Pompei Exhibit

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts actually consists of five buildings.  This is the original, 

from 1916, and today it is known as the Michael and Renata Hornstein Pavilion.  It houses
 Archaeology and World Cultures.  Mr. Hornstein was a survivor of Auschwitz and one of 
Montreal's most generous philanthropists. To the right is a former church which is now 
the collection of Canadian art.  And facing this building across the street is the new 1991 
Desmarais Pavilion and entrance.

The museum has a fine permanent collection, but frequently hosts rich traveling

exhibitions.  This summer it is sponsoring two: The Toulouse-Lautrec Posters Exhibit

and the Pompei Exhibit.  The Roman city of Pompei is about 150 miles south of Rome

and was an important commercial center and resort town with perhaps 20,000 people.

On August 24, 79 A.D. nearby Mt. Vesuvius erupted and for 24 hours poured

volcanic ash on the city and buried it under 20 feet of ash, both destroying 
and preserving it.

Romans were a practical, realistic people and they wanted their portraits to be as

real as possible.  The "Bust of a Man" above was found in one of the homes

in Pompei and shows the unique face of the owner, very natural and not idealized.

"Head of a Woman" shows a woman of the first century and the special hair style

that was popular then.  The curls obviously took a great deal of work in preparation 
and maintenance. The twenty feet of volcanic ash sealed off the buried city and

kept air and moisture from entering and thus preserved the city intact until its

rediscovery in 1749.  This show has 100 objects found in the city and now in the

museum in Naples, Italy, the largest nearby town.

All Romans wore basically the same clothes; here a man is dressed in a toga and we

can see how it is draped over the body.  The man stands not as a conqueror but as an
orator who will persuade you to the good life.  He carries not a club or sword to
hurt you, but a scroll of the law to convince you.  All togas were the same color, except
sometimes a band of color along the edge.  You could not tell a millionaire from a
messenger by his clothes.

The citizens of Pompei enjoyed fine possessions, and glassware was especially prized.

Here is a blue vase of blown glass.  Glass is made from molten sand and potash and then
blown as a bubble on a blowpipe.  From this basic form, all others are derived by
special techniques; colors are achieved by introducing traces of various metals.

Other pieces of glass were made in molds, like this dish.  This was a cheaper and 
easier way of producing many copies of uniform quality.

This beautiful urn in glass reproduces larger vessels made of bronze or clay.
Glass could be formed into any shape desired by a skilled craftsman.

The citizens of Pompei lived in individual homes, for the most part, and walls were

decorated with paintings.  They were painted in the wet plaster in the technique of

fresco.  Here is a still life painting, showing vessels in a house,

The artists of Pompei, then and today, were masters of mosaic, using

tiny pieces of stone or glass to create pictures.  This portrait of a woman

is made of tiny pieces of limestone, each the size of half a grain of rice.

Today Pompeian artists make earrings and brooches in the same technique.

This is a fresco of the "Three Graces," a very popular subject.

Notice the skill of the artist in using shadows, under the arms, along
 the legs, under the throat, to create a feeling of three dimension.

Fashionable ladies of Pompei used a variety of make-up aids and

loved jewelry.  This is a gold bracelet.  The forms were hammered
around circular stone pebbles; the bracelet was beautiful
in itself and also showed the wealth of the owner.

This is a lovely necklace of gold chain and emerald stones.
Rubies, diamonds, and sapphires were also popular, and
Roman jewelers made gold chains in many sizes and
shapes.

"Bronze Head of a Man" would have been a very expensive object to

create.  It is hollow and cast in a very difficult process.  It is both realistic and 
idealistic.  Notice the man's haircut, popular at the time.  The sensitivity of the 
mouth and chin and eyes is wonderfully achieved.  It is strongly influenced 
by a bust of the Emperor Augustus, which people liked to imitate.

Mosaics were used for many purposes because they were sturdy since they 

were made of stone.  This is a "door mat" found in the entrance to a home

in Pompei and depicts a watchdog keeping intruders out.

"Cave canem" - "Beware of the Dog"

When Pompei was effectively rediscovered in 1749, diggers soon found lots of cavities in

the volcanic ash.  The volcanic lava had completely covered humans and animals; the organic

matter gradually disappeared, but the form /mold remained.  If you poured plaster of

Paris carefully into a cavity and let it dry, you obtained a perfect mold of the person or

animal which had died.  Here is a cast of a dog, caught on the street by the rushing hot

volcanic lava and preserved forever.

