Robert Couturier "Designing Paradises"

 In the Living Room, the perfect perch for man or beast, looks out over North Spectacle Lake in Kent Connecticut

One of the best interior design books of the season has me fantasizing about who I would have  design rooms for me, IF, and Robert Couturier is one of those few I imagine creating my ideal room. Just one of the sort he has created for himself in his Kent Connecticut home as well as worldwide for his clients. Many are published in his new book  Robert Couturier:Designing Paradises ,written by Couturier and Tim McKeough.

“No matter how big the project, I always aim to bring a sense of levity to the design process. I value lasting friendships and crackling conversations far above any ostentatious displays of wealth.”(RC) This philosophy epitomizes his work and success.

His home's living room with seventeen foot ceilings, epitomizes Couturier's mastery at bringing a melange of periods together with relaxed quiet.

"There's one element from my childhood homes that I tried to re-create here- 

the smell of dust, humid ashes, and old-fashioned perfume." Robert Couturier, Designing Paradises

a spot on the landing in Couturier's home

Couturier's childhood reads like lost chapters in Saint-Exupéry's Le Petit Prince: "In every room of my childhood homes, I had favorite hiding places where I soaked up the atmosphere...I developed personal relationships with three-drawer commodes tombeaux, graceful Louis XV fauteuils en cabriolet...I could retrace the provenance of each piece from its creation to its current state."

The book's cover showcases what makes Robert Couturier such a favorite of mine. George Jacob armchairs, a Louis XV table, and a salvaged verdigris mirror reflecting a 7th century Cambodian sculpture of Harihara, reveals Couturier's consummate & discerning eye. A hybrid deity, Harihara, is the embodiment of both the Hindu gods Shiva & Vishnu. Little differentiation of the two gods appear in this uniquely 7th century Cambodian hybrid. (According to the Metropolitan, "the Khmer conception of Harihara differentiated the two deities only in the partition of the headdress into a combined jatamukuta-miter and in the provision of half of a third eye on Shiva’s side.")  The subtle differences in the gods' depiction are lost in Couturier's fragmented sculpture, much like his design aesthetic.

His genius is in melding quite distinctly different design periods, reimagining them together in paradisaical harmony. He does so impeccably.

 In Connecticut, a distinctly Early American bedroom, in fact, holds a bergere, & Herve Van der Straeten goatskin bench.

A client's Fifth Avenue apartment, another hybrid, makes clear Couturier's adroitness. The chandelier evinces the 18th century, but upon close observation it is a very modern take on the like by Herve Van der Straeten. Its organic form entwines irregular diamond shaped crystals terminating in a knot of bronze. A Claude Lalanne Croco console & Vosges sconces impose their 20th century elan on the 18th century styled boiseries and parquet de Versailles floors.
It's a heady mix.

Caroline Weber, friend & client, borrows from Baudelaire in defining Couturier's discerning interiors- "luxe, calme et volupte" (luxury, tranquility, sensuous delight). In contrast Baudelaire also writes " "tout ce qui plaît a une raison de plaire,"(everything that gives pleasure has its reason.)  Robert Couturier manages both in "designing paradises.": "Homes should reflect the way a homeowner wants to live every day, not serve as a showcase to impress guests. My job is to help people dream, to make those dreams a reality, and to transform abstract ideas into concrete creations." (RC)



Robert Couturier: Designing Paradises, Principal photography by Tim Street-Porter.
Rizzoli Publishers kindly gave me a copy of this book.

 

after Petrus Christus' Portrait of a Young Girl ii

 Sandra Rauch, "SpaceWomen" after Petrus Christus, 2000 

The artist Sandra Rauch series "SpaceWomen" is conceived from portraits of Renaissance women using a photomechanical style she created. The works are on canvas using painting, photography and printing techniques. Each is a little over 27 inches wide and 3 feet high.

 another Rauch work after Petrus Christus

Sandra Rauch, "SpaceWomen" after Simonetta Vespucci by Piero di Cosimo 

 Sandra Rauch, "Space Women," from the "Portrait of a Young Woman" attributed to the Pollaiuolo brothers

( continued from an earlie post here)

all of these works by Rauch and others from the series are available at  Auctionata here

 

Portrait of a Young Girl i

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As mentioned before, Petrus Christus' Portrait of a Young Girl. (c. 1470), is one of my favorite portraits, & like other great portraits she takes much abuse by would be artists, and commercialism. I'll not add to her debauchery by including any of them here.
She is-perfection, and gratefully there are some perfect homages to her.

