The most significant exhibition of international art to be presented in Queensland in recent decades, the Australian-exclusive European Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, opens tomorrow (June 12) at Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art.
Showing at GOMA until 17 October, European Masterpieces is a remarkable journey through five centuries of European painting from exquisite devotional scenes of the early Renaissance to fleeting glimpses of nature captured by the Impressionists. The exhibition covers a period of significant religious, societal and cultural change as it charts the most important movements of Western art history through 65 paintings by Fra Angelico, Titian, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Rubens, Raphael, Goya, Turner, van Gogh, Cézanne, Monet and others.
Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) Director Chris Saines said ‘European Masterpieces’ was presented by QAGOMA in partnership with Art Exhibitions Australia and curated by The Met in consultation with the Gallery. “After several years of development and planning, we are thrilled to bring these extraordinary works of art from New York to Brisbane,” Mr Saines said.
Mr Max Hollein, Marina Kellen French Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, said the exhibition presented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in which The Met — during the renovation of their galleries for European paintings — could share these masterpieces with the people in Australia. “It brings great joy to see such magnificent paintings, and the many stories they tell, come to Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art,” Mr Hollein said.
Mr Saines said visitors will experience remarkable works that rarely leave permanent display in the United States, installed at GOMA in impressively designed, purpose-built spaces inspired by the motif of the arch in European architecture. “The show goes above-and-beyond a traditional masterpieces exhibition. In addition to engaging with these great works of art, visitors can also immerse themselves in The Studio, an expansive space at the heart of the exhibition which features a range of interpretive and interactive experiences including live music performances and figure drawing from 11.00am to 3.30pm daily.”
“Over three chapters, European Masterpieces traces the development of art and artists from a time when creativity was closely controlled through the patronage of church and state, to a period in which our contemporary idea of the independent artist was born,” Mr Saines said.
The first chapter of the exhibition, Devotion and Renaissance, begins in 15th Century Italy and includes such highlights as Giovanni di Paolo’s Paradise 1445, a beautiful, imagined garden in heaven filled with saints and angels, where animals frolic and flowers bloom and The Crucifixion c.1420–23, a finely painted, emotionally charged altarpiece panel by Florentine artist Fra Angelico. It also includes Titian’s grand and poetic Venus and Adonis 1550s capturing a luminous Venus reaching to embrace her lover one last time before he leaves to go hunting and meet a tragic end.
The second chapter, Absolutism and Enlightenment, traverses the Italian Baroque, Dutch Golden Age, French Rococo and Neoclassical movements. The gallery spaces evoke a sense of sumptuous, baroque grandeur and feature must-see works including Caravaggio’s allegory of music and love The Musicians of 1597; Rembrandt’s portrait Flora c.1654 and Johannes Vermeer’s elaborate Allegory of the Catholic Faith of c.1670-72.
The exhibition’s third and final chapter, Revolution and Art for the People, heralds the new Modern era of artistic freedom where the radical notion of the creatively independent artist took hold. Included are works such as Joseph Mallord William Turner’s atmospheric, light-filled scene Venice, from the Porch of Madonna della Salute c.1835; Paul Cézanne’s Still Life with Apples and Pears c.1891–92; Vincent van Gogh’s The Flowering Orchard 1888 and Water Lilies 1916–19, a late work by Claude Monet that captures the artist’s 30-year, 250-painting obsession with his garden in Giverny, France.
European Masterpieces is accompanied by a public program, Up Late event, an onsite digital companion experience and a major publication. The exhibition is organised by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in collaboration with the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art and Art Exhibitions Australia.
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