Despite a few mild days, we are still wearing winter coats on our walks. And even today there was snow in southern Ontario, as there has been several times recently. Not here, thankfully, but it's cold. The daffs finally bloomed, but they are not happy.
Tomorrow we visit Detroit for a Friday evening concert featuring the Julliard String Quartet. We also have mailbox business, namely some film I ordered for the classic cameras. It will have to be sunny, though, as though cameras were not designed for anything but California weather. I am excited by this photo project, and can't wait to snap some film. We are also attending a gallery opening at the incredible Red Bull Gallery in Eastern Market. The gallery welcomes artists for a lengthy residency, then exhibits their work. Three artists will be represented by this show.
Saturday we visit Detroit for the 2nd concert. Again we will hear the Julliard Quarter perform! They will be superb concerts! And Sunday, if we can stand crossing the border yet again, we will hear Helene Grimaud perform with the DSO. So a great weekend coming up.
Taxes are done for another year. We will be getting a small return, which we will use for something fun.
When one things of Edgar Degas, one does not automatically think of landscape art. One usually thinks of ballerinas. However, Degas also loved horses, and he combines that passion with several outdoors scenes. Detroit has six paintings by the master, as well as numerous drawings, and even a small sculpture. Of the six paintings only one is of the ballet. Two are single portraits, one is a double portrait, and the remaining two are landscapes with horses and riders.
Morning Ride, Degas, ca. 1866, Detroit Institute of Arts.
85 cm x 65 cm
I remember first seeing this painting many years ago and being quite disappointed. The main reason was that the artist left the painting unfinished. These days I tend to like unfinished paintings. The sketchy ghostliness of the horses and riders seems appropriate somehow, especially considering that they are long passed out of this world. And yet Degas has given them a type of eternal life, forever riding through the green, grassy landscape. The beach scene is in Normandy. Degas would sketch on the canvas, and then paint over it, and when up close one can see his methods. Bruegel used to do the same thing, and his pencil marks are still visible on the Detroit Wedding Dance.
Detail of above.
Jockeys on Horseback, 1884, Degas, Detroit Institute of Arts.
45 cm x 55 cm
Jockeys on Horseback is one of the finest paintings by Degas I have ever seen. It is incredibly rich in colour, and the high viewpoint combined with the falling and then rising landscape is an absolutely brilliant idea. This is a painting I could look at for a very long time. It entered the collection in 1998, and is on loan to exhibitions more than it is in the museum. I find it a completely fascinating window from which to look out onto the world. The individual horses and the colourful clothes of the jockeys make me appreciate Degas more than almost any other picture by him I have seen. I can almost hear the horses snorting and snuffling, and the voices of the jockeys seem to come clearly through the air. A truly marvellous picture!
Detail of above.
Detail of background.
I should have a report on our Detroit experiences on Sunday evening.
Mapman Mike
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