A day at the Art Institute of Chicago

Picture: Art Institute of Chicago

I thought I knew the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago pretty well, but it's bigger, better and more coherent than I'd imagined. In my mind's eye their old master collection was patchy, but it actually has a solid and comprehensive collection with masterpieces in most areas. I especially loved the little room of French seventeenth century art with a great Poussin next to a fine (but damaged) Claude, and pictures by Bourdon, Moillon, Le Seur and La Hyre. One or two rooms lacked anchoring masterpieces. An optimistically attributed 'Titian and Studio' loan doesn't make up for lack of heft in the Venetian room, although a smart purchase of a Savoldo about a decade ago helps. It seemed at the time an odd purchase for Chicago, but I get it now. And the earlier Italian pictures are patchy, but a great early Correggio, a decent Botticelli and a wonderful group of Giovanni di Paolos make up for a lot.

Picture: MS

The large gallery of baroque art is stuffed with masterpieces, led by El Greco's great Assumption, a huge picture but just part of a vast altarpiece. There's also Zurbaran's tremendous Crucifixion, a scene he and his studio painted often but rarely approaching the quality of Chicago's version. But I especially liked Guido Reni's Salome with the Head of St John the Baptist (top), a great painting by a great artist who is unjustly neglected by today's art lovers. His rather austere classicism is out of kilter with the mood of our times, but give Guido a chance. He's really an outstanding artist. Those Georgian art collectors who put him and Raphael atop the pantheon of greats did actually know a thing or two. The Chicago picture is one of his very best; the colour is superb.

Picture: Art Institute of Chicago

Alongside the great masterpieces there are plenty of interesting but more minor pictures that I enjoyed seeing, including a Walter Gay interior (above) and a good collection of nineteenth century German and Scandinavian art. Chicago has followed a widespread trend of museums buying in these areas, making up for generations of neglect, but they've bought well. I confess that I wasn't sorry to have missed Grant Wood's famous American Gothic, which was on loan. I don't greatly care for the picture, and I don't think seeing this icon 'in the flesh' would have added much for me. But I was delighted to see so many other excellent American pictures, including a fantastic Bellows winter landscape. The small Dutch collection includes a great early Rembrandt, and a recently acquired Paulus Potter that I adored.

Picture: MS

A small collection of ancient art is augmented with some really good loans from a private collection. The wall text is especially good in this section, particularly the guide to understanding labels, above. They've done a great job of explaining in terms that anyone can understand, without dumbing down the content. Museums in the UK, take note! Many museums here don't even give attributions (even at the Ashmolean). There's also a strong collection of works on paper, with changing displays in galleries alongside European paintings as well as a lively programme of exhibitions in separate drawings galleries downstairs. Sadly I arrived between exhibitions, but I've seen several of their excellent exhibition catalogues and Chicago seems to punch above its weight in old master drawing shows. I missed out on their exhibitions and I didn't have time properly to investigate their print room, but I was grateful that they were able to show me their Raphael drawing, below, which was only identified as a Raphael in the mid 1990s. 

It's probably a study for St Peter in the fresco in the Sala di Constantino in the Vatican. Discoloured white highlights are more visually distracting in the image below; they are more legible in the original. You can see just how hard it is to get this kind of foreshortening right when you see the stumbling efforts of Raphael's epigones; even his more distinguished followers struggled. The Art Institute's excellent catalogue of their Italian drawings speculates about the unusually hard technique and theorises about the effect Raphael sought, but I wondered if there wasn't some re-enforcement of contours, which are unusually hard for a late Raphael. Still, it's a magnificent and enormously impressive drawing. I'm trying to see all of Raphael's drawings, so I was particularly glad that they were able to show it to me in their print room at short notice. It was striking how impressive it looked seeing it for the first time from across the room; it has amazing presence and power for a working study not intended as an independent work of art. 

Picture: Art Institute of Chicago

I knew the impressionists and post-impressionists would be the highlight, and they were even better than I'd expected. It's surprising how often impressionist pictures are poorly preserved, despite their relatively short lives. They have been so popular that they've changed hands often, and been relined and worked over as much as many old masters. Fortunatly Chicago seems to have been more restrained; the difference between their Seurat and the relined one in London is amazing. The impressionist galleries are superb; not only are the pictures themselves exceptional, but they are well displayed and less crowded than their equivalents in New York, Paris or London. I've never enjoyed looking at impressionists so much. Great pictures by Seurat and Caillebotte lead the collection, but there's incredible strength throughout. I even liked some of the Renoirs. 

Picture: Art Institute of Chicago

I laughed out loud at this Manet. The wall text (which you can read here), makes no reference to what I thought was rather obvious innuendo - quite rightly, as we can recognise smutty innuendo without needing the gallery to interpret for us. That ability is a human universal that requires no tutoring. Or at least that's what I thought; actually no one else seemed to get it, maybe because they're primed to think high art is, well, a bit higher than that. I spent a few minutes watching people's reactions to it, including a clean-cut young couple I overheard who seemed to be on an early date and recognised nothing beyond the wall text. Detail below should make it obvious...

Picture: MS

But enough of my schoolboy humour. The Art Institute of Chicago is fantastic. The collection is less comprehensive than many, but there are plenty of masterpieces and more coherence than I'd expected. And the display is excellent; good lighting, good framing, good wall text. It takes more than great art to make a great museum, and Chicago has it. My only niggle is the extremely restricted opening times - 10.30 to 5pm, surely one of the shortest of any major museum. But it's small enough that you can get around most of it in a day, though it'll leave you wanting more.

I didn't spend much time in Chicago, but the city looks fantastic. I stayed on Magnificent Mile among the most spectacular buildings - well designed rather than the mere giganticism that other cities confuse with architecture. And an early morning run along the lakeshore gives a great view of the skyline. I've just read Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West by William Cronin, which is a really outstanding study of Chicago's development, a kind of geographic history linking the city to the development of markets in grain, lumber and meat. It's an intelligent and sophisticated analysis full of fascinating details about things like grain elevators and lumber transportation, all much more interesting than it sounds. I'd love to read more about Chicago - I'd be grateful if anyone can recommend a good general history. And I'd be fascinated to find out how Chicago developed such consistently great architecture when other cities that build big build dull. Was it private enterprise competing on aesthetics, or was it more planned? Again, recommended reading would be most appreciated.