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September Issue 2005
Old Masters Headed to the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, NC
Thanks to an $80 million expansion and renovation of the Wadsworth Atheneum (America's oldest public art museum, opened in 1842 in Hartford, CT), the museum has done something it has never done before: send 60 of its old master paintings on the road. The Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, NC, will be one of five venues which will host this exhibition of Old Master paintings from one of the country's premier museum collections.
Frans Hals
Renaissance to Rococo: Masterpieces from the Collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art will open on Sept. 24, 2005, and be on view through Jan. 15, 2006, at the Mint. Paintings from the late Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo art periods, ranging from the 15th through the 18th centuries will be featured. The exhibition encompasses a diverse selection of works including portraiture, still life, depictions of Greek and Roman mythology, Old and New Testaments, as well as medieval legend and poetry.
A tour of this caliber enhances the fine reputation of The Mint Museums' that has been established through the Museums hosting national tours, such as last year's Raphael to Monet, European Masterpieces from the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Andrew Wyeth: The Helga Pictures, and Chuck Close Prints: Process and Collaboration as well as the vibrant MURANO: Glass from The Olnick Spanu Collection.
Giovanni
Paolo Panini
The Wadsworth Atheneum's Italian and Spanish Baroque paintings are a particular collection strength. Baroque painting, a style begun in Rome in 1600, is characterized by extravagant and fantastic forms, emotional and spiritual intensity and exaggerated theatrical effects. Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio's The Ecstasy of St. Francis strips away the previous artificialities traditionally represented in depictions of saints. Caravaggio's sense of realism, immediacy and almost scientific use of light was revolutionary. This masterful painting was the first Caravaggio to enter an American Collection.
Other exceptional Baroque paintings featured in the exhibition are Bernado Strozzi's Saint Catherine of Alexandria (circa 1610-1613), Francisco de Zurbarán's Saint Serapion (circa 1628) and Anthony van Dyck's The Resurrection of Christ (circa 1630-1635).
Renaissance highlights include Sebastiano del Piombo's Man in Armor (circa 1512) and Piero di Cosomo's The Finding of Vulcan (circa 1490). The Renaissance marked a return to the classicism of ancient Greece and Rome as a growing literate laity developed humanism with its emphasis on the exercise of individual will.
Rococo art developed from the Baroque style in 18th century Paris, distinguished by profuse and elaborately executed ornamentation. Highlights include Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo's The Building of the Trojan Horse (circa 1770), Frnacesco Guardi's View of the Piazetta, Venice (circa 1770), Jean Baptiste Greuze's Indolence (circa 1756) and Francisco Goya's Gossiping Women (circa 1790).
From the most substantial piece, The Building
of the Trojan Horse (75" x 140") to the slighter,
Boy with a Hat (14 1/2" x 11 1/2") each work
is an astounding example of the skill, originality and influence
of those artists called the "Old Masters".
The two-year Renaissance to Rococo tour which began in
Jan. 2004, has made debuts at The John and Mable Ringling Museum
of Art in Sarasota, FL, the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth,
TX, the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, NE, and the Frist Center for
the Visual Arts in Nashville, TN. The tour's final stop is at
the Mint Museum of Art.
Renaissance to Rococo: Masterpieces from the Collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art has been organized by Eric M. Zafran, Curator of European Painting and Sculpture at the Wadsworth Atheneum. Zafran wrote an essay on the history of the Wadsworth Atheneum's collection for the accompanying catalogue published by Yale University Press, New Haven and London. The catalogue is available in the Mint Museum Shops for $35.
On Sept. 25, 2005, at 3pm, Eric Zafran will discuss the history of America's first public art museum, the Wadsworth Atheneum, and its outstanding Old Master collection spanning the 15th through 18th centuries and now on view. The event is free with museum admission.
For further information check our NC Institutional
Gallery listings, call the Museum at 704/337-2009 or at (www.mintmuseum.org).
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