Paul Signac – Entrance to the Grand Canal, Venice

“Venice has been called a feminine city. (…) it is by living there from day to day that you feel the fullness of her charm; that you invite her exquisite influence to sink into your spirit. The creature varies like a nervous woman (…) you desire to embrace it, to caress it, to possess it.”

Paul Signac (1863-1935), Entrance to the Grand Canal, Venice, 1905

The soft and hazy pink, lilac and yellow shades of Paul Signac’s painting “Entrance to the Grand Canal” have completely seduced me and the more I gaze at this mesmerising painting the more I feel myself becoming one with its flickering surface made in its entirety out of little dashes of colours. What a contrast; the calm, almost zen-like patience it takes to paint in this Pointilist manner, with the finished effect which is dazzling and vivacious and alive. In short, it looks effortless, but the process of creating in was not effortless. The painting, as the title suggests, shows the entrance to the Grand Canal in Venice. On the right we have the cascading row of gondolas and on the left the canal poles or ‘pali di casada’ and another gondola with a gondolier, slowly approaching its destination. A sea of yellow and blues divides the lively foreground from the dreamy background where the silhouettes of Dogana del Mar and the church Santa Maria della Salute stands against a pink and yellow sky. It appears indeed as if they are floating in the air. The water, the sky, the architecture are all but dots and dashes of pink, yellow and blue, and in the eye of the viewer they seem to be merging. There are no strict lines that divide the one from the other, and perhaps this manner of capturing Venice’s charms is the most suitable for this flimsy, illusory, watery, floating city.

Details

Paul Signac spent a lot of time in Saint-Tropez and painted many lively seascapes, but visiting Venice and staying there has proven to be an extraordinarily prolific time in his career. Signac had been reading John Ruskin’s “The Stones of Venice” and that was a further motivation to visit the famed city. During his month there, from mid April to the end of May in 1904, he painted over two hundred watercolours and he used these watercolours as inspiration for his larger oil on canvas paintings. I am pretty sure that the last watercolour in this post titled “La Salute” could have served as a basis for the “Entrance to the Grand Canal, Venice”. The watercolours are charming indeed, as you will see bellow, they are very playful, sketchy and I love that. Signac loved to sit in the gondola and sketch the view he had from that almost water-level position. He sketched tirelessly and captured the changing weather and flickering colours of the lagoon, and these watercolours are a sort of a visual diary as well, in the same manner that Delacroix had sketched during his travels to Morocco or Turner’s watercolours of sunsets, clouds, hills and castles during his travels. Signac also painted other scenes from Venice, such as the lagoon of Saint Mark. All of his paintings of seas and ports are beautiful in their hazy dreaminess, but for some reason the pink and yellow shades in the painting above are my absolute favourite.

Paul Signac, Venice, Grand Canal, 1904, watercolour

Paul Signac, Venise, San Giorgio et la Salute, 1904, watercolour

The colours, the softness, the fluidness, the mood, the hazyness and the rosyness of this painting, have all reminded me of this passage from Peter Ackroyd’s book “Venice: Pure City”:

“Venice has been called a feminine city. Henry James noted that “it is by living there from day to day that you feel the fullness of her charm; that you invite her exquisite influence to sink into your spirit. The creature varies like a nervous woman …” He then expatiates on the various “moods” of the city before reflecting on the fact that “you desire to embrace it, to caress it, to possess it.” (…) It was considered to be licentious in action and attitude. It was, after all, the city of touch, the city of sight, the city of texture. It spoke openly to the senses. It revealed itself. The presence of water is also believed to encourage sensuality. Luxury, the stock in trade of the city, represents the apotheosis of sensuous pleasure. The lovers of the world came, and still come, here. It was known to be the capital of unlimited desire and unbridled indulgence; this was considered to be an expression, like its trade and its art, of its power. Venetian conversation was known for its lubriciousness and its vulgarity. The French poet, Guillaume Apollinaire, called Venice “le sexe même de l’Europe.”

Paul Signac, Venice, 1904, watercolour

Paul Signac, Venice, La Salute, 1904, watercolour

“In poetry, and drama, Venice was often portrayed as the beloved woman, all the more charming for being constantly in peril. It could be said in Jungian terms that when the masculine identity of the city was lost at the time of its surrender to Bonaparte in 1797, it became wholly the feminine city enjoyed by exiles and tourists from the nineteenth century onwards. The journalism and literature ofthe last two centuries, for example, has included many representations of Venice as a “faded beauty.” It has been celebrated for its power to seduce the visitor, to lure him or her into its uterine embrace. The narrow and tortuous streets themselves conjured up images of erotic chase and surprise. The city was invariably represented as a female symbol, whether as the Virgin in majesty or as Venus rising from the sea.

