Turner et ses peintres 24/02/2010 to 24/05/2010 at the Grand Palais

Weeks after the opening of the Turner et ses peintres exhibition at the Grand Palais, and weeks after pondering whether I should wait in the queue or wait till no one would queue for it, I decided to do the first. The exhibition aims to explain by whom Turner was inspired and how he tried to create his own style.

 

Whether the exhibition was good or not, i just considered that waiting for about an hour in the shadow was a tad overextended. Even the people who booked their tickets had to wait for a certain amount of time. In addition, there were plenty of people in the museum, a good reason to make us wait outside I guess. If it means that the exhibition was successful on a frequentation aspect, it still did not improve my visit. Indeed, I felt that the room were packed and obliged to skip the first rooms so I could enjoy the next ones with less people in.

Besides, I felt that the explanations concerning the comparisons made between the paintings of Turner and the ones he was inspired from were underdeveloped and that the paintings were not always easy to compare. They were sometimes hung on the opposite wall due to their size and thus it was like playing “Where is Wally?” in order to spot the differences. A simple explanation would be given telling us that there, Turner used the techniques of this artist and here Turner was inspired by so-and-so.

On the other hand, the concept of the exhibition is interesting. The possibility to compare his masterpieces to other’s like Claude Lorrain (vaporous light effect and trees framing antique sceneries), Canaletto (painting Venice and improving his skills), and Rembrandt (painting light contrasting strongly with the darkness and pastoral sceneries) is an excellent way to explain Turner’s art and how he chose his path. Indeed, Turner chose for himself a pantheon of his favourite masters and from there inspired himself from their techniques and subjects and developed them to suit his own style: a landscape painter influenced by a mix of Flemish, French and Italian schools with a strong focus on painting light in a transcendent way.His rivals in England, such as Constable  or Bonington , were also his associates and also provided him with a lot of ideas as we can see all along the exhibition.

The Grand Palais website offers a virtual tour of the exhibition  in French and other media materials to complete it. The Tate gallery has an excellent website  with numerous sections dedicated to Turner and where it is possible to virtually visit the gallery established by Turner close to his home in London.

Being enthusiastic about both the representation of landscape and light, Turner hold a special place for me, on the other hand I found some of his paintings paradoxically too bright nor did I appreciate the subjects. If the museum was more spacious, I think that this exhibition would be much more enjoyable but it is hardly easy to regulate a successful exhibition besides having bigger rooms to hold more people. Nonetheless, it remains a comprehensive display of Turner's art and answer its problematic in a clear manner.

-C

To protect or not

The competition between Boeing and EADS/Northrop concerning the USAF tanker offer went to an end last week when Northrop decided to pull out. The whole story started back in 2004 after charges against Boeing were filed and some of its top executives fired as a result. The senator McCain wanted a fair competition on this contract. It was for EADS and Airbus a good opportunity to enter the US market and to diversify its production and source of income.  The contract is estimated at 35 billion dollars and is only the first part of 3 phases.

If EADS is a European company, the incorporation of Northrop, a Californian defence firm, was supposed to help with this negative image and it also planned to build a factory in the USA to manufacture the tankers based on a version of the civilian A330. On the other hand, Boeing would build its tanker, based on the smaller 767, in USA too; however it is arguable that the Boeing tanker would have an all American plane as most of its components are outsourced abroad.

This end of the competition is mainly due as what is seen as some form of protectionism by the USA in favouring Boeing. Indeed the first leg, in February 2008, of the competition was won by EADS/Northrop but Boeing protested that the plane of its rival was not conform, even though it was deemed better, to the contract. As a result the offer was remade and this time Northrop felt it had to pull out. Its CEO observed that this contract clearly favoured Boeing.

The EU commission threatened to bring the whole case in front of the WTO and the leaders of France and the United Kingdom Mr Sarkozy and Mr Brown, amongst others, showed their disapproval of such a behaviour especially since protectionism is “a policy that the USA usually warns other countries against.”

So what was the whole point of opening the competition to foreign companies? I could understand that the USA would keep their defence market closed, although they do not like to be put away on this basis abroad, but this opening of the competition showed that it was not the general feeling at the moment to do it this way. The EADS/Northrop joint venture would also create some jobs in the USA in a non-unioned company (Northrop) whereas Boeing is and thus is susceptible to strikes. Did the American leaders think that Boeing was so good at its business that no-one could do better than them and this competition was just a show for fair competition? It seems unlikely that the US leaders would be that naive. Is it favouritism from Obama as he was the former senator of Illinois and that Boeing has some of its offices in Chicago? That would be quite naive too.

However the facts remain that it is another feud between the EU and the USA in the trade sector.  This contract might have an influence on how the F35 JSF will happen. Indeed, it is overdue and its price still rising. If the USA does not act smoothly with its European allies, why should they expect them to continue to act in a polite manner? Even the United Kingdom, the best ally of the USA, is unhappy. Competition is rising everywhere in the world; I would not advocate starting a mini trade war between strong allies.

-C