When we visit the Netherlands or come across the Dutch abroad, we always feel they know how to relax and enjoy life. Visit Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden and you'll see in their latest exhibition that this joie de vivre has a long tradition. The gallery is looking back 400 years to the birth in the city of Jan Steen, who frequently painted his countrymen having a good time. And yes, on occasion, perhaps just a little bit too much of a good time. In this show, At Home with Jan Steen -- 400 Years of Merrymaking , you will discover why the Dutch use the expression "a Jan Steen household" for a home where, well, things are maybe just a bit too free and easy. This is the painting that sums it up: What a jolly time everyone is having in The Merry Family . To the accompaniment of music, they are indeed making merry: singing, drinking and smoking. All are taking part; the old, the young, and even a baby wielding a spoon. The baby's not partaking of the alcohol or tobacco, adm...
We're going to start our September preview in Paris, where an absolute stunner of an exhibition is set to open belatedly at the Petit Palais: The Golden Age of Danish Painting. That Golden Age lasted for just over 60 years from the start of the 19th century when artists such as Christen Købke expressed a growing national pride in works of precision and clarity tinged with romanticism. We got to see this fabulous show early last year at the National Museum in Stockholm. It's on in Paris from September 22 to January 3, and if you get the chance to go, don't hesitate.
A few minutes walk away, at the Musée de l'Orangerie, Giorgio de Chirico: Metaphysical Painting opens on September 16. De Chirico's enigmatic art from the first two decades of the 20th century draws on the German Romantics and prefigures the Surrealists. After it closes on December 14 it will transfer to the Kunsthalle in Hamburg early next year.
If you head down the Seine from Paris to the Musée des Impressionismes at Giverny, you can see around 90 American Impressionist landscapes from the collection of the Terra Foundation for American Art, with Whistler among the artists represented. The Studio of Nature, 1860-1910 runs from September 12 to January 3.
Back across the Channel, the Museum of London Docklands unveils the Havering Hoard: A Bronze Age Mystery on September 11. This free show explores the largest trove of Bronze Age objects ever uncovered in the capital, more than 450 in all dating from between 900 BC and 800 BC. The last exhibition we reviewed at the Docklands Museum -- on the Roman Dead -- was really outstanding. This new show runs until April 18.
Before coronavirus, when jostling to see an iconic painting in a crowded gallery, did you ever wish you could have it all to yourself? Well, now here's your chance, at the Mauritshuis in The Hague from September 26 to January 3, to be Alone with Vermeer. There's just one picture in this exhibition, and it's Johannes Vermeer's View of Delft. For Marcel Proust, it was "the most beautiful painting in the world", and for us, it's a picture whose luminosity astonishes every time we see it in the Mauritshuis. Book a time slot, on your own or with a small group, and immerse yourself in a masterpiece with absolutely no distractions....
One English artist who admired the Dutch enormously was Constable, and for the first time a Constable retrospective is being held in the Netherlands, at the venerable Teylers Museum in Haarlem. John Constable starts on September 19 and will be on until January 31, featuring loans from the UK and Canada. It's a bit of a year for English art in Holland, with the George Stubbs show just ended at the Mauritshuis.
At the Kunsthalle in Hamburg, before they get to De Chirico, it's time for one of his close contemporaries. Max Beckmann: Feminine-Masculine from September 25 to January 24 includes some 140 works examining the often contradictory roles played by men and women in the German modernist's oeuvre.
September 7 is the final day at the Saint Louis Art Museum for Millet and Modern Art: From Van Gogh to Dalí, demonstrating the astonishing influence of Jean-François Millet on the painters who succeeded him down the decades. We enjoyed this show enormously when we saw it at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam last year.
Ending on September 13 is Forgotten Masters: Indian Painting for the East India Company at the Wallace Collection in London. Far exceeding our expectations, this showcased exquisite Anglo-Indian art from the 18th and 19th centuries that deserves a far wider audience.
We love Edward Hopper, and the show of his landscapes at the Fondation Beyeler, just outside Basel, has been one of the highlights of this severely curtailed year of exhibitions. It's on until September 20, with the bonus of a cinematic homage to Hopper by Wim Wenders.
And that's also the last day at the National Gallery in London for Nicolaes Maes, pupil of Rembrandt and best known for his pictures of mistresses eavesdropping on misbehaving servants. No admission charge at the National to this show, which we saw at the Mauritshuis in 2019.
At the Royal Academy, September 20 is also the final day to see the work of Léon Spilliaert, who wandered the nighttime streets of Ostend, plagued by insomnia and stomach troubles, to produce some haunting pictures.
A show that never made it to the Royal Academy due to coronavirus was the one looking back at the career of one its two founding female members, Angelica Kauffman, an artist who had the talent and the will to break through a lot of 18th-century glass ceilings. The exhibition is still to be seen at the Kunstpalast in Dusseldorf, again ending on September 20.
Please do check museum websites for booking details, opening times and conditions of entry, as these vary greatly and are liable to change.
A Bronze Age axe head from the Havering Hoard. © Museum of London
Johannes Vermeer, View of Delft, c. 1660-61, Mauritshuis, The Hague
Jean-François Millet, The Gleaners, 1857, Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Léon Spilliaert, Woman at the Shoreline, 1910, Private collection. Photo: © Cedric Verhelst
If you head down the Seine from Paris to the Musée des Impressionismes at Giverny, you can see around 90 American Impressionist landscapes from the collection of the Terra Foundation for American Art, with Whistler among the artists represented. The Studio of Nature, 1860-1910 runs from September 12 to January 3.
Back across the Channel, the Museum of London Docklands unveils the Havering Hoard: A Bronze Age Mystery on September 11. This free show explores the largest trove of Bronze Age objects ever uncovered in the capital, more than 450 in all dating from between 900 BC and 800 BC. The last exhibition we reviewed at the Docklands Museum -- on the Roman Dead -- was really outstanding. This new show runs until April 18.
At the Kunsthalle in Hamburg, before they get to De Chirico, it's time for one of his close contemporaries. Max Beckmann: Feminine-Masculine from September 25 to January 24 includes some 140 works examining the often contradictory roles played by men and women in the German modernist's oeuvre.
Last chance to see....
We love Edward Hopper, and the show of his landscapes at the Fondation Beyeler, just outside Basel, has been one of the highlights of this severely curtailed year of exhibitions. It's on until September 20, with the bonus of a cinematic homage to Hopper by Wim Wenders.
And that's also the last day at the National Gallery in London for Nicolaes Maes, pupil of Rembrandt and best known for his pictures of mistresses eavesdropping on misbehaving servants. No admission charge at the National to this show, which we saw at the Mauritshuis in 2019.
At the Royal Academy, September 20 is also the final day to see the work of Léon Spilliaert, who wandered the nighttime streets of Ostend, plagued by insomnia and stomach troubles, to produce some haunting pictures.
Please do check museum websites for booking details, opening times and conditions of entry, as these vary greatly and are liable to change.
Images
Christen Købke, One of the Small Towers on Frederiksborg Castle, 1834-35, Designmuseum Denmark, Copenhagen. Photo: Pernille KlempA Bronze Age axe head from the Havering Hoard. © Museum of London
Johannes Vermeer, View of Delft, c. 1660-61, Mauritshuis, The Hague
Jean-François Millet, The Gleaners, 1857, Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Léon Spilliaert, Woman at the Shoreline, 1910, Private collection. Photo: © Cedric Verhelst
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