It is believed that of the 20,000 inhabitants of ancient Pompei, 18,000 fled the city in the

weeks and days preceding the devastation; there were rumblings and forewarnings.  But

2,000 people remained and were caught; plaster casts of more than 1,000 of them can

be found in the museum.  Here are three children, one with its mother, and another adult.

The Desmarais Pavilion of 1991 is the main entrance to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts;
it was designed by Canadian architect Moshe Safdie, who also designed the Habitat for Living
for the 1967 World's Fair in Montreal.   The museum occupies the entire length of the block.
 What appears to be an apartment building to the right is only the facade of bricks on 
the functioning museum inside.  It was decided to maintain the appearance of Sherbrooke
 Street, the most elegant street in Montreal.  The Pavilion houses galleries, a bookstore,
two restaurants, and educational facilities.  The permanent collection is inside.

This is a piece of 13th century French stained glass depicting Joachim and a sacrifice.

The glass was blown as a bubble, opened out while hot to a platter form, and then cut by

specialists following a designed created by a master artist.  It is taken from a

medieval Gothic church in France.  Each piece of glass is cut separately and varies in
thickness; they did not roll out glass panes.  The pieces are held together with strips of lead, 
which were soft enough to bend around the glass.  Iron bars then supported the heavy weight.

This is an ivory diptych, a small personal devotional object carved in ivory of an

elephant tusk from Africa and hinged to open or close like a book.  There are six scenes 

from the life of Christ carved in the ivory.  Starting at the bottom left:

Christ's Entry into Jerusalem, the Scourging at the Pillar, the Crucifixion,

Taking Chrit's Body Down from the Cross, The Burial in the Tomb, and

the Resurrection.

While French sculptors of the 15th century used limestone to

create statues, German sculptors usually used wood.  The greatest 

German sculptor was Tilman Riemenschneider, and this is

his statue of St. Sebastian, the Roman soldier who converted 

to Christianity and was martyred by being shot through with

arrows.  It is almost five feet high.

The greatest German painter of the 16th century was Hans Holbein,

who also traveled to England and worked for King Henry VIII.

This is his portrait of Erasmus, the greatest scholar of the time.

There is another version by Holbein in the Frick collection in New York.

In the late 16th century, a Greek painter who worked in Spain

helped create the new style of Mannerism with its elongated forms.

He was simply called "The Greek" = "El Greco."

This is his portrait of a Spanish nobleman.

In the 17th century, Dutch painters created for a wealthy class of merchants in Amsterdam.

This painting, entitled "Vanitas" - "Vanity," was a reminder that regardless of your wealth

and position today, and the fine clothes, books, and art you could afford, tomorrow you

will be just a skeleton like everyone else; it is pure vanity to think otherwise.

The theme was a very popular one in the Calvinist city

Another subject popular with Dutch painters working for wealthy

patrons was the rich variety of food which they could afford.

Here we see displayed a swan, a deer, a rabbit, a duck, and 
the hunting dogs which helped catch them.

Venice in Italy was one of the richest cities in Europe, and its leaders and 

aristocratic families all had their portraits painted.  This is a portrait of a

Venitian nobleman by Tintoretto.

In the 18th century, English aristocrats toured the continent and

visited Italy and bought many paintings to bring culture to England.
This is how Queen Elizabeth's ancestors got all their Canalettos.

They also wanted their portraits painted on a very large scale.

This painting of an English nobleman by George Romney

stands 9 feet high.

Thomas Gainsborough was the most popular English  painter of the 18th century 
and created portraits of women particularly in gauzy, light colors sitting out-of-doors,
 as a return-to-nature was popular at the time.  The lady has her hair filled with white

powder, which was the fashion,  and sits beside a fragment of a classical column.  
As English aristocrats built their great mansions in the 18th century they turned back
to ancient Greece and Rome for an "elevated" style of art.  So they built instant

classical ruins on their great estates.  There were no actual classical ruins in England.

The museum possesses a collection of Napoleonic objects, including a lock of hair and

various items of clothing worn by Napoleon.  Here is a portrait of Napoleon dressed as

an emperor.  He was actually a short little man from Corsica, but gilding goes a long way.

