Scouting: Gilded Age Selfies

Today was one of those gloomy, rainy days when curling up on the sofa with a cup of cocoa and a novel seemed like a fantastic idea. Instead, I decided to rally and make a visit to Beauty’s Legacy: Gilded Age Portraits in America an exhibit showcasing selections from the New York Historical Society Museum’s permanent collection. Culture!

Gilded Age Portraits at the New York Historical Society Museum; Image Source

The portraits are of prominent members of New York Society and something occurred to me as I walked through the gallery that made me feel brilliant. When that happens I try to enjoy the moment, so I hope you'll indulge me for a minute. This is my theory: Gilded Age portraits are the selfies of yesteryear. 

I’ll pause while you contemplate that idea for a moment….

This is my reasoning. In the introductory text the curators described how having a portrait painted was the intersection of “art, beauty, and celebrity” and was intended to document and emphasize a family’s wealth, history, and power. No judgment for folks who love posting selfies, but think about it. These people were essentially the Blair Waldorfs and Chuck Basses of yesteryear and had portraits painted to show how great or beautiful they were, right? The purpose is the same. I mean, check this guy out. He certainly seems to be sending some sort of message and I think the same is true of our modern day social networking. Something to consider the next time you pass by a gilt framed portrait or scroll through your Facebook feed…

James Hazen Hyde, 1901; Theobald Chartran; Image Source

Final thought on the exhibit is that the curators did a fantastic job making these people real and compelling by sprinkling the bios that accompany each painting with hints of scandal. Exactly the types of things that would grace the cover of US Weekly or headline on Gawker: disappearing husbands, shockingly expensive costume balls, business meltdowns! I highly recommend this exhibit anyone who is interested in celebrity culture and wants to get a glimpse of the people who were the 1890s answer to The One Percent. Fascinating.

Mrs. Middleton Shoolbred Burrill, 1899; Benjamin Curtis Porter

Scouting: Chagall

I took a walk across the park and along the Jackie Onassis Reservoir earlier this week to check out an exhibit of Marc Chagall’s paintings called “Love, War and Exile” at the Jewish Museum on the Upper East Side. My familiarity with Chagall before I went was minimal – like, “Hey wasn’t there a plot point in Notting Hill about Chagall?” level minimal. But, after I missed the Dutch Masters at the Frick earlier this year I refused to miss this one too. I mean, it’s New York! I should be seeing great art, not spending my time catching up on Scandal! (not that there's anything wrong with that…)

The show was titled “Love, War and Exile”, so I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I wasn’t really prepared for the emotion in Chagall’s work – tenderness, despair, urgency. His experience as a Russian-born, Jewish man who fled to the United States from Paris during World War II is very clear in his paintings and the allegorical scenes portraying the danger Jewish people were in during that terrible time are powerful and dark.

Perhaps no surprise, but I gravitated toward the lighter pieces depicting Chagall’s relationship with his first wife, Bella. No photos allowed in the gallery, but thanks to the magic of the internet I was able to find images so you can see my favorites. The first two are from the 1930s – more than 15 years after they married! - and the second two were painted in the years following her passing in 1944. The colors are gorgeous and I’m not an art historian by any means, but I see so much intimacy and tenderness in the closeness of the figures. Amazing and definitely worth checking out before the show closes this weekend, assuming that you already know what Olivia Pope and Associates are up to.

Marc Chagall, Lovers Among Lilacs, 1930; Source

Marc Chagall, The Lovers, 1937; Source

Marc Chagall, The Wedding Candles, 1945; Source

Marc Chagall, Anniversary Flowers, 1947; Source