Ãdouard Manet. Open Here I Flung the Shutter (The Window). 1875. The Baltimore Museum of Art: The George A. Lucas Collection, purchased with funds from the State of Maryland, Laurence and Stella Bendann Fund, and contributions from individuals, foundations, and corporations throughout the Baltimore community, BMA 1996.48.18052 (Handout courtesy The Baltimore Museum of Art / September 28, 2009) |
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Menacing ravens, peering eyes, black cats and rats, ominous bells, violent eddies - imagery that fueled many a text by Edgar Allan Poe, and generated a good deal of art. For its contribution to the bicentennial commemoration of the author's birth, the Baltimore Museum of Art has put together a dynamic collection of works directly or seemingly inspired by the author.
The displays are divided into three thematic groupings: Love and Loss, Fear and Terror, Madness and Obsession. "As you can see, this is an uplifting exhibit," says BMA director Doreen Bolger, who curated the show.
Five drawings, nearly three dozen prints and more than 40 illustrated books are included, most drawn from the museum's holdings, providing a fresh take on Poe's widespread influence.
Particularly well-represented are French artists, who seem to have been struck deeply by Poe's writing. Edouard Manet's lithographs depicting incidents in the poem "The Raven," for example, subtly and chillingly conjure up all the brooding darkness of the verses. In Manet's interpretation, no "stately Raven" steps into the room, but swoops, vampirelike, through the window.
In one gallery room, the visitor sees first a copy of a small, mid-19th-century American daguerreotype of Poe, then moves on to a series of portraits of the writer made in this country and in France. "Most of the artists who depicted him never met him," Bolger says. "They would have looked at a daguerreotype."
Most striking is "Le Tombeau d'Edgar Poe," a 1932 etching by Henri Matisse, who, with a minimum of swirling lines, conveys the essence of the sad-eyed, troubled genius.
Paul Gauguin makes an appearance via an etching of Stéphane Mallarmé, a raven clinging to his shoulder, as if the shadow of Poe. (Before Gauguin left for Tahiti in 1891, his friends, including Mallarmé, recited "The Raven" to him in a cafe. The exhibit makes effective use of such connective threads.)
In the love-and-loss room, raven imagery dominates. In addition to those Manet lithographs, there are evocative takes on the "Nevermore"-bearer by a cross-section of artists, among them Antonio Frasconi. His striking color woodcut from 1959 incorporates portions of the poem around an especially confrontational image of a raven.
Jim Dine's portentous "Raven on Lebanese Border," an etching and woodcut from 2000, is an intriguing choice. The artist was not thinking of Poe when he created the large, compelling piece, but its inclusion fits easily into the exhibit's mood.
The fear-and-terror portion of the show hits the viewer with two strong Robert Motherwell lithographs from 1975, "Poe's Abyss" and "Monster." In their defiant abstraction, they seem to say as much about the scary layers of Poe's inner mind as the most literal book illustrations contained in the exhibit. (The BMA is exploring the possibility of purchasing these two works, on loan to the show from the Dedalus Foundation in New York.)
In a slightly lighter vein, there's a dark closet in a corner of the room. Visitors are invited to shine flashlights inside, where Halloween-y imagery awaits.
The madness/obsession salon features pieces by Odilon Redon that speak to Poe's recurring interest in human eyes - "Those large, those shining, those divine orbs" - and, in one gruesome story, teeth.
"The Oval Portrait," a Poe story about a painter so absorbed in his work that he fails to notice the death of his wife/model, describes a portrait in the style of Thomas Sully. The BMA happens to own a Sully portrait of a young woman from 1840, with ringlets of pretty hair framing her lovely face, so it provides a fitting focal point for other items dealing with obsessive behavior.
When it comes to illustrations of "The Black Cat," Poe's exercise in pathological cruelty, animal lovers might want to look away.
Among the other great Poe tales referenced in the exhibit is "The Pit and the Pendulum," and the illustrations displayed are still as creepy as they must have been when published in books more than a century ago. "It's a story about political prisoners and torture," Bolger says, "things we still think about and worry about today."
Contemporary issues and feelings are the driving force behind a complementing display on another floor of the BMA, "Baltimore Inspired by Poe," generated by a nonprofit organization called Art on Purpose. This exhibit will run concurrently with the main event.
Art on Purpose "uses art to bring people together around issues that matter to them," says director Peter Bruun. "At four local libraries, we invited residents to talk about Poe, to look at some of the pieces in the BMA exhibit and use that as a jumping point to create art." Four teaching artists also participated in the project.
