Lessons to be Learnt from The Wizard of Oz and Matisse

Imagine you’re Dorothy.  You have just escaped Auntie Em and a life of rusticated farm-life.  You step out of your house, and no more black-and-white, but BOOM!  It’s a colour explosion, where you are literally on the other side of the rainbow.  And never mind those Munchkins...

 
What would you think, honestly?  That you are in some strange kind of fever-dream?  Or that you have accidentally ingested a potent hallucinogenic (let’s forget for the moment that Dorothy probably doesn’t know what that is)?  Or, simply, that you’ve just gone crazy?

 


Henri Matisse. 1869–1954, Portrait of Lydia Delectorskaya, 1947. Oil on canvas, 64.5 x 49.5 cm. The State Hermitage Museum, Saint-Petersburg.

 

I think it fair enough to say that these feelings may be eerily similar to those experienced by Matisse and co. upon their first discoveries of the Impressionists, and the likes of van Gogh and John Peter Russell.  Whilst initially taken aback by the liberal use of colour and the breaking of the rules in their painting, Matisse, Munch, and the Fauves (which literally means “The Wild Ones”), went even further.  They broke into abstraction, broke the subject down and simplified it, and colour: bold, unadulterated colour was the basis of all their work.

 
Do you think that if Dorothy knew what lay in wait for her on the other side of the rainbow that she would have been as eager to go? Unlike Dorothy, as the Fauves opened up a bright, shiny, new Technicolour world with their artwork, it is impossible for us to go back.  The age of suppressed and reserved art, the era of black-and-white, has gone.  The question is, do we behave like the Scarecrow and the Tin-Man, ready to face this new and exciting world (albeit one tinged with a few flying monkeys), or do we cower like the Cowardly Lion?  I leave it to you to decide... Remember, there’s no place like home but it’s up to you how you decorate it!

 


Henri Matisse, The Dance, 1909-1910. Oil on canvas, 260 x 391 cm. The State Hermitage Museum, Saint-Petersburg.

 

The Museum Folkwang in Germany is giving visitors a chance to step into their very own version of Oz, with the help of the Fauves and the Expressionists.  I promise that you will not encounter a single Wicked Witch of the West...and no, mother-in-laws do not count.  The Ecstasy of Colour exhibition is ongoing until the 13^th January 2013, so if you are in the area, make sure to pencil it into your diary!  If you can’t quite make it before January, not to worry.  You’ll be able to catch up with Parkstone International’s very own Munch, by Elizabeth Ingles, or Expressionism, written by Ashley Bassie.

Centennial Vortexes

You can blame it on my being an emotional woman if you’d like, I take full responsibility for that, but when I discovered the Wallraf-Richardtz-Museum’s intention to reunite some of the pieces from the 1912 Sonderbund Exhibition of Post-Impressionism through German Expressionism, featuring Van Gogh, Cézanne, Gauguin, Munch, Picasso, Macke, Nolde, Schiele, Signac, etc., I got a bit teary-eyed.

Pieces that have been separated (and sometimes out of view) will be reunited in Cologne until year’s end. It’s reminiscent of one’s days in University and coming back so many years later (clearly not 100) to see how much you’ve changed – or in the case of these paintings and sculptures, hopefully not changed – over time. Maybe one of the girls in the paintings featured below is still alive and will turn up!

 


Pablo Picasso, Le Gourmet (The Greedy Child), 1901.
Oil on canvas, 92.8 x 68.3 cm.
Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

 


Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Fränzi in front of a Carved Chair, 1910.
Oil on canvas, 71 x 49.5 cm.
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.

 


Egon Schiele, Seated Girl Facing Front, 1911.
Watercolour and pencil, 46.5 x 31.8 cm.
Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlung, Munich.

 

There is a fear in the back of my mind, however, that in reuniting these pieces in the same city 100 years later, in a year that’s predicted to end the world, that a vortex will open up and visitors will end up in some alternate universe. Were that universe one with Schiele and friends hanging out enjoying a few glasses of absinthe, I might be keen to jump through and not look back. Sadly, I’m willing to place bets that the other side of that vortex is one of zombies without ears, boundless womanising, and crippling bouts of manic-depression – maybe not so much unlike society today. Would you jump through the vortex unknowing what you’d find?

Nevertheless, I say take the chance and do yourself a favour; book a ticket to Cologne immediately to see 1912-Mission Moderne, as this opportunity to see over 100 pieces of the wonder that was Sonderbund in one place will not come again in our lifetime. Whether you can or cannot make it, purchase these beautiful representations of the pieces on display and more in ebook form: Cézanne, Gauguin, Kirchner, Picasso, Schiele, and Van Gogh.

-Le Lorrain Andrews