This lovely bust is Napoleon's wife,  Empress Josephine, who was a Louisiana girl who spoke 
Creole.  He eventually divorced her to marry an Austrian archduchess.  This bust was sculpted
 in Milan in 1805 by Joseph Chinard when Josephine accompanied Napoleon to that city for his coronation as the King of Italy.   Josephine is wearing a crown and a diamond-studded tiara, 
which features a cameo of her husband, Napoleon, against a cross of the Légion d'Honneur. 
Symbols of imperial power decorate her gown and mantle: the star, laurel leaf, and eagle 
holding a bolt of lightning, as well as the bee, Napoleon's personal emblem.

Like the Emperor, the members of the imperial family liked sculpted effigies and under the 
Empire there were few Salons where the bust or statue of one of them was not on show.  
Several other copies in marble exist of this statue, as well as a number in terra cotta.

The late 19th century saw the emergence of Impressionism, as artists

attempted to capture the unique qualities of light and color.  They used
ordinary people and scenes as their subjects, not historical events or
religious settings.  They painted contemporary times.

Renoir created "Head of a Girl" in colors so light and delicate,

they looked as if they might evaporate into thin air.

The 20th century saw the advent of abstract  art.  Henry Moore, a British artist,

created a monumental style of simplified sculpture but great mass.  
This is  "The Family."

Ernst Barlach, a German artist and part of the Expressionist Movement,

created "The Singing Man" as part of a war memorial for a chapel in Cologne

commemorating the war dead of World War I.  It is of bronze and has become almost
a national symbol.

Hans Arp was an artist from Alsace in Eastern France.  He and his wife, the artist

Sophie Tauber-Arp, were leaders in the new Abstract Art movement.  This
 "Venus Of Meudon" in bronze has the essence of an extremely elegant woman
with smooth curves and voluptuous masses; the details were not important.

Standing in front of the museum is French artist Fernand Leger's "Great Sunflower."
It was created in 1952, stands 8 feet high, and was cast in bronze and then painted.
 Although it weighs several tons, it looks as bright and cheerful as the glorious
 sunflower of Southern France.  There are six casts of this sculpture in museums
 around the world.  The flower petals and rays of sunshine become united.

The Bourgie Pavilion is across the street in a church converted in 2007 and houses the
Quebec and Canadian Art Collection, including Inuit / Eskimo Art.  All three buildings
are connected underground by galleries and corridors , and inside this pavilion you have
 five floors of exhibitions and are unaware of the exterior walls.  It works very well in
providing lots of space; it was a good idea.

The history of Canadian art parallels U.S. art history in many ways.

In the 19th century, wealthy businessmen and politicians and their wives

commissioned portraits which showed them at their best.

James Bowman painted  "Teresa Chalifoux" in 1833.

In the early 20th century, Canadians recorded scenes of everyday life in the
cities and small towns.  Women artists always played a role in Canadian art.
Mabel Lockerby painted "After a Snowstorm" in 1936, as
Montrealers dug themselves out of a snowstorm.

Modernism entered Canada as simplified forms and abstraction emerged, in some ways
like Georgia O'Keeffe in the U.S.   Fritz Brandtner fled the Nazis in Bavaria and came to
Canada, where he painted "The Sunflowers" in 1936.

Canadian artists have always loved their country's scenery and paint it in many ways.
Lawren S. Harris painted "Morning on Lake Superior" in 1926 showing the Great Lake
and some of its islands from a Canadian point-of-view.

One of Canada's most popular artists is Marc-Aurele Fortin whose scene of
"Gaspe Landscape" in 1945 is one of his best known.  The Gaspe Peninsula in the
Eastern Provinces is a particularly beautiful area of France and Fortin both
idealizes the land and houses, but also captures the basic feel of Gaspe.

Canadian artists are well aware of the First Nation peoples in Canada.
Louis Philippe Hebert created "Algonquins" in bronze in 1917.

And Canadian artists fully embraced Abstract Expressionism and its varieties since 1960.

There are many splendid huge paintings in the lower level galleries of the museum. This 

painting, which is about 5x11 feet, is by Serge Lemoyne and entitled "Dryden" from 1975.

Lemoyne was a painter, performance artist, poet, and hockey fan.  This is his tribute to

Ken Dryden, a great hockey goalie in Montreal.  Lemoyne painted a whole series of large 

works all using these three colors of the team uniforms - red, white, and dark blue. Some  

of the large paintings are purely abstract and others have recognizable imagery.

The drips and splatters are borrowed from Jackson Pollock in New York, but they

convey well the sweat and energy of Mr. Dryden as well.

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