Poussin Exhibition in London and Los Angeles – Culture

Painting a smile convincingly is at least as difficult as faking a smile when you don’t feel like it. In both cases, exposing the teeth is easy to flake. One of the most beautiful discoveries of the exhibition “Poussin and the Dance” in the London National Gallery is therefore the smiling faces that look down at the visitor from the paintings. Be it the grin of the female centaurs pulling the wine god’s chariot in “Triumph of Bacchus”, be it the enigmatic cheerfulness of the dancers in “Dance to the Music of Time” or the calm smile of Venus in “Triumph of Neptune and the Amphitrite “. One might think that Nicolas Poussin was the most cheerful baroque painter ever.

Besides Claude Lorrain, probably the most important French painter of the 17th century was certainly Poussin. King Louis XIV even officially named him “France’s First Painter”. And like von Lorrain, his works were diligently collected in Great Britain, so that the National Gallery can boast the second largest collection of Poussins ever after the Louvre. The classicist among the baroque artists who spent a large part of his life in Italy is regarded as cheerful or relaxed, but by no means. One associates him with a statuesque seriousness shaped by the study of antiquity, an intellectualization of his mythological subjects – captured in pastose colors influenced by Titian.

The exhibition actually brings out a different Poussin

That is why the approach that the National Gallery has chosen for its first monographic show of this artist in a quarter of a century, which will travel to Los Angeles in February, is remarkable: Emily Beeny and Francesca Whitlum-Cooper have focused on the representation of dance in their work concentrated and in the process actually brought out another, a far less marble Poussin. It turns out that in his bacchanalian, surprisingly daring scenes, he was not painting from life. During his first stay in Rome from 1624 to 1637, he mainly received the elegance of ancient sculptures. The five women, lined up hand in hand in front of Corinthian pilasters, on the Roman marble relief famous as “Borghese dancers” must have made a special impression on him.

Seeing the loan from the Louvre side by side with the “Bacchanal Feast in Front of a Herme” (1632) opens up the possibility of studying the direct influence of this simultaneously dissolved and completely aesthetically structured scene on his work. In a dance, a nymph presses a fistful of grapes into a bowl, which a greasy putto holds out to her. A satyr kneels over another nymph, who is obviously by no means averse, and another swings a bronze wine jug. The whole scene consists of mythical, orgiastic figures gliding around in front of a – again broadly grinning – Herme Pans. The Sinistre is only touched upon here, the focus is on happy letting go in the intoxication.

Open detailed view

In fact, the only dance that seems threatening is that of the Israelites in front of the Golden Calf, one of the major works from the National Gallery collection. Damaged ten years ago by a visitor with red spray paint, it now glows in all of its restored colors. The muscles of the staggering swell in an apocalyptic light, while Moses in the background, furious, raises his tablets of the law to smash them. A woman in white scatters flowers – with the same gesture that a nymph used to squeeze grape juice. This transfer of the ancient Arcadian ideal to the biblical scene is astonishing, and astonishingly effective: the pagan exuberance takes a sinful turn.

The apotheosis of the symbolic power of elegant choreography is the “Tanz zur Musik der Zeit” (1633/36), an extremely rare loan from the Wallace Collection, which is shown as a highlight in the last room. The client was Giulio Rospigliosi, later Pope Clement IX, but at the time the work was created he was secretary of the Vatican Congregation for Rites. A liturgy expert who was aware of the meaning of every gesture and to whom Poussin dictated the imagery, as it were, into the brush.

Open detailed view

In a heather landscape, four dancers form a dance, hand in hand, their backs to one another. The dancer on the left looks directly at the viewer, smiling. To the right sits a winged, naked old man with a sardonic expression on his face, reaching into the harp – the incarnation of time. This time passes by, the dance becomes the aimless circling of earthly existence around the inevitable end.

The fact that even this portrayal of vanitas is easy, that this dance remains a happy one, does not become manic or sad, is not only evidence of Poussin’s mastery, but also shows how cleverly the theme of this enlightening show has been chosen, how convincingly it is presented.

Poussin and the dance at the National Gallery, London, until January 2, 2022, from February 15 to May 8 at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. nationalgallery.org.uk; Catalog 20 pounds.