Everett Potter's Travel Report

Cézanne’s “Apples, bottle and chairback”

By Bobbie Leigh

What makes a drawing a “master drawing?”  How do you define the nature of mastery?  One answer is to visit Mantegna to Matisse: Master Drawings from the Courtauld Gallery, a collection of 58 drawing from  The Courtauld Gallery,London.  Each one, whether a study for a painting, a quickly rendered sketch, or a  form of note-taking to record some great visual experience,  displays  mastery  of the subject  as well as a range of materials  –pencils, chalks,  pen-and-ink,  crayon,  and a rare watercolor such as  Paul Cezanne’s  Apples, Bottle and Chairback.

Mantegna’s study for “Christ at the Column”

No one answer will adequately explain what constitutes a master drawing, but as Vasari wrote  it is a “certain conception and judgment,” a visible expression of inner thoughts  translated  into something concrete with pen and chalk on paper. If you only see one  master  work in this show such as  Andrea Mantegna’s study for Christ at the Column, a  mid-1460s pen and brown ink  drawing,   a  visit  to the Frick  would  still be worthwhile.   Here we have a heroic, idealized  depiction of Christ, whose strong, muscular body contrasts with his downturned head and  facial agony.  Mantegna (1431-1506) was an ardent student of Greek and Roman sculpture and  departing from the usual  biblical  account,  he endows the  Savior   with a body worthy of a Greek God, while his head  is bent  and  his facial expression, tormented  and anguished.

Ingres’ “Study for La Grande Odalisque”

Among the many  standouts  among such great masters as  da Vinci, Durer, Michelangelo, Peter Paul Rubens,  Rembrandt, Watteau, van Gogh, Picasso and many others, , a  Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) study for his painting  La Grande Odalisque is especially riveting. Right out of the Thousand and One Nights,  this ethereal  nude  odalisque ( the Turkish word for a harem slave) is hardly classical. Instead,  her body   is lithe, elongated, and  barely there.  She has no physical reality, just an immense sensual presence.  Critics of the time attacked  her for having “neither bones, nor muscles, nor life.”  Yet there is more life in those  dancer’s legs and immensely  long arms than in more traditional  Romantic era French nudes.

Totally fresh, modern, and spontaneous, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec’s   (1864-1901) In Bed  depicts a woman, probably a prostitute, peering at the painter  with sleepy eyes. She  seems  reluctant to get out of bed.  Her feet are enormous with soles peering out from under the crumpled sheets. According to the catalog the “thrust of his lines, confident and quickly done, convey a sense of vigor and excitement”  in spite of the sleepy scene.   Toulouse- Lautrec used two different mediums—a soft black chalk and a harder pencil line which emphasizes the woman’s face and hair.   The hint that she has been exploited is simply not part of the drawing as in some of the artist’s other work.

Bruegel the Elder’s “Kermesse at Hoboken”

The techniques  on view here  vary from preliminary sketches to designs for finished art works, but what unites the various Italian, Dutch, Flemish, German, Spanish works is an  extraordinarily high level of draftsmanship.  Who can match  Pieter Bruegel the  Elder’s  (c 1525-1569) detailed drawings of peasant life.   On view at the Frick is Kermis  [church festival] at Hoboken, an exuberant drawing, a design for an engraving, showing revelers at a festival in the Flemish village of Hoboken.

Ruben’s (1577-1640)  drawing, Helena Fourment, his second wife, is said to be one of the greatest of the masterworks at The Courtauld. She is 16 and about to be wed to the 53-year-old artist. The artist used black, red, and white chalk (retouched with pen and brown ink in some details). She is about to  lift off  a veil that is suspended from her headdress  which looks like a bar bell to contemporary eyes.  She looks directly at the viewer with a startling mix of bravado and  vulnerability.

This is the first time this prized collection has been made available  on  loan. Many of the drawings are being shown for the first time in New York.  Don’t miss it. On view  through  January 23, 2012.  The Frick Collection, 1 East 70^th Street; 212-288-0700, www.frick.org.

  Bobbie Leigh has written for many national publications including The Wall Street Journal, Travel & Leisure, and Departures. Currently she is a New York correspondent for Art & Antiques.

By Bobbie Leigh

Call them personal presents, something special for  you not for those on your holiday lists.    Here are some  2011  choices  among  hundreds of  great new books…  but these  are ones not to give away, to keep  handy on your  bookshelves as each has special charms and flair.

