French Moderns, at the Frick Art Museum through October 11, brings an impressive collection of Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, and more to Pittsburgh. There are even a couple of Academics thrown in to show us what the moderns were rebelling against. Here is a selection from the show.
A rainy November afternoon is the perfect time to spend an hour or two in the art museum. Here are a few of the things you might see if you visited the Carnegie right now.
Aurora Leigh, by John White Alexander, 1904: an imaginative portrait of the heroine of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s verse novel. Alexander’s last and greatest work was the decoration of the Grand Staircase in the Carnegie, so you’ll have a chance to see those murals, too.
Sunrise Synchromy in Violet, by Stanton Macdonald-Wright, 1918.
Rue de L’Abreuvoir, by Maurice Utrillo, 1911.
Harbor Mole, by Lionel Feininger, 1923.
Rue de Beaujour, Pontoise, by Camille Pissarro, 1872.
“No woman has a right to draw like that,” said her friend Edgar Degas when he saw this painting—a compliment Mary Cassatt remembered for years. Mary Cassatt was born in 1844 in Allegheny (now the North Side of Pittsburgh) and grew up there. She studied art in Philadelphia for a while, but spent most of her life in France after that—although it is to the honor of Pittsburgh’s cultured citizens that, when she had to come back to America for a while, one of the first people to recognize Cassatt’s talent and give her a professional commission was Michael Domenec, the Roman Catholic bishop of Pittsburgh.
This painting is one of the treasures of the Carnegie Museum of Art, whose collection of Impressionists is worth traveling a long way to see.
“Every year, on the 10th day of April, the fire-bells ring out the number 1-8-4-5, in memory of the baptism of fire that comes, sooner or later, to nearly every city. Like all great disasters of this kind, the origin was trifling. While the loyal but noisy fire-cracker decorates the historical shield of the fire department of Portland, Maine, and the combination of a kicking cow and a coal-oil lamp that of Chicago, the homely but useful wash-boiler stands as a reminder of the greatest disaster that has ever fallen on Pittsburgh. Early in the morning of the 10th of April, I845, an extra hot fire under a wash-boiler, in a poor tenement at the corner of Ferry street and Second street, now second avenue, started a fire which, for lack of water, was soon beyond the control of the fire department. A high wind carried the burning fire-brands over the different portions of the city, and in a few hours one-third of the geographical extent of the city and two-thirds of its value, was only a mass of charred cinders. The estimated loss was from six to eight million dollars, while twelve thousand people, most of whom had been in good circumstances, were rendered homeless. Fortunately but two persons lost their lives, one being Mr. Samuel Kingston, and the other Mrs. Malone. This was a severe blow to the business interests of the city, but with remarkable pluck the work of rebuilding was begun at once. The most liberal settlements were made by those having goods here on commission, generous aid was extended to the sufferers, and the city rallied rapidly from what otherwise would have been its death knell.”
—The Illustrated Guide and Handbook of Pittsburgh and Allegheny (1887), p. 20.
Here is another illustration by the talented painter Edward Trumbull from an advertisement for the Standard Sanitary Mfg. Co. of Pittsburgh. Trumbull’s thought seems to have been that he didn’t need to render the bathroom itself appealing to sell plumbing fixtures; in fact, the bathroom is seen only through a curtained doorway. Instead, his pictures suggest that the plumbing fixtures are an essential part of a life that is much more colorful and exciting than the life you live, and perhaps your life could be just as delightful if you only had “Standard” plumbing fixtures.
“A series of unusually artistic mural paintings by Trumbull always interests visitors to ‘The Home of the 57,’ ” says a 1924 Heinz advertisement in The Delineator. For many years the Heinz factory tour was one of Pittsburgh’s chief attractions, and Edward Trumbull’s murals in the headquarters building were much admired. The tour is no longer offered, but this advertisement reproduces one of Trumbull’s famous murals: “Scene at Capetown, South Africa. A symbol of Heinz world-wide distribution.”
If you had bought a newspaper in Pittsburgh in about 1850, you probably would have bought it from a child like these. David Gilmour Blythe, Pittsburgh’s master caricaturist, produced a small masterpiece of a character study here. It hangs on a whole wall of David Gilmour Blythe paintings in the Carnegie Museum of Art; the curators date it to some time from 1846 to 1852.
Because we cannot get to the museum right now, old Pa Pitt is bringing the museum to you. Here are two by Pittsburgh’s great satirical painter David Gilmour Blythe. Above, Good Times (c. 1854-1858). Below, Temperance Pledge (c. 1856-1860). They make a good pair. Both are in the Carnegie Museum of Art.
This is probably David Gilmour Blythe’s masterpiece, although old Pa Pitt would certainly listen to arguments in favor of The Coal Carrier. It has all the comical details you expect from one of his larger paintings, perfectly executed and worked into an overall composition that is also just about perfect. And yet there is perhaps a whiff of tragedy in the midst of the comedy: this was probably painted during the Civil War (Blythe didn’t date most of his paintings, so we’re just guessing), when you would have seen a crush at the General Delivery window every time the mail came in, because hundreds of people were waiting to hear whether their sons and brothers and husbands were still alive.
The strange power of Blythe is that he paints humanity at its worst, and yet we come away thinking that humanity is worth saving after all.
