The Director's Dozen

Introduction

My selection is entirely personal and not intended to reflect the scope of the DIA's collection. Even so, it was difficult to limit my choices to a dozen, and I could have easily picked another twelve. I invite you to spend some time with my dozen and, after that, take a bit more time to select twelve of your own.

Graham W. J. Beal, Director

Image List

The Wedding Dance
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Netherlandish, 1525/30–1569

The DIA has one of only two major works by Bruegel the Elder in the United States.

Bruegel's peasant bride isn't wearing white. She's dancing at left center in a dark gown with flowing red hair—the only woman with her head uncovered. Bruegel's lively painting is certainly a celebratory scene, but it may also carry moralizing overtones warning against drinking, dancing, and lust. Some scholars have suggested that the man standing quietly on the right, hands behind his back, is Bruegel himself.

Annunciatory Angel
Fra Angelico, Italian, c. 1395/1400–1455

For more than 500 years Fra Angelico's Angel Gabriel has gazed at the Virgin Mary (a companion work also at the DIA), announcing that she will be the mother of Jesus. Angelico, a Dominican monk, dedicated himself to representing God's glory with stunning simplicity. This work is painted on wood panel, but Angelico also encouraged piety among his brothers by painting scenes encouraging prayer onto the plaster walls of their cells in the monastery.

Sakyamuni Emerging from the Mountains
Chinese, late 13th/early 14th century

Sakyamuni, the founder of the Buddhist faith, is shown after fasting and meditating for six years in search of enlightenment. This work dates to China's Yuan Dynasty, a period renowned for exceptional realism and exquisite ornamentation. Sakyamuni's meditative pose, bearded face, and bald head are characteristic of the period and combine with Buddha's universal attributes—the monk's robe and forehead bump symbolizing spiritual awakening—to reveal a Buddha of profound peace and insight.

Reclining Figure
Henry Moore, English, 1898–1986

This work is considered one of Moore's best and is the focus of a detailed entry in Gardner's Art Through the Ages (12th edition).

Moore was fascinated by natural materials, organic shapes, and the use of a void or hole in sculpture. Reclining Figure abstracts human form and recalls the Yorkshire hills where Moore was raised, suggesting the depressions and cavities in a landscape. Moore spoke about the "mystery of the hole," and the way it "connects one side to the other, making it immediately more three dimensional." Carved to follow the wood grain, Reclining Figure embodies Moore's philosophy.

© The Henry Moore Foundation This image must not be reproduced or altered without prior consent from the Henry Moore Foundation

The Window
Henri Matisse, French, 1869–1954

In a letter Matisse described this picture: "Through the window of the drawing room one sees the green of the garden and a black tree trunk, a basket of forget-me-nots on the table, a garden chair and a rug." Simple? Not really. Matisse flattened the parquet floor and turquoise walls into one unified line. Add the tilted table top and the skeletal chair, and you have a painting that carefully balances Matisse's desire to reproduce the world accurately in a harmonious two-dimensional painting.

© 2007 Succession H. Matisse, Paris / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Reproduction, including downloading of ARS works is prohibited by copyright laws and international conventions without the express written permission of Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

The Visitation
Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn, Dutch, 1606–1669

Rembrandt is celebrated as a painter of expressive light, and in this work he concentrates a burst of super-natural light on Mary, newly pregnant with Jesus, and her cousin Elizabeth, who will soon give birth to John the Baptist. The light illuminates the central figures and suffuses the picture with a sense of spirituality. The peacocks at lower left symbolize Jesus' immortality based on a myth that peacock flesh never decays.

The Last Supper
Jean-Baptiste de Chapaigne, French, 1631–1681

Even though this piece isn't a Poussin, his work is well represented in the DIA collection with two works, including his masterpiece Selene and Endymion.

Champaigne's Last Supper is a perfect example of the restraint and balance of so much French 17th-century painting. In fact, this work was acquired by the DIA as a work of Nicolas Poussin—the greatest of them all. Although it was later found to be painted by the little-known Champaigne, it remains a powerful image where careful symmetry frames the 12 disciples' suppressed astonishment at Jesus' announcement that one of them will betray him.

Stool
Songye culture, African, 19th/20th century

This "stool" is a throne for a chieftain, but it's also a celebration of his female ancestors. The ferocious-looking woman holding up the seat commands high status—signified by the scarification pattern on her stomach and the roles of fat ringing her neck. The man who sat on this throne was proclaiming his noble descent from a line of powerful women, as well as invoking their continued support.

Bowl
Yankton Sioux culture, Native American, c. 1850

The character that is this bowl is called "E-yah," a little spirit that was always ravenously hungry. In a ritual feast this bowl—the E-yah's belly—would be filled with food to be consumed by spiritual leaders in a competition to see who could eat the most. All the while, the little spirit would gaze up at them with his penetrating black eyes. The bowl itself is simply carved and uses only the wood's grain as decoration. The penetrating eyes are two tacks driven into shallow pits.

Violinist and Young Woman
Edgar Degas, French, 1834–1917

The DIA has twenty-seven works by Degas in the collection in many mediums.

Degas never identified this couple, but shows intimacy in their relaxed attitudes. There is also a sense of immediacy. They look out at us as if we have interrupted them; the woman turns, searching for the cause of the disturbance. This picture may be seen as a break with accepted traditions of painting. The figures are meticulously rendered but the canvas is unfinished at the lower edge. Degas often returned to paintings—sometimes after decades—but not this one. Perhaps he considered it "finished" after all.

Bather by the Sea
Pablo Picasso, Spanish, 1881–1973

One of the most productive artists ever—he worked in all mediums—Picasso introduced entirely new ways of representing the world. This portrait of his mistress Dora Maar is a cubist composition of distorted shapes and forms. Her face and torso are drawn in simultaneous frontal and profile views. Her hands reach up to tie down her sun hat. Picasso and Maar were on holiday in the French Riviera in 1939 when he signed this drawing. Due to the fact that Bather by the Sea is a work on paper, it will not always be on view in the galleries.

© 2007 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Reproduction, including downloading of ARS works is prohibited by copyright laws and international conventions without the express written permission of Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Man Crossing a Square on a Sunny Morning
Alberto Giacometti, Swiss, 1901–1966

Giacometti's elongated and emaciated figures have been said to personify the spirit of existentialism in post-World War II Europe; alienated, solitary, fragile and lost in the world. That's certainly present, but Giacometti was also fascinated by what he regarded as the simple miracle of the living, self-propelled, human being. His gaunt, jagged figures were equally intended to represent the power and urgency of the endless, restless quest for meaning in life and art.

© 2007 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

Reproduction, including downloading of ARS works is prohibited by copyright laws and international conventions without the express written permission of Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.