The eclectic results include an 8-year-old's soothing abstract counterpoint to Motherwell's angry abyss; a recovering addict's haunting self-portrait; and a view of a rodent- and shadow-riddled Baltimore street that Bruun describes as "a direct link to 'The Pit and the Pendulum.' "
The goal of "Baltimore Inspired by Poe" is "to have people recognize Poe and their own experiences," Bruun says, "and to give space to people who don't think of themselves as artists. We're sending out a clear message that the community should feel welcome and at home at the BMA. And we are explicitly putting that community on display."
The displays are divided into three thematic groupings: Love and Loss, Fear and Terror, Madness and Obsession. "As you can see, this is an uplifting exhibit," says BMA director Doreen Bolger, who curated the show.
Five drawings, nearly three dozen prints and more than 40 illustrated books are included, most drawn from the museum's holdings, providing a fresh take on Poe's widespread influence.
Particularly well-represented are French artists, who seem to have been struck deeply by Poe's writing. Edouard Manet's lithographs depicting incidents in the poem "The Raven," for example, subtly and chillingly conjure up all the brooding darkness of the verses. In Manet's interpretation, no "stately Raven" steps into the room, but swoops, vampirelike, through the window.
In one gallery room, the visitor sees first a copy of a small, mid-19th-century American daguerreotype of Poe, then moves on to a series of portraits of the writer made in this country and in France. "Most of the artists who depicted him never met him," Bolger says. "They would have looked at a daguerreotype."
Most striking is "Le Tombeau d'Edgar Poe," a 1932 etching by Henri Matisse, who, with a minimum of swirling lines, conveys the essence of the sad-eyed, troubled genius.
Paul Gauguin makes an appearance via an etching of Stéphane Mallarmé, a raven clinging to his shoulder, as if the shadow of Poe. (Before Gauguin left for Tahiti in 1891, his friends, including Mallarmé, recited "The Raven" to him in a cafe. The exhibit makes effective use of such connective threads.)
In the love-and-loss room, raven imagery dominates. In addition to those Manet lithographs, there are evocative takes on the "Nevermore"-bearer by a cross-section of artists, among them Antonio Frasconi. His striking color woodcut from 1959 incorporates portions of the poem around an especially confrontational image of a raven.
Jim Dine's portentous "Raven on Lebanese Border," an etching and woodcut from 2000, is an intriguing choice. The artist was not thinking of Poe when he created the large, compelling piece, but its inclusion fits easily into the exhibit's mood.
The fear-and-terror portion of the show hits the viewer with two strong Robert Motherwell lithographs from 1975, "Poe's Abyss" and "Monster." In their defiant abstraction, they seem to say as much about the scary layers of Poe's inner mind as the most literal book illustrations contained in the exhibit. (The BMA is exploring the possibility of purchasing these two works, on loan to the show from the Dedalus Foundation in New York.)
In a slightly lighter vein, there's a dark closet in a corner of the room. Visitors are invited to shine flashlights inside, where Halloween-y imagery awaits.
The madness/obsession salon features pieces by Odilon Redon that speak to Poe's recurring interest in human eyes - "Those large, those shining, those divine orbs" - and, in one gruesome story, teeth.
"The Oval Portrait," a Poe story about a painter so absorbed in his work that he fails to notice the death of his wife/model, describes a portrait in the style of Thomas Sully. The BMA happens to own a Sully portrait of a young woman from 1840, with ringlets of pretty hair framing her lovely face, so it provides a fitting focal point for other items dealing with obsessive behavior.
When it comes to illustrations of "The Black Cat," Poe's exercise in pathological cruelty, animal lovers might want to look away.
Among the other great Poe tales referenced in the exhibit is "The Pit and the Pendulum," and the illustrations displayed are still as creepy as they must have been when published in books more than a century ago. "It's a story about political prisoners and torture," Bolger says, "things we still think about and worry about today."
Contemporary issues and feelings are the driving force behind a complementing display on another floor of the BMA, "Baltimore Inspired by Poe," generated by a nonprofit organization called Art on Purpose. This exhibit will run concurrently with the main event.
Art on Purpose "uses art to bring people together around issues that matter to them," says director Peter Bruun. "At four local libraries, we invited residents to talk about Poe, to look at some of the pieces in the BMA exhibit and use that as a jumping point to create art." Four teaching artists also participated in the project.
The eclectic results include an 8-year-old's soothing abstract counterpoint to Motherwell's angry abyss; a recovering addict's haunting self-portrait; and a view of a rodent- and shadow-riddled Baltimore street that Bruun describes as "a direct link to 'The Pit and the Pendulum.' "
The goal of "Baltimore Inspired by Poe" is "to have people recognize Poe and their own experiences," Bruun says, "and to give space to people who don't think of themselves as artists. We're sending out a clear message that the community should feel welcome and at home at the BMA. And we are explicitly putting that community on display."
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