A Day at the Getty(s)

A group from the Santa Barbara Museum Airbused down to LA to visit the Getty Center and the Getty Villa, with an emphasis on Asia and photography, as those were the two curators joining us. In all, there were three independent, but somewhat similar, exhibitions: “Early Photography in China,” “Felice Beato: A Photographer on the Eastern Road,” and “From Jerusalem to Jordan in 19th-century Photography.” In other words, three shows of 19th-century photographs from the Near East and Far East.
All three left me with a question I had going in: what standard does an art museum apply to a photograph that is very old and/or exotic? While some of the pictures on display, especially in the Early Photography show, were interesting from an anthropological standpoint, they had no apparent esthetic interest. For example, two people in native costume, posing in the street, was no different from any millions of travel photos I and others have taken. This was less true of many of Felice Beato’s works, but even there, I would rather have seen ten of the best than the whole array, which was like looking at Uncle Bill’s slide show. In all, it was hard to get very excited by seeing so many old travel photos.
Of far more interest was a two-room show next door in West Pavilion, “Drawings from the Germanic World, 1770-1900,” especially the selections from the early 19th century. They combined a lyrical Romanticism with a Northern precision that was utterly captivating. My favorites were two graphite drawings by Ernst Fries (German, 1801-1833) that were so detailed, with lines so small, that it was hard to believe they could have been done by pencil (who would have the patience!); yet the overall impression was as soft as a watercolor. These works fit neatly into the renewed interest in art of the Danish Golden Age and French plein-art sketches, such as the Met and the Morgan have recently acquired from Wheelock Whitney III and Gene Thaw. The later works were less revelatory, but overall it was an extraordinary exhibition for another reason: almost all the works had been acquired in 2009 and 2010. Once the Getty decided this was a new focus for the collection, it must have entered the field like gangbusters.
Around the corner, in a related gallery of 19th-century European decorative arts, I found one of my alltime favorite paintings: Portrait of Jeanne Kefer, by Fernand Khnopff. The postcard doesn’t do it justice, charming as it is, for it is a closeup of the little redheaded girl in her pink bonnet and brown coat, staring innocently, yet warily at us. It is the fact that she is so small in the larger composition, which is beautifully abstract in its horizontal and vertical lines, that makes her, and the painting, so compelling. I wanted to stare at this painting, alone on its wall, for minutes.
But at the same time, I wanted to run through the entire painting collection, checking for fond memories, like the Dieric Bouts Annunciation on linen. Jean-Etienne Liotard is always worth finding, and his pastel of Maria Frederike, etc., at Seven was a fitting counterpart to the Khnopff, although again, the postcard is insufficient, this time for its colors. To take back to Minneapolis, I jotted down a description from the label for an Albert Moore, “painted with a view to esthetic contemplation and poetic reverie.” Nice.
The one strictly Asian art stop on our tour was a small exhibit of bronzes from the National Museum of Cambodia. To my eye they were slightly less impressive than their stone counterparts, and certainly smaller. Perhaps because of their size, they came across as a bit more finicky, and thus less majestic, than large pieces like our Prajnaparamita at the MIA. Still, there is always a new fact or two to learn; and here I read that the spiral curls atop the Buddha’s head represent his cutting off of his princely length hair.
And while I am collecting full-scale Greek figurative bronzes, of which less than a dozen survive, I should remember to add the male figure at the Getty Villa, although he is less animated and less interesting than the others I have seen in Europe.