Paul Klee / Housser - Cobalt

Paul Klee

I was three places in the museum today.

I spent the first hour in the gift shop.  No one was there.  I looked at the fabulous bags, cushion covers, eye glass containers, cups, mugs, books and bags that are associated with the different exhibitions.

Lastly I started reading about the work of Paul Klee, his artistic timeline which was written on one of the walls, and then I began to look at his beautiful watercolours.

In between, I went to the 11:00 am Docent talk again.  This time is was on Housser's painting entitled Cobalt, which is about a mining town in the middle 1930's in Canada.  The whole room is an exhibit of what painters were documenting in the 1930, in the Great Depression.

Cobalt, Ontario by Yvonne McKague Houssmer
1931

"In this picture of the mining town of Cobalt, Ontario, Housser eliminates all fine details, simplifying and elongating the forms of the buildings and focusing on the primary use of colours.  While this formerly bustling industrial town is depicted in its dwindling years, much of its spirit and energy is still evident."

The docent gave his 10 minutes talk, and then people moved away to see other rooms in the museum.  I stood by, and he continued to talk, showing me the vanishing point in the picture and how it changed, depending on where a person was standing.  As well, we talked about the use of colour, about the Esher-like stair case and the Group of Seven like tailing piles in the background.

Now you can see the tailing piles in the background
which resemble Group of Seven mountains.

We discussed the look of the depression, the telephone poles beginning to tilt and porches on the homes beginning to sag.  Now that I look at the picture I put up, I see I should have chosen the other one which gives more detail, though it seemed smaller to me.  It is, in fact, the whole painting.

The docent taught me how to stand back from the picture, which is where it is meant to be seen -- in its entirety, instead of close up as I am usually studying these pieces.  No two forms represented twice.  Even all of the windows in the houses are different.

After an hour at the painting, he was ready to give the same story again to the 12:00 talk.  I was glad for that longer time with the painting and am going to go back and study each of the works in that room as the docent taght me to do in detail with  this one.

I finished off the day with a lecture translated to French by Seamus Kealh on Conundrums, Crises and Threats: Contemporary Curatng.  

Sad when the title of a talk like that sounds interesting to me.

Could it be that I am not getting out enough?
  

Arta