(…) It was believed that the men of Venice were, in the words of one eighteenth-century critic, “enervated and emasculated by the Softness of the Italian Musick.” The tenderness and luxuriance of the city were considered to be corrupting. But there was also the ambiguous status of land and water, of frontier and mainland. Anyone of weak sensibility might thereby be aroused or stimulated into transgressing ordinary boundaries.“

Galileo Chini – Chinese New Year’s Eve Celebration in Bangkok

Galileo Chini, Chinese New Year’s Eve Celebration in Bangkok (Festa dell’ultimo dell’anno a Bangkok) 1911-13

I have written about Galileo Chini’s beautiful, romantic painting “L’Amore” from 1919 last week, but let us go a few years back in his career and take a look at his 1911-13 painting “Chinese New Year’s Eve Celebration in Bangkok” which is very different in mood, but equally beautiful and worthy of attention. The stunning, exotic visuals have an equally fascinating and exotic background story to match. As I wrote in my previous post on Chini’s art; Galileo Chini was an eclectic and vibrant figure in the Italian art scene at the turn of the century. Painter, designer, decorator, ceramic artist, and an important figure in the “Liberty style” (Stile Liberty), which was the Italian version of Art Nouveau, just as Secession was the Austrian (or rather Austro-Hungarian) version of Art Nouveau. Chini had a great interest in all things decorative, in combining arts and crafts, mostly in the area of ceramics and decorations, and has a taste for the Oriental. And surprise surprise, Rama V, the King of Siam, was travelling in Italy and saw the decorations that Chini had made at the Venice Biennale. He was impressed with the colours, shapes and the overall appeal of the Liberty Style and he offered Chini to come to Bangkok and decorate the Ananda Samakhom Throne Hall, which was newly built by Italian architects Annibale Rigotti and Mario Tamagno. Even the marble for the hall was brought from Carrara, it was a true Thailand meets Italy artistic situation in many ways.

Chini arrived in Bangkok in the late days of spring of 1911 and he worked joyously on his project, but in his free time he also painted for himself and such example is the painting above. The Oriental influence, experienced in real life, continued to haunt his art until the rest of his life and career. Even the interior decoration for his second home, Casa delle Vacanze, in Lido di Camaiore, was inspired by the Oriental magic. Needless to say, he had returned from his Bangkok trip with many a charming Siamese and Chinese objects which I am sure were dear to his heart. “Chinese New Year’s Eve Celebration in Bangkok” is a beautiful example of Chini’s interest and delight in the life of the locals there. The painting is just bursting with colours and vibrancy. The place seems to be swimming in red, yellow, lime green and orange lanterns. The colourful procession of the figures in the festival are accompanied by the papier mache dragon whose face expression looks more amusing than scary. The faces of the people in the celebration look awfully pale and composed, as if made out of wax, somewhat strange to me is their complexion and face expressions, it almost stands in contrast to the magical mood of the lanterns and fireworks. And look at these gorgeous lanterns! How they’re shining and smiling brightly! Who needs stars anymore!? We can see a bit of the dark blue night sky in the upper right corner, but it is so irrelevant in comparison to the joy of the glowing lanterns. I love how everything is painted in these little dashes, the surface of the painting seems flickering and alive, which goes well with the active, vibrant and joyous mood of the festival.

Wassily Kandinsky – Riding Couple

“Darling, it’s only the fairy tales we really live by.”
(Katherine Mansfield, Letter to J.M.Murry, 18 October 1920)

