CLEVELAND.- The Cleveland Museum of Art ( CMA ) announced several key additions to its collection approved by the Collections Committee at its March meeting, including a Set of Twelve Fan Paintings by the 20th century Chinese artist, Fu Baoshi, a Gothic Bible, a Régence console made in Paris in the 1720s, and an important self-portrait by Max Beckmann.
“The Cleveland Museum of Art is committed to strengthening an encyclopedic collection that is already widely considered to be one of the finest of its type in this country,” CMA Director Timothy Rub said. “Of the works of art we have recently acquired by gift or purchase, a superb French bible from the late 13th century with splendid illuminated capitals and marginal illustrations and a rare etching by Jean-Antoine Watteau are important additions to our collection of European art. And with the addition of twelve fan paintings by Fu Baoshi, the CMA has demonstrated its commitment to extending its holdings of Chinese art into the modern period.”
Set of Twelve Fan Paintings by Fu Baoshi The artistic excellence and profundity of expression attained by Fu Baoshi (Chinese, 1904-65) in his late career is best exemplified by the Set of Twelve Fan Paintings that this artist created 1960s and were approved for purchase by the Museum’s Collections Committee. Despite their diminutive format, these works represent a mastery of technique and a monumentality of scale that perfectly demonstrates the Chinese aesthetic of “seeing large within small.” As noted by art historian Michael Sullivan, Fu Baoshi’s small paintings have “a breadth of vision, an air of mystery, a poetic intensity, not matched by any other modern Chinese artist.”
In traditional terms, the themes of many of these painted fans, like gazing at waterfalls and listening to the sound of nature, evoke the literati ideal of man in harmony with nature. However, in post-1949 China, when these fans were created, such themes seemed out of touch with contemporary life and were associated with an elitism that was inconsistent with the role of art defined by the Communist Party. As a painter, teacher, and art historian who declared his faith in traditional Chinese painting, Fu nevertheless had to make the necessary adjustments so that landscapes would be perceived as patriotic while the figures depicted within them would be construed as revolutionary.
What makes this set so valuable and interesting is that the majority of the paintings bear dedicatory inscriptions indicating that they were painted for the artist’s wife, Shihui, and his eldest daughter, Yishan. They reveal not only the intimacy of personal feelings and the deepest responses of the human soul during an era of revolutionary change.
An exceptional example of a Gothic Bible in quarto format Also acquired by CMA was an exceptional example of a Gothic Bible in a quarto format. It dates to the late 13th century and was most likely created in Toulouse, in southwestern France. The most remarkable feature of the volume is its size, which sets it entirely apart from the smaller single-volume octavo Bibles produced in Paris from the same period of the 1220s. It was clearly produced, however, with an awareness of these Parisian Bibles: the text is written in two columns of dense script, and is divided and marked by small initials, allowing all parts of Scripture to be encompassed in a single book.
Bibles were fundamental texts for many contexts—ecclesiastical, academic, and judicial—during the Middle Ages. Crafted with the finest materials and designed by the most talented artists of the time, such manuscripts were therefore highly prized and important possessions of churches, cathedral schools and universities throughout medieval Europe .
This rare Gothic Bible (illuminated manuscript in Latin; brown morocco binding; ink, tempera and gold on vellum; about 1275-1300), which is an excellent state of preservation, provides CMA’s celebrate collections of medieval art with its earliest bound manuscript and only complete Bible. It is distinguished by a large number of illuminated capitals throughout and superb full-page illuminated capitals at the beginning of the Old and New Testaments.
The vulgate Bible, which St. Jerome translated from Hebrew and Greek into Latin in the 4th century from, became the definitive and officially promulgated version of the Bible of the Roman Church. Until the 13th century, the books of the Bible were published separately and read in any order, but during this period the Bible was, for the first time, produced as a single volume with an officially sanctioned order to its books and chapters.
Régence console symbol of 18th-century Parisian wealth The handsome Régence console, dating to the mid-1720s, has been attributed to the Société pour les Bâtiments du Roi (King’s Works) and is a exceptional example of the creative flair that characterized the decorative arts in France in the early 18th century. Intended to take its place in a carefully coordinated scheme of interior decoration, it may have been designed by the architect Gilles-Marie Oppenordt, who was associated at this time with a number of artists of the Société pour les Bâtiments du Roi, including Jules Degullons, André Legoupil, Marin Bellan, and Pierre Taupin.
This piece has been acquired to be displayed with a Régence mirror already in the collection in the newly renovated galleries of the second floor of CMA ’s 1916 building when it reopens to the public in late June 2008. This decoration of this console, with its many references to antiquity such as open palmettes, a masque of Medusa, acanthus leaves, egg and dart molding, and its dramatic display of militaria, is representative of the late Baroque period. In its movement and animated detailing, it also reveals the French decorative arts on the cusp of development of the Rococo style.
It is crowned with a deep red Griotte de Campan marble carved to conform to the top with a return molding. This is an original feature, only observed on the most ornate 18th century marble topped furniture. The unusually wide stance of the legs suggests that this console would have been made to provide the base for an equally imposing mirror.
Beckmann Self-Portrait in Bowler Hat icon of print making Max Beckmann (German, 1884-1950) executed more than 80 self-portraits in all media during his career. Self-Portrait with Bowler Hat is one of his most important prints and an icon of modern printmaking.
One of the leading German artists of the 20th century, Beckmann is best known for his enigmatic allegorical compositions illustrating the trials and tribulations of the human condition. Beckmann’s harrowing experience as a medical orderly in World War I transformed his art into one peopled with the disaffected and disenfranchised who reflect Germany ’s crumbling postwar society.
In Self-Portrait in Bowler Hat (drypoint, 1921) he uses drypoint to great advantage, building a powerful likeness of himself within a compressed and enigmatic interior space using strong, slashing strokes of the etching needled. Exploiting the unique characteristics of this technique, the artist created areas of deep shadow and strong, velvety lines. Parallel and crosshatched strokes delineate a three-dimensional face that is framed by patches of dense black ink. In this work, Beckmann presents himself not as an artist, but as a well-to-do burgher with bowler hat, suit, tie and cigarette. Behind the façade of material success and respectability lies the reality of a violent and chaotic Germany .