Frieze Masters 2013

I am so glad that I made it to the Frieze Masters today. It has inspired me so much that I want to write a blog about it.

The two galleries - De Jonckheere and Johnny Van Haeften - that I favoured the most in TEFAF 2013 - both exhibited at Frieze Masters this year. Again, they were still the best. The quality of almost all of their works were so consistently high that they gave you such an feeling of assurance of their works. And both of them specialize mainly in Northern paintings of the Renaissance and the 17th century. Last time in TEFAF, De Jonckheere Gallery impressed me the most with Pieter Brueghel the Younger's The inn St. Michel's (Fig. 1), Gijsbrecht Leytens' Winter Landscape (Fig. 2), and Adam and Eve (Fig. 3), etc. Most of the paintings were of such high quality equaling the museum pieces and were so unique in their composition and depiction that you rarely came across anywhere else. The composition of the northern paintings could be so random and creative and the representation sometimes a bit caricatured and fantasized, which makes them almost look like a modern picture or cartoon.

Fig. 1 The inn St. Michel's, by Pieter Brueghel the Younger's 

Fig. 2 Winter Landscape, by Gijsbrecht Leytens

Fig. 3 Adam and Eve, by the Master of the Embroidered Foliage

This time, at Frieze Masters, it was Johnny Van Haeften that struck me the most. It kept on acquiring some really good works. My favourite was a very small piece: Pieter Brueghel the Younger's Pissing at the Moon. It is of such an unusual subject as well as the composition. It plays with the Flemish Proverb that means to waste one's time on a futile endeavour. The colours are good. The details are fine. The composition - with the man pissing as the main subject and occupying most of the picture space - is truly unusual and modern-looking. The other work also by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Spring (Fig. 4), showing people ploughing the land, is full of breath of life. The little dots of red, yellow, and white flowers in the foreground are so lovely and touching to me. Those are the details of life that probably only Northern artists would enjoy and depict. Willem van de Velde the Younger's Shipping in a Calm offshore with Figures on the Shore by a Rowing Boat, a Man-of-War lying off (Fig. 5) is such a common depiction of seashore and ship scene, but it stood out into my eyes, because when viewed closely, the extremely refined details on the panel were really extraordinary; not every painting of this subject would achieve such quality.

Fig. 4 Spring, by Pieter Brueghel the Younger

Fig. 5 Shipping in a Calm offshore with Figures on the Shore by a Rowing Boat, a Man-of-War lying off, by Willem van de Velde the Younger's 

Back at home, when I read the Financial Times, there was an article about Johnny Van Haeften's The Census at Bethlehem (Fig. 6) by Pieter Brueghel the Younger. It was the very big-scale painting hung at the centre of the gallery space at Freize Masters, drawing the public's attention. People watched it, talked about it, and used the large magnifying glass provided by the gallery to scrutinize it. It is the most sensational piece at Frieze Master this year, because it has been totally unknown for 400 years, because among the 14 versions of The Census at Bethlehem of Pieter the Younger, it is almost the closest, most characteristic one of Pieter the Elder, and because it is of exceptional high quality and 'amazingly good' condition. Reading the newspaper, I also came to know that it was actually the first time that Johnny Van Haeften exhibited at Frieze Masters, and that TEFAF and Frieze were the only two fairs that the gallery had exhibited at - Johnny Van Haeften said he was not an enthusiast of art fairs. I feel so lucky that I have visited the gallery at both the fairs and that it has drawn me such an attention.

Fig. 6 The Census at Bethlehem, Pieter the Younger

Another two galleries that were also standing out were Koetser and Richard Green. Interestingly, the works of them that I found the best were also Netherlandish ones. Koetser was always good and it kept presenting Giuseppe Arcimboldo's works, which drew most of the public attention. Its still life paintings were also of quite high quality. I was again struck by the extremely fine details of Jan Brueghel the Younger (?). His painting was so extraordinarily refined that definitely not every other still life painters could have achieved. Richard Green usually presents a broad range of paintings. This time, quite unusual to me, it exhibited some fine works of Sebastian Vrancx with again the vigor and joy of everyday life as well as the work of Aert van der Neer with his beautiful rendering of moonlight in the mysterious night scene.

The Northern Europe has such a fascinating history of art, with its extraordinary rendering of detail and nature, the humble and lively depiction of joy, sorrow, and labour work of everyday life with rich symbolism and proverbs - all the love for nature and life is touching indeed. Northern paintings are always so true to nature, never hesitant to reveal the realistic and the imperfect, but they also exaggerate and fantasize nature, creating imaginary and visionary views with abundant details and great originality. I'm also thinking about what it is in art that moves me so much. Today in Frieze Masters, it is the details that touches me and draws me to it. It is something technical - the fine details, and it is also talked about ironically sometimes that these fine details are simply imitation of nature, but I'm amazed how it could fascinate us that much. Other elements that I am thinking of that could touch us are beauty and harmony, like some of the Impressionist works, the colour and form, like Kandinsky's works. I think it is never a single element that draws us to art, it is a combination, a combination of all the aesthetic, stylistic aspects and personal attributes: the technique, the aesthetic eye, the emotion, the aspiration, and the heart behind. But the true masters have the gifts given by God.