Wassily Kandinsky, Riding Couple (Couple on Horseback), 1906-07

This magical and romantical painting known under various titles such as “Riding Couple” or “Couple on Horseback” is a beautiful example of Wasily Kandinsky’s early work. The embracing couple dressed in their traditional Russian costumes bring to mind the romantic paintings by a fellow Russian painter Viktor Vasnetstov, particularly his painting “Ivan Tsarevich Riding the Grey Wolf” (1889) which I wrote about here. Kandinsky may be using a similar motif but his treatment of the painting’s surface is completely different. While Vasnetsov tries to evoke the mysterious and romanticised, but still realistically painted, spirit of the forest, Kandinsky transports us into a carnival of colours bursting with energy and vibrancy. Around the riding couple are a few thin elegant birches, and behind them is a scenery made up of a wide river and a townscape with many colourful domes and roofs, reminiscent of the grandeur of Moscow, a town that had a special place in Kandinsky’s heart. The description of the scene makes it sound beautiful, but then upon seeing it, ahh it is a feast for the eyes! Kandinsky here uses a Divisionist method which allows the colour to mix and mingle freely in the eye of the viewer and not on the painter’s palette. He is building the space with little dots, dashes and dabs of colour.

Just look at the outfit the couple is wearing; it’s made out of little dots of blue and pink, then the leaves on the trees just blots of brown and gold, the horse’s body is made up of grey dashes, the river is glimmering in all colours, on the right we see the landscape made up of horizontal dashes, and then the sky, those blues and the purple cloud; it’s woven with magic. The landscape is smiling and flickering like Christmas lights. The orange and red leaves that have fallen on the ground also add to the magical appeal. There is a visual contrast between the shining and inviting city across the river and the solitary, more intimate space hidden by the trees where the lovers on the horse are, as if they are hiding their love, or, the city with its lights and promises of fun and gaiety doesn’t appeal to them because they already found the heaven on earth in each other’s arms. The motif, the scenery and the manner in which it was painted all make it seem as if this is a scene from a fairy tale. Maybe the riding couple were banished from the kingdom on the other side of the river and now, shivering from the chill autumnal air and finding abode in the embrace, they will cast a last, melancholy-tinged glance at the place they use to consider their home…

Bellow you can see a painting from the same time period called “The Colourful Life” and again you see this wonderful technique; vivacious patches of vibrant colour are arising out of a dark background and glowing like gemstones; this is what makes these paintings so enchanting. It also makes me think of mosaic; church mosaics seen in the flickering light of a candle. Take a moment to appreciate the wonderful colours; just look at those gorgeous blues, teal, purple and orange in the painting bellow. It truly uplifts the soul. The characters look like they escaped from the pages of fairy tale books and we have a motif of a castle perched on the top of the hill, all of these little details bring the fairy tale spirit and that is another characteristic of Kandinsky’s early period. And it is interesting to note that even though this is Kandinsky’s early phase, he actually celebrated his fortieth birthday on 16th December 1906, so I guess it goes to show that it is never too late to start a hobby or chase your dream. Age shouldn’t be an impediment to your desires.

Wasily Kandinsky, Das Bunte Leben (The Colourful Life), 1907, tempera on canvas

Giacomo Balla – Girl Running on a Balcony

Giacomo Balla, Girl Running on Balcony, 1912

I didn’t care much for Futurism before, but these days I am starting to appreciate its liveliness, energy, and the abundance of vibrant colours. Giacomo Balla’s painting “Girl Running on the Balcony” is of particular interest to me because it combines the motives of a child playing, a motif often used by the Impressionists, and the Pointilists’ method of painting in dots. This combination seems perfect because only Pointilism could capture the bubliness and joy of a child playing. Futurism was an Italian modernist art movement which embraced the speed, noise and the bright lights of the modern world. Dynamism and the movement was of a special interest to them. The girl in the painting, whose facial features we cannot even recognise, is Balla’s eight year old daughter Luce who was running up and down the balcony of the painter’s house in Rome. Giacomo Balla must have been inspired by the playfulness, dynamics and the speed of her running and playing and decided to capture it on canvas. You can only imagine how differently the same scene would have been portrait by different artists such as Renoir or Berthe Morisot who also liked painting children. Even Seurat’s pointilist paintings had a certain slowness and stillness to them, but Balla here uses the same painting method and acheives a completely different result. The repetitive figures of the girl are made up entirely out of dots and dashes in different shades of blue, beige and brown. It’s quite magical actually, when you gaze at the painting all the dots start moving and you can almost see the girl running in a slow-motion. Light and dark shades of blue on her dress really create a certain rhythm and it excites the eye. The idea behind it is brilliant and daunting too; to capture movement on a static canvas, that seems impossible and yet Futurists tried their best to convey dynamic scenes on canvas. This desire to capture movement is also partly inspired by the work of the late nineteenth century photographers such as Eadweard Muybridge and Etienne Jules Marey.