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In Australia, Edwardian architecture has a permanent presence in our consciousness, for it has survived here better than elsewhere. It is a constant reminder of the luxurious elegance of those years, and so it comes as no surprise that such a novel exhibition has been conceived. The first survey exhibition on Edwardian art, at the National Gallery of Australia, curated by Anna Gray, is a revelation. She has chosen a remarkable selection of works, from Australian and international collections.
From room to room, formidable and flamboyant artists from the years of Edward VII’s reign, from 1901 to 1910, engage in lively debates with one another, their subjects and their collectors. Unlike survey shows which have mini monographs of a succession of individual artists, The Edwardians demonstrates the complex interrelationships between artists by a series of thoughtful juxtapositions, of paintings, small bronze sculptures, clothes (whether Roger Fry’s pyjamas or Dame Nellie Melba’s Wagnerian cloak) and cinematic extracts from early newsreels, all in dialogue with one another. The dialogue is subtle, constant and refined. It occurs between different countries, but principally between Australia and England, as artists question whether they are British or Australian, depending on their parentage, identity and location. The portraits by Tom Roberts done in England look very different, indeed Edwardian, from those he produced during his Australian years. Ann Galbally’s contribution to the catalogue is a subtle exploration of ‘expatriatism’ in art.
The exhibition opens with a Rodin sculpture of a muse in meditation, in fact the idea for a monument to Whistler, for which the artist Gwen John modelled as the muse. From the entrance, the spectator is alerted to a complex visual dialogue in a meditative installation. Both Whistler and John are represented by spectacular examples of their work. The opening room of ‘Society and Exhibition Portraits’ shows Whistler’s vision of Ethel Birnie Philip, dramatically turning her back in her swish grey-black Andalusian dress. The title of Whistler’s work, Mother of pearl and silver: the Andalusian, sets the tone for the innumerable subtleties with which luxurious swashes of white and black materials are depicted. Whistler’s Andalusian is counterpoised with the most gorgeous work in the show, Rupert Bunny’s portrait of the geisha, Madame Sadayakko as Kesa (Philip Bacon Collection, Brisbane), reputed to have inspired Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. Somehow the restraint of a pure white kimono, slashed by a pink obo. painted by one of the most sensual artists ever, vibrates an intensity that refers to the subtitle of the show, ‘Secrets and Desires’. The exquisite formality of these portraits, which move between likeness and formalism, hints at complex private relationships, beginning with Edward VII.
In the opening room, the Italian artist Giovanni Boldini steals the show with a portrait of a collector, Mrs Lionel Phillips (Dublin City Gallery), painted in Paris in 1903. Sickert described Boldini as the parent of the wriggle and chiffon school of portraiture, and the serpentine wriggle is shown here to great effect, a backdrop to her comely bosom. In other sections of the exhibition there is always a surprising mix of names. In the second room, ‘Interiors’, gender balance between artists is achieved, one half of the artists being female, a unique achievement in any exhibition.
The loans are spectacular, a phenomenon in itself. One example, on the catalogue’s cover – John Singer Sargent’s The Fountain, Villa Torlonia, from the Art Institute, Chicago – shows Jane de Glehn, perched on a balustrade painting, in a voluminous white smock. More postcards sell of this image than any other in Chicago. Why? Is it the combination of beauty, sunlight and companionship, conveyed with lush brushwork? Or is there some other Edwardian secret, some inner contentment of existence that we all secretly aspire to obtain. that makes this an image to be taken home?
A charming ephemeral publication, Meet the Edwardians with Maurice – a family trail for children – is being handed out with tickets. It has provided a successful means whereby children can take their parents or grandparents on a visit to the show on their own terms. The cover has a detail from a George Lambert painting, of an infant called Maurice, who acts as guide. In the painting, Maurice has thrown off his clothes to go down to the beach. In the context of the gallery, younger viewers take the booklet in hand confident of his leadership as they enter the exhibit with him, as if they were going for a swim.
I left the exhibition with the feeling that I had encountered a genuinely radical new vision of a past period. The subject could almost be called radical chic. Indeed, the title The Edwardians sounds boringly conservative. But once experienced, the exhibition presents a novelty of a particularly Australian kind, moving between the art of Europe and the Antipodes, making sense of the period in a way that is unforgettable. Could impressionism, post-impressionism, or modernism, be treated in the same way, with such a cocktail of different artists in similar exhibitions?
Catalogue details:
Anna Gray (with essays by Ann Galbally, Kenneth McConkey, Benedict Read and Christine Riding)
The Edwardians: Secrets and Desires
Thames & Hudson. $35pb, 261pp, 0642 54149 3
Exhibition dates:
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
12 March-14 June 2004
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