Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza

I took my mother and aunt to this exhibition on Cartier jewelry organized at the Thyssen - Bornemisza Museum.

This exhibition and catalog is suitable for dreams.

Cartier was the first to use platinum for diamond settings.

Until then this metal was used just in industry and particularly in the design of the "wagons-lits". Around 1859, Cartier started using the metal for objects such as walking-sticks, and somewhat later for jewelry. It was a complete break-through that allowed the new modern and more dainty designs (Art Nouveau – Art Déco…). They were also pioneers in the Orientalisme trend that was felt across the Arts, using as inspiring sources the arts from Russia, India, Egypt, China and, less so, Japan.

I would have liked just a bit more of historical content in the catalog and a greater discussion on the designs, production and patrons.

Cartier, 13 Rue de la Paix, circa 1915.

… (meer)

Buen catálogo, y buenos textos, para una exposición que fue extraordinaria. Aunque faltaron algunos de los cuadros más populares del pintor norteamericano, estuvieron muchos otros y el conjunto es sobresaliente. Aquí están esas pinturas, junto con otras que permiten ver las influencias y paralelismos de Edward Hopper con otros autores inmediatamente anteriores o contemporáneos. Los textos, como digo, bastante buenos. A veces el texto más largo, dedicado al análisis pictórico y, a la vez, diacrónico de la obra de Hopper, peca un poco de recargado y presuntuoso, pero así escriben los franceses, especialmente si son críticos de arte. Su compañero y co-comisario de la exposición, que diserta sobre "la fortuna crítica de Edward Hopper" es bastante más conciso. Ambos artículos nos ayudan a entender mejor a este pintor tremendamente popular y, de algún modo, aislado entre los artistas del Nuevo Mundo.… (meer)

The museum contains close to 1000 paintings, including 220 works of art from the Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection that were added in 2004, taking you on a journey through the history of European painting from the thirteenth century right up to the late twentieth century. The paintings are displayed chronologically and by style, allowing visitors to follow the most important artistic movements of western painting, from Italian Primitive paintings to the late Surrealist period and the development of Pop art in the 1960s, together with the endurance of the figurative tradition in modern art.

The Museum’s collection acts as a counterpart to the other two museums that form the triangle known as the Paseo de Arte or Art Walk: it complements the collections of ancient artwork contained in the Prado Museum and twentieth century artwork housed in the Reina Sofía Museum, with additional movements and styles not included in these two museums, thus providing a more complete picture: Primitive Italian and Dutch painters, the German Renaissance, seventeenth century Dutch art, Impressionism, German Expressionism, Russian Constructivism, Geometric Abstraction and Pop Art. It also has an outstanding collection of nineteenth century American art, which is practically unknown in Europe, to which the Museum dedicates four of its exhibition rooms.… (meer)