{"id":9295,"date":"2023-01-29T21:18:15","date_gmt":"2023-01-29T21:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=9295"},"modified":"2023-01-30T18:56:29","modified_gmt":"2023-01-30T18:56:29","slug":"making-modernism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=9295","title":{"rendered":"Making Modernism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Royal Academy, till 12 February<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Apples on wall\/ Gabriele M\u00fcnter<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Making Modernism is my kind of exhibition. It\u2019s not vast, so I don\u2019t feel anxious about being able to take it in all in one go. It showcases the work of four women \u2013 what\u2019s not to like? \u2013 two of which I\u2019ve heard of and two who are unfamiliar, so I\u2019ll see some pictures I know and love, and discover new ones. And the genres and media vary widely: landscapes, portraits and interiors; painting, drawing and sculpture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though her paintings, drawings and etchings are by far the most sombre, both in palette and in subject matter, K\u00e4the Kollwitz<\/strong> is an artist whose work I\u2019ve loved ever since I first came across her (thanks, Neil McGregor).<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dead Child\/K\u00e4the Kollwitz<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Has there ever been an image more powerful than Dead Child<\/em>? It is a Pieta without the palliative effect of drapery and transcendent expressions. In fact, you can\u2019t even see the face of the mother as she cradles her dead child. But you can hear her silent howl of grief. The force of her love is expressed in the brute strength of her limbs, which can offer no defence against her crushing vulnerability. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By contrast, vibrant colour is at the heart of Gabriele M\u00fcnter<\/strong>\u2019s work. She was a member of the NVKM, which spawned the influential Blue Rider movement, and had a long relationship with Vasily Kandinsky. Her style evolved from Impressionism to Expressionism, as her signature bold outlines and flat colours emerged. Her paintings in this exhibition range from the cool, detached Portrait of Anna Roslund<\/em> (used for the poster advertising this exhibition) to a lively interior showing painter Emma Bossi (also featured in this exhibition) debating animatedly with Kandinsky, to a close-cropped image of red apples against a purple wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Mother and child\/Paula Modersohn-Becker<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Would we be more likely to have heard of Paula Modersohn-Becker<\/strong> if she had not died of complications from childbirth at the age of 31. I wouldn\u2019t bet on it. Yet she too displays a remarkable range. Landscape with Windblown Trees<\/em> is such an immediate response to the landscape surrounding the Worpswede artists\u2019 colony that you can feel the chill. Elsewhere she challenges the male gaze with her solid, practical nudes \u2013 one of them, in a first for a female painter, a portrait of herself when pregnant, serenely in the face of what is to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a Russian who trained with realist painter Ilya Repin, Marianne Werefkin<\/strong> came from a different tradition but ultimately developed her own highly distinctive style: her portrait The Dancer Alexander Sakharoff<\/em> emphases his ambiguous sexuality with its bold palette and stylised shapes. Similarly stylised, but completely different in mood, The Twins<\/em> is a strangely unsettling painting, the Buddha-like babes clearly exercising some malign influenced on their whey-faced carers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Twins\/Marianne Werefkin<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Three other artists have works featured in the exhibition \u2013 Emma Bossi, Ottilie Reylander and Jacoba Van Heemskerk \u2013 that confirm their personal contribution to the Modernist agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making Modernism is on until 12 February, and I\u2019m contemplating a return visit. The variety of genres, the robust challenge to images of femininity, and the emotional charge make this exhibition a richly rewarding experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This exhibition is a richly rewarding experience<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[73,316,70,309],"tags":[500,501,499],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9295"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9295"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9322,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9295\/revisions\/9322"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}