http://www.museothyssen.org/thyssen_ing/exposiciones/expo_actual.html One of the main activities of the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza is the organisation of exhibitions with the aim of making it a lively, changing institution and of fulfilling its purpose of promoting knowledge of the History of Art. The conventional or temporary exhibitions aim to introduce the public to new styles, artistic periods and painters. The context exhibitions seek to provide an in-depth investigation of a work in the permanent Collection and relate it to other works of art. en-us http://www.museothyssen.org/thyssen_ing/exposiciones/expo_actual.html Organised by the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza and the Fundación Caja Madrid The period inmediately prior to the outbreak of war in 1914 coincided with a highpoint of activity among the avant-garde movements. In addition, the experience of World War I exercised a powerful influence on the work of numerous artist during this period. Featuring around 180 works, this exhibition offers a survey of the development of new international art between approximately 1913 and 1917. Through the work of dozens of artist from the main artistic movements of the day -Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Vorticism, Abstraction, etc.- it reflects this artistically conflictive period. The exhibition looks at the different trends in new international art at this time; the role that the avant-garde assumed in relation to the events of the war (often a prophetic or apocalyptic one); and the way that the new cultural languages were able to express pro-war attitudes or denunciatory ones in the face of the madness of the conflict. Image:Marsden HartleyThe Iron Cross, 1915Oil on canvas, 120 x 120 cmMildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis. University purchase, Bixby Fund, 1952 http://www.museothyssen.org/thyssen_ing/exposiciones/expo_actual.html Contexts of the Permanent Collection, 22Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid The 22nd exhibition in the Contexts of the Permanent Collection series will be devoted to Pieter Saenredam (1597-1665), one of the most notable painters of the 17th century, swo devoted much of his oeuvre to the depiction of buildings, seen from both inside and outside. Saenredam was also a pioneer in his investigation of perspectie and in his use of preparatory sdetches and measurements taken in situ, which provided the starting-point for his paintings. These practices distinguish him from his predecessors and from other contemporary artists. Saenredam produced numerous preparatory sketches in Haarlem where he lived, and he also moved to other villages and cities such as Assendelft, Utrecht, Amsterdam, Rhenen and Alkmaar in order to draw and take measurementes. This exhibition will offer a surey of his work and will include his finest and most exquisitely painted compositiones created over the course of his career. Image:Pieter Jansz SaenredamThe West Front of the Mariakerk, 1662Oil on panel, 65.1 x 51.2 cmMuseo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid http://www.museothyssen.org/thyssen_ing/exposiciones/expo_actual.html Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza and Fundación Caja Madrid The aim of this exhibition is to offer a broad overview of the concepts, issues and solutions involved in the depiction of shadows in art from the Renaissance to the present day. The exhibition is organised into two closely related sections. Firstly, it presents a comprehensive survey of the work of artists and movements who have depicted and used the element of shadow in various ways from the Renaissance to the late 19th century. These range from symbolic connotations and the way that Renaissance artists studied and used perspective to the representation of light and shade in Impressionism, also looking at the spectacular way that tenebrist Baroque painters used this element as well as its incorporation as a crucial narrative element in the Romantic and post-Romantic periods. The second part, which will be shown in the exhibition space of Fundación Caja Madrid, opens with a section on “lights and shadows in modern art” and analyses these elements were represented during the 20th century. This section pays special attention to the manner in which they were projected in Surrealist games and their important role in German Expressionism. The other sections in the second part offer a survey of the multi-media and light-hearted use of shadow play, from the photography of Man Ray and André Kertész to recent installations by Christian Boltanski, also looking at cinema in the work of Murnau, Orson Welles and Peter Greenaway. Image:Christian SchadPortrait of Dr Haustein, 1928Oil on canvas, 80.5 x 55 cmMuseo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid http://www.museothyssen.org/thyssen_ing/exposiciones/expo_actual.html Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza The exhibition focuses on the work of Matisse between 1917 and 1942. These two important dates mark the start and finish of the central period within his career during which time Matisse developed his most individual and distinctive style but which has been the subject of less attention than the early and late phases of his activity. Marked by the shadow of World War I and the menace of the impending conflict, this period was of crucial importance for the dissemination and consolidation of modern art, a process in which Matisse undoubtedly played a central role. This is the context in which the exhibition will analyse the artist’s work with the intention of showing how Matisse expanded the scope of his pictorial investigations at this period, focusing on the relationship between line, colour, volume and space and opting for an aesthetic that aspired to the timeless without abandoning its commitment to modernity.Image:Henri MatisseConversation beneath the Olive Trees bajo los olivos, 1921Oil on canvas. 100 x 82 cmColección Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza in deposit at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid http://www.museothyssen.org/thyssen_ing/exposiciones/expo_actual.html Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza and Fundación Caja Madrid The close relationship between sexual desire and the death instinct – Eros and Thanatos – in the visual arts is the subject of this exhibition, whose title is taken from that of Georges Bataille’s book: Les larmes d’Eros. The exhibition also incorporates some of Bataille’s ideas on eroticism: the need for beauty, temptation as prohibition and transgression, and the parallels between the erotic and religious sacrifice. The exhibition focuses primarily on 19th-century European painting and sculpture, including the work of Canova, Ingres, Delacroix, Millais, Moreau and Rodin, but also looks back to earlier periods, in particular the Baroque with Rubens and Bernini. In addition it looks at later art, for example, the presence of 19th-century erotic themes in Surrealism and its wake.Figures and episodes derived from classical mythology and from the Judeo-Christian tradition make up this survey, which is organised into two principal sections: From Temptation to Sacrifice, which looks at the presence of death in erotic passion through themes such as the Birth of Venus, Eve and the Serpent, the Temptations of Saint Anthony, and the Kiss, and a second section entitled The Eternal Sleep, which analyses the subject of death and dying transformed into a trance similar to amorous ecstasy, present in themes such as Apollo and Hyacinth, Venus and Adonis, Mary Magdalen and the skull, and the “beautiful suicide victims”, Cleopatra and Ophelia. Image:Giambattista TiepoloThe Death of Hyacinth, 1752-1753 (detail)Oil on canvas, 287 x 235 cmMuseo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid http://www.museothyssen.org/thyssen_ing/exposiciones/expo_actual.html Contexts of the Permanent Collection 23Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza The Annunciation Diptych by Jan van Eyck, which is one of the gems in the Museum’s permanent collection, is also one of the most important examples of grisaille painting. This was a widely used and highly appreciated technique from the late 14th onwards, based on the graduated application of a single colour, generally grey or neutral tones, which modelled the shadows to create an effect of sculptural relief. For the first time the exhibition will compare various examples of late Medieval grisaille depictions in the media of drawing and painting as well as ivories, illuminations, textiles and glass and metal objects. The aim is to offer a survey of this technique with the intention of investigating its possible artistic, social and practical implications.Image:Jan van EyckThe Annunciation Diptych, ca.1435-1441Panel, each wing 39 x 24 cmMuseo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid http://www.museothyssen.org/thyssen/exposiciones/img/VANEYCK.jpg http://www.museothyssen.org/thyssen_ing/exposiciones/expo_actual.html VANEYCK.jpg