Three Favorite Western Paintings (More)

THREE FAVORITE WESTERN PAINTINGS (MORE)

“The Empire of Lights” (1953-54) by Rene Magritte

“The Disrobing of Christ” (1577-79) by El Greco

“Waves Breaking against the Wind” (c. 1840) by J. M. W. Turner

“The Empire of Lights” (1953-54) is one version of Rene Magritte’s most popular visual art series. He produced seventeen oils and ten gouache works from 1949 to 1964 with the same title and using the same motif. This particular version sits at the Musée Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium.

This well-liked picture delights the viewer with Magritte’s characteristic irony, humor, and naturalistic finesse. The tongue-in-cheek Surrealist intrigues us with a startling dreamscape wherein day and night coincidentally exist.

In 2010 300 lithographs of this image produced by the ADAGP (Society of Authors in the Graphic and Plastic Arts) and signed by Charly Herscovici, representing several Magritte heritage groups, sold like waffles hot off the griddle.

“The Empire of Lights” (1953-54) by Rene Magritte

It is difficult to find favorite pieces that have been created over one hundred years ago. Separation in distant time alienates us from the social and cultural context of the original creator so that the message they wish to communicate to us is invariably off target. They speak to another audience.

Besides, painters (artists) of earlier periods worked with a more limited range of pigments, and their original colors oxidize and degrade over the centuries, diminishing the original vibrancy of the artwork. Restoration addresses this deficiency somewhat—we recall here the stunning transformation of the Sistine chapel—but the inadequacy remains.

Among the Old Masters, El Greco is one of a kind. He transcended his time. He took the dramatic lighting of Baroque and the stylized distortions of Mannerism one step further, adapting them to exalted religious motifs. In El Greco, haunting looks, elongated figures, blue white flashes of sky, and various other eccentric features symbolize spiritual reality.

He is said to have anticipated modern art movements, Cubism and Expressionism in particular. Byzantine two-dimensional religious painting is further believed to have influenced him to incorporate Cubist perspectives in his work. Some see his ghost in the Gothic revivalism of nineteenth-century Symbolism.

“The Disrobing of Christ” (1577-79) exemplifies his mature style. Visual perspective is flattened and the personages and figures inhabit overlapping planes according to some sort of primordial Cubism.

Tender and affecting, the upward gaze of Christ is unusually emotive, at the same time difficult to interpret. In Christ’s enigmatic countenance and the shadowy luminescence throughout, we perceive touches of Expressionism, for El Greco is less concerned here with verisimilitude than with expression.

Dominating the composition, Christ’s bright red robe is symbolic of the bloody sacrifice about to take place and stamps the religious narrative with the artist’s creative flourish.

“The Disrobing of Christ” (1577-79) by El Greco

J. M. W. Turner’s appearance on the British art scene coincides with the rise of Romanticism and the decline of Neoclassicism and the academicism associated with it. His was a new way of thinking, feeling, and speaking, whether in words, music, or the visual arts.

Although he realized his Romantic vision in painting exclusively, it is evident that his experience was complexly sensual, not limited to the visual. Gazing at his ambient paintings, we inevitably hear the cries of the distressed, smell the burning wood, or taste the sea salt air.

A Romantic through and through, he loved dramatic natural vistas. He was devoted to painting the rain, fog, and storms, the many moods of the sun, and the tumult of the sea.

In his historical paintings, whether of Hannibal’s cohorts crossing the Alps or the burning Houses of Parliament, he celebrated the grand sweep of nature. Human beings he would reduce to miniscule grains or faceless throngs, to practical insignificance, in effect.

He was especially interested in vaporous light and atmospheric effects. The power of atmospheric light to evoke unaccustomed moods fascinated him. His distinctive treatment of light influenced the Impressionists in France, so that he is rightly described as a transitional figure at the threshold of modern art.

Turner’s special qualities are pointedly illustrated in “Waves Breaking against the Wind” (c. 1840). He captures in painterly fashion the menacing swells and violent spray, the aerosol fog and darkling sky. Contemplating his vision, we cannot but sense his trepid rapture toward the monster sea. Quintessentially Romantic, the painting verges on abstraction.

“Waves Breaking against the Wind” (c. 1840) by J. M. W. Turner