to speak.  Of engaging with art as physically close to the real thing as manners and gallery by-laws might allow.  It was discussed that one should spend ‘time’ observing the art and, importantly, be ‘present’ with it.

My recent visit to The Alte Pinakothek in Munich, the renowned art gallery and home of paintings by Rubens, Dürer and van Dyke, provided me with some of both.  I had an hour or so to visit between hopping off an Italy to Germany train, dashing through the Munich Christmas Market, and hopping back on. There was some time, but admittedly much less than a place like this deserved. I was nevertheless able to meet up close and be present with Flemish or Italian art.

But the painting that struck me even more, from within the gallery’s Dutch collection, was one I had neither the time nor permission to see.  It would have gone completely unseen had it not been for a postcard in the gallery shop and a reference in the gallery catalogue, that indicated it was somewhere in the building.  You see, while some collections were open for view, the gallery renovations – which started in 2014 and are on-going to 2017, had for now closed off the Dutch collection.

Within the ‘Old’ Pinakothek’s collection of Dutch art, Reading Woman (or Woman Reading) by Pieter Janssens Elinga in around 1660,  shows a solitary female – seated in a room, relaxed and reading.

Pieter Janssens Elinga (1623-1682) was born in Bruges in Belgium, and later moved to Rotterdam, then Amsterdam.

What is at first noticeable for me from Reading Woman is how marginal the room’s furnishings and accoutrements are made, in favour of reading a book. Physical stuff is side-lined for the cerebral or imaginative.    Then, the light – maybe a lazing afternoon sun – illuminates the room and the reading.  The spotlight effect presents the reading activity as central.  Even more so, perhaps the light becomes something of a motif for enlightenment in the room, the text and the 17th century woman pictured.  Next are the strewn shoes in the foreground.  They are seemingly cast off in a way that might seem palpably modern and free spirited. Yet maybe, the woman is actually from the servant class – suggested by the ‘Dutch cap’ she is wearing.

The painting, for me, evokes a calm, contemplative and peaceful atmosphere. Daily strictures removed and imagination expanded.  It is also perfect to prompt aspirations for a more reading-filled year ahead. In fact, although I haven’t read it, this painting has apparently also inspired fiction, in the form of Katie Ward’s debut novel ‘Girl Reading’.

So, I have found this work of art and I’ve looked at it, but have I really seen it?  Am I compelled to return to the gallery one day to see the painting in its original physical form?  It might be that a postcard and glossy brochure alone are unsatisfying proxies for truly being present with a work of art.  But what I have seen is the capacity for a reproduced painting, in book or postcard form, to create a layering of art encounter by which one might eventually, layer by layer, become truly present with a painting in all its dimensions.

See: The Alte Pinakothek, Munich and Reading Woman

© Laura Claire H  2015

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‘Winter Night in Rondane’ by Sohlberg

16 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by Galleria Laura in Fine Art Gallery

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Art, Norway, Sohlberg

It’s a few years since I was wandering around Oslo on a snowy winter morning, filling in time until my flight was leaving from Norway back to the UK.  Typically with free time to fill, I usually search out the nearest gallery or museum to wander around, if one is available. On that occasion one was, and it was the National Gallery (Nasjonalgalleriat) of Norway, in Oslo.

I’ve made quite a few visits to Norway now, mostly travelling well within the Arctic Circle to the Troms region.  I’ve seen that landscape in high summer, when the midnight sun tricks the mind into believing light, and therefore time, will just stretch on before you without the need for, or impediment of, night-time and sleep.  I’ve also been there when the winter darkness shrouds most of the day, hanging heavily around your shoulders with snow swathing around your feet.

I’ve never been to the central region of Norway though.  That is where the National Park of Rondane is, around 250km from Trondheim and 130km from Lillehammer.

But, it was on this visit to the National Gallery in Oslo when I saw the painting Winter Night in Rondane – I believe it is a painting rather familiar to many Norwegians – and I have been intrigued by it since then.

Winter Night in Rondane (Vinternatt i Rondane) is by Norwegian artist Harald Sohlberg (1869-1935) and was painted in 1914.

I remember arriving in front of it and being instantly mesmerised by the scene. Firstly by the dark blues and whites of the mountainous landscape, then by the down-lit snowy peaks in the distance.  The perspective pushes the eye to the far yet imposing summits, the foreground is secondary and is immersed in perhaps newly fallen, and so light and fragile, snow. The night sky looks long and sustained, and seems to raise a question as to whether it is menacing or friendly. There are no figures, no apparent life, just a natural space where the snow and darkness have taken over.

When looking intently, the scene fills the central vision immediately, then it slowly envelops the periphery – so you can suddenly seem to be there in the dark snowy wilderness. Seeing it causes you to look and look, and wonder what actually being there would be like. Would you stand in the snow looking, disrupt the snow, attempt to scale the distant mountains, be afraid or be exhilarated by the enfolding wilderness?

When the dark nights of winter arrive I always think about Winter Night in Rondane. The thing is, the painting can strangely conjure up a warm and inviting picture, not a scene that is inherently cold and desolate.  It is a painting that tricks the mind into believing that particular natural world – the snowy isolation and mountainous darkness – will not test and defy you, but might just welcome you in.

© Laura Claire H 2014

See: Winter Night in Rondane

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