When I travel, and when I have the good sense to have my camera with me, I most often take pictures of windows and doors – I am fascinated by these architectural details. But when I return, my husband invariably laments the lack of PEOPLE in my photos, completely bored by the endless stream of such details on rarely identifiable buildings! I often don’t disagree! – but I cannot help it – even as I look around my house, most of the artwork depicts windows and doorways, looking in and looking out. This says something about me psychologically I would suppose, but I needn’t go there today!
So I was intrigued to discover a special exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art titled “Rooms with a View: The Open Windows in the 19th Century“:
This exhibition focuses on the Romantic motif of the open window as first captured by German, Danish, French, and Russian artists around 1810–20. These works include hushed, sparse rooms showing contemplative figures, studios with artists at work, and window views as sole motifs. The exhibition features some thirty oils and thirty works on paper by, among others, C. D. Friedrich, C. G. Carus, G. F. Kersting, Adolph Menzel, C. W. Eckersberg, Martinus Rørbye, Jean Alaux, and Léon Cogniet. Loans to the exhibition have come from museums in Germany, Denmark, France, Austria, Sweden, Italy, and the United States.
You can view a good number of the paintings in the exhibition here: http://www.metmuseum.org/special/open_window/images.asp
You can also read a review of the exhibition here at Ellen Moody’s blog.
[Image and text from the MET website]
Jane Austen in Vermont 