Visitors to the National Gallery of Art were treated to unexpected, in situ discussions of certain masterworks by members of the staff.
For example, Barbara Berrie, head of the NGA’s Scientific Research Department will appear beside a wood panel by Lorenzo Lotto (1480-1556/1557) depicting St Catherine to explain how the Italian Renaissance painter achieved the luminosity of the saint’s red gown.
According to Ms. Berrie, research shows that Lotto achieved the effect by adding very fine sand to his red paint.
Ms. Berrie will then progress to a work by Orazio Gentileschi (1563-1639), 11 galleries away — after stops at paintings by Giotto, Bellini and Titian — to talk about the 17th century painter’s graceful musician in The Lute Player, and Gentileschi’s gift for conveying fabric textures, as seen in the young girl’s yellow dress.
The National Gallery calls Ms. Berries’ capsule narratives “pop-ups.” The NGA scheduled 75 of them between Friday and Sunday as part of its celebrations to mark the NGA’s 75th anniversary.
In the pop-up series, officially called “75 Years/75 Stories,” individual NGA curators, conservators, specialists, and docents were mobilized to tell what the NGA called “engaging and sometimes surprising stories” lasting no more than 15 minutes about favorite works in the collection throughout opening hours last weekend, with several pop-ups happening simultaneously throughout the building.
The idea, said Ms. Berrie, was to “offer new insight into a work of art the public is already familiar with.”
Bringing key staffers out of their offices to interact with the public was seen as a new way of focusing attention on favorite works in the permanent collection — and possibly an acknowledgment of social media as a generator of public dialogue. More than one of the designated narrators said they expected their talks would prompt a discussion with their impromptu audience.
“This is a new venture (for the National Gallery), and the aim of these talks is to make it more enjoyable for people to look at paintings,” says Arthur Wheelock, curator of Northern Baroque paintings. “You want to make points that become the focus of discussion, to make people ask questions.”
Friday afternoon Mr. Wheelock stood beside two side-by-side Dutch 17th century paintings, Architectural Fantasy by the Jan van der Hayden (1637-1712) and The Interior of the Oude Kerke, Amsterdam by Emanuel de Witte (1616-1691/1692).
In both paintings, dogs are behaving badly. Mr. Wheelock discussed in his 15 minutes why either artist had chosen to include a dog relieving itself — a marginal detail art critics tend to ignore in assessing both works.
“The big challenge is how do you say what it is that you see?” he said.
Mary Morton, who heads the department of French paintings, used her pop-up time to draw attention to what she calls “Manet’s least known masterpiece,” The Old Musician. The central character in leading Impressionist Edouard Manet’s (1832-1883) picture is a street musician draped in a blanket. In this “picturesque slum” are people on the margins of society: poor and unregarded, urchins, a girl too young to be a mother carrying a child, a top-hatted figure described as a rag collector.
The pop-up series has something for everybody, and at the same time conveys the message of the National Gallery’s growth in both quality and size in its first three-quarter century. The gallery was purpose-built to house the art collection financier Andrew Mellon had given to the nation. The neoclassic building was designed by the American architect John Russell Pope and was opened to the public on March 17, 1941.
NGA director Earl (Rusty) Powell recently called the gallery and its initial collection “the largest single gift ever given by an individual to a government.”
Last month the NGA reactivated the Andrew Mellon Memorial Fountain situated at the apex of the Federal Triangle complex in downtown Washington. Created in 1947, the circular bronze fountain had not operated since 2008. The NGA undertook its renovation, replacing the sophisticated mechanical waterworks that power the fountain, which once again gushes an 18-foot-high stream of water.
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