THE FOOD 52 COOKBOOK; 140 Winning Recipes from Exceptional Home Cooks by Amanda Hesser & Merrill Stubbs (William Morrow)  is crammed with  recipes. They have been  collected by two women with busy professional lives who still have fun in the kitchen.  Together they have tested  recipes and  described them  in casual, easy-to-follow language. In a recipe for creamy mushroom soup,  you are reminded to “ beautifully and  precisely  chop mushrooms.”  The “Tips and Techniques” little additions are  witty and fun such as “ we halved the spices in the sauce because we’re wimps.”   Another is “Make this (a great beef stew  with  a secret ingredient- anchovies) a day ahead—its flavor will  improve and you can  enjoy the stew without thinking of all the dishes you have to wash.”

 SERIOUS EATS,  A Comprehensive Guide to Making & Eating Delicious Food Wherever  You Are by Ed Levine ((Clarkson Potter)  is not serious at all. Instead, it’s a handy guide to great places to eat across the country and 50 recipes ranging  from breakfasts and burger to barbecue and bakeries.  Levine gives you one more example- as if you needed one- to go to Martha’s Vineyard—Mrs. Blakes pies  or to Portland, Oregon, for Apizza Scholls for pizza with just the right blend of creaminess and tang.  (One disagreement—New York’s Shake Shack burgers, immensely popular but  in contrast to Levine’s opinion,  they don’t set the standard in the Big A.)

THE PERFECTLY IMPERFECT HOME: How to Decorate and Live Well  by Deborah Needleman  with illustrations by Virginia Johnson(Clarkson Potter) is another must-keep. Needleman’s approach is almost Tolstoyan. The great Russian master once wrote that “art begins where that ‘tiny bit’ begins.”  Needleman’s  focus exactly.  Just make a few tiny changes and the room looks new.   Instead of photographs,  the  “tiny” as well as big bits are fancifully illustrated with  watercolor images.  One of the best sections is on lighting. “Beautiful rooms tend to have soft pools of light that come from a variety of sources.,” she says.  Read that chapter and your overhead  lights  will  surely  have a tragic afterlife.

A HISTORY OF DESIGN FROM THE VICTORIAN ERA TO THE PRESENT: A Survey of the Modern Style in Architecture, Interior Design, Industrial Design, Graphic Design, and Photography by Ann Ferebee with Jeff Byles (  Norton Professional Books)  is  a compact  survey volume.  Each chapter starting with “Victorian Design, The Industrial Revolution Precipitates a Crisis in Style”  to the final one about  “Late Modern Design, Remaking Modernism for the Information Age”  explores  how modern design has molded  how we live.  Ferebee  demonstrates the ways evolving modern design has reflected  global  societal and political change. The approach is chronological,  global, definitely not- academic,   and especially interesting for anyone who  is fascinated by the new challenges  of green building  and a new urban topology.

Most of the new artbooks promoted for Christmas are coffee table tomes meant to be admired but not read in bed.   Probably the most impressive is the new Phaidon Press THE ART MUSEUM, more than 1,000 pages, featuring 2,500 works of art.  Almost three-inches thick,  you need a sturdy  coffee table to support this 20 pound behemoth.

So think  thin and consider the  remarkable  new book by the Frick’s Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator, Colin B. Bailey: FRAGONARD’S PROGRESS OF LOVE AT THE FRICK COLLECTION.  Fragonard (1732-1806) was commissioned to create four large canvases by Louis XV as an expression of love for his mistress the Comtesse du Barry.  The panels are the prize of  The Frick Collection and lovingly described by Bailey. They also offer a little window into understanding the complex worlds of  art, royal patronage, and whose taste counted in eighteenth-century France. The panels,  as Bailey writes, establish a sequence of chase, courtship, to  the final panel, “Love Letters”  where the mood is tender and suffused.  “The statue of an unshod matron holding  a heart in her hand was a familiar trope for friendship; the ivy combing the pedestal symbolized friendship and fidelity in marriage as did the spaniel,” writes Bailey.  The messages intended by the artist become much clearer with Bailey’s explanations.  The illustrations, especially the details are stunning. If all you know about Fragonard is his  1767 “Swing,” you are in for a great treat.

And just in case  you are wondering where to place your order,  please  keep in mind that in 1945 we  had 333 independent bookstores in this country; in 2011, fewer than 30.

Bobbie Leigh has written for many national publications including The Wall Street Journal, Travel & Leisure, and Departures. Currently she is a New York correspondent for Art & Antiques.