Oudry’s Painted Menagerie; The Getty Museum Introduction The exhibition Oudrys Painted Menagerie (May 1- September 2, 2007) at the Getty Center is the mutual project of curators, conservators and art historians. Oudrys Painted Menagerie features twelve paintings. Originally, the project was initiated in 2001 (Schwerin, Germany) in result of the reemergence of two Oudrys canvases, one depicting a rhinoceros and the other a lion. The paintings were not available to the public for more than 150 years. They have been located in the Getty Museums Conservation Department over the past years. The exhibition reunites them with a suite of other life-size portraits of exotic animals painted by Oudry and presents a selection of Oudry’s drawings as well as contemporary decorative arts (Oudry’s Painted Menagerie.
Getty Museum 2007).
Clara le Rhinoceros and the Lion No doubt, Clara le Rhinoceros (1749) and the Lion (1752) are the most apt paintings, notable for a color fidelity, naturalism and perfect depiction of the animals. The paintings are also remarkable for their size (Clara le Rhinoceros is 10 feet tall and almost 15 feet wide).
The Lion is also a life-size painting. Despite of age, it looks very modern. It is so accurate that the viewer unwillingly is captivated by its inner harmony and expression. These animalistic compositions combines the precision and accuracy of the artists observations with fine decorativeness.
It seems that the paintings breathe with rhytmical and bravura composition in the spirit of his times. Oudry managed to reach a real dramatism in the paintings details. Both the Rhinoceros and the Lion represent the art of his expressly decorated animalistic talent. Clara le Rhinoceros is the centerpiece of the Oudrys Painted Menagerie. It was created in 1794 under the impression of an Indian rhinoceros Clara, a fifth living rhinoceros who became famous during seventeen years of touring European countries in the mid-XVIII century. The artist was so impressed that he created a life-size portrain of this fantastic animal.
The Essay on Oil Paintings
The oil painting technique traces its roots all the way back to a time between the fifth and ninth century when it was first used in Western Afghanistan, yet it was made famous and the premier means of expression by the Renaissance movement in the 15th century by men like Leonardo Da Vinci and Raphael (Davide 46). The reason the oil painting technique gained this newfound popularity was due in ...
This painting is so great that it threatens to give a new incentive to Clara-mania. The viewers are bewildered by its realistic features. The feeling of reality is connected both with the time belonging and with the ability of the artist to feel the close connection to nature. The Rhinoceros shows us that Oudry had a special talent for perception of beauty of nature and animals, color, sounds, and smells. Everything is united in a comprehensive whole, being expressed in the very plasticity of his work of art. While looking at the painting, one can come to understanding that there are moments, events and creatures that hardly can be explained or described logically.
The tension, freshness, scents, sounds and our own fantasy create a composition of feelings able to ennoble and to poeticize the past. The impression is definitely unforgettable. The curators, who were invited to repair and restore the paintings were shocked by the personalities that were captures in the Rhinoceros and the Lion. The paintings remind us Rembrandts portraits that make you feel the presence of a soul in his paintings (Getty Takes Walk On the Wild Side 2007).
It seems that Oudry does the same with his animals, as they reach out to everybody in the room. Although Oudry’s other paintings are also good, the painting of Clara the Rhinoceros produce comlpetely different, more qualitative impression.
The paintings invokes bewilderment, admiration, delight and rapture. Probably, Oudry cannot boast with compositions created on the basis of rough drawings and sketch, which can be called a process of painting in its traditional understanding. The very character of the artist as well as his experience allowed to draw a painting a la prima in order to express the lively rhinocerous. The painting shows that Oudry valued the direct communication with natural surroundings able to provide the freshness of perception and feeling for the beautiful. The exhibition space was carefully chosen by the curators of the project. First of all, the very exhibit is the main feature of the Getty Museum. The exhibit centre is located at the top of the hill that a visitor has to take a tram to. Secondly, the museum tried to replicate the interior of the Staatliches Museum in Schwerin (Germany).
The Essay on Chinese Painting
Chinese Painting is one of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world, it is also known in Chinese as Guohua. Traditional painting involves essentially the same techniques as calligraphy which is done with a brush dipped in black or colored ink. Compared with the western style of painting, oils are not used in Chinese Painting. Chinese paintings were usually painted on paper or silk; ...
The Getty Museum had no enough budget to use the actual sculped wood moldings, but, in order to give the illusion of this opulence the exhibitors used flat painted pieces of wood.
The exhibitors have chosen a special exhibitions pavilion. As far as the pavilion is modern in its architecture, it perfectly corresponded to the exhibitors intention to suite the space well, giving it enough of a period feel without overwhelming visitors with a space that looked too gimmicky (A Regal Palette 2007).
In addition, it allowed the decorators to locate the thematic groupings, such as birds and felines. The same idea was used for the Rhino-mania gallery except few insignificant changes (e.g. the curators reversed colors to gold walls with white trim).
This design concept was aimed to give a space a warmer feel (A Regal Palette 2007).
Besides, as far as the paintings are enormous in size, the decorators tried to make the thematic groupings to be small in comparison.
To cap it all, the moldings were scaled down to make the space feel more intimate. The color palette was also carefully chosen (for Oudry the palette is royal gold, blue and white).
The blue color created the feeling of a slideshow or a carnval-look like, the white was taken for focus areas, the blue was aimed to accent the areas, and the gold was chosen to make the accent throughout. Such royal combination places emphasis on Oudrys belonging as a painter for monarchy and contributes to the harmony of perception. It seems that the location of the exhibit is completely corresponds to the initial intent of the artist as well as the context of the paintings in the time they were created. Actually, the looking at Clara le Rhinoceros and the Lion significantly differs fromm the experience of seeing the works of art in the textbook or in class, because the actual size of paintings is overwhelming.
The Essay on A Discussion On Georgia O'Keeffe's Paintings
Georgia O’Keeffe’s work was so great because she painted things in an abstract way, but they were still familiar to the viewer. She used vivid, bold colours and shapes of nature. She would change the scale of an object so much that it would fill up a whole canvas. Like for example “from the faraway nearby”, witch is a painting of a deer’s skull. The title of this ...
When you look at the paintings, you understand that Clara le Rhinoceros and the Lion are semantic and logical centers of the entire exhibition. They captivate attention and thunderstruck by their majesty and realistic features. The interior of the exhibition contribute to this purpose as well. I like the paintings very much. I tseems that both compositions are inspired by the feeling similar to lyrical poems and hardly can be subject for the detailed analysis. The works of art remind me the work of the jeweller because every detail is chosen thoroughly and every object is located at the right place and at the right time.
The paintings express the slightest shadows and the poetry of fantastic creatures. The ease, freedom and expressiveness, – these are the distinctive features of Oudrys Rhinocerous and Lion. At the same time, Oudrys art is not a stranger to intentional pompousness with some features of affection, natural expressiveness, intensity and depth. It seems that the animals breathe aristocratic dignity. The artist masterly balances between the conditional portrayal and range, where the royal mysterous animals are almost indistinguishable one from the other in their naive and legendary beauty. Works Cited A Regal Palette: Designing the Gallery Space for Oudry’s Painted Menagerie.
11 May 2007 . Getty Takes Walk On the Wild Side. 11 May 2007 . Oudry’s Painted Menagerie. Getty Museum. 11 May 2007 ..
