So many reviews, and so many complaints! The exhibition wants to debunk the cliché of the genius male artist attended by his muse. However, it is variously too big (40 couples!), poorly hung, or too coy about power imbalances (think Rodin). Still, as one critic notes “when a creative partnership was made up of equals, it tended to implode under its own intensity.”
Ribera lived much of his life in violent Naples. This seems relevant to his art which is terrifyingly and repeatedly violent. Was Ribera himself violent? Probably not. There is a “gentleness” with which he painted his ghastly scenes, implying a witness, not a participant. Still, his imagination was, according to one critic, “one of art history’s darkest alleys”.
Vuillard’s early paintings feature his family members in the tight spaces of their apartment, amidst his mother’s dressmaking business. She was central to his life and his art – he painted her over 500 times. These images show her as very “private”. So, was she really his focus or just one part of a grander, and radical, project – a portrayal of female domesticity?