I've always felt Picasso-whose paintings of Velasquez's Las Meninas (there are 57) was a true acolyte of the master- in praise of  that painting-a deconstruction of its complexity.

As to a Christus redux-there is no such Picasso- but here- in his 1954 portrait of Sylvette Davis, he's playing with her. The shape of the truncated hennin worn by our Young Girl emphasizes Sylvette's beautiful face and hair & her sloe-eyes seen to imitate Christus's sitter.

In accord with Picasso & his "menina" complex-another celebrated Spaniard Manolo Valdes paints the maids over-and over. Not only Velasquez-but as it turns out Petrus Christus' Young Girl...has been a subject for Valdes. It's no surprise then that Valdes gives our Young Girl all the reverence found in his las meninas. 

Here She is in the June issue of AD, residing over a Steven Gambrel designed Long Island family room.

at AD here

His Menina residing in the late decorator Henri Samuel's office.

 
There is more Christus Petrus and the Young Girl to come-later in the week.

TEN MEN

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True to my word, here are My 10 Can't do without-paintings-this time its raining Men. Would that I-could own them, I hope I would be ready to share them with the world!




Dosso Dossi's work is beautiful-enigmatic, the artist was noted for his very personal-mysterious paintings. The sitter has actually been described by historians as a young girl-that Dossi could paint such a work makes the painting and painter-forever fascinating and seductive.

Dosso Dossi
   Portrait of a Young Man holding a Dog and a Cat
(10" x 12" approx.) 

c. 1512-1540 artist's death

Dossi was an admirer of the great Renaissance master Giorgione. Giorgione's early death at around 30 years of age and the lasting effect of his work is undeniable. The face in this portrait-as in Dossi's -of knowing-of innocence-one that we want to know.  These two painters were painting way over my head. Still so many questions about their work and their lives -unanswered. things we want to know.

Giorgione 
 Portrait of young man 
(19" x 23")

   c.1504

his painting The Tempest may be my absolute favorite singular painting

This Jan Van Eyck portrait is thought to be a self portrait. Why this painting?

It's the red turban.

 Jan Van Eyck 

possibly a self portrait

Portrait of a Man in Turban

(about 8" x 10")

c. 1433

The other Italian of the ten-the beautiful Raphael-painting the beautiful Altoviti-his painting can be seen in the National Gallery in Washington. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't he beautiful? Does there have to be more?

Raphael

Bindo Altoviti

(23" x 17")

 c. 1515

Reynolds painted himself many times-I love this work. In this self portrait Reynolds looks firmly out at us-at his subject. His youth-no hindrance to his confidence-only the sun seems to slow him down.

Reynolds
Self Portrait
(25" x 29")

c. 1747-1749

The beautiful Courbet-the French Realist enjoyed painting himself too.Here with his dog- he pauses to observe us-no lack of self confidence. It was much the same in his life, he was beloved-but not without having his work derided by critics who did not want to see what he saw...The way things really are.

Courbet

Self Portrait with a Black Dog

c. 1841

I think I'm a little in love with Lord Battersea-and it's not just the dog.

Frederick Sandys  
Portrait of Cyril Flower, Lord Battersea

(20" x 25")

c.1872

an equally dashing portrait of Battersea by Sandys would suffice

Another of Sargent's great and controversial works-Dr. Pozzi At Home-who was he waiting for? The fiery canvas isn't hot enough to extinguish the Doctor's bedside manners.

Sargent

Dr. Pozzi At Home

(79" x 40")

c.1881

No fantasy collection would be complete without Picasso. From his Blue Period-the painter paints himself again.

Picasso
Self Portrait
(24" x 32" approx)

c. 1902

Egon Schiele -protege of Klimt,painted this portrait when he was 19 years old. Young-yet considering Schiele was only 28 when he died-his work was perhaps at its zenith. Though this portrait lacks some of Schiele's characteristic distortion and perhaps is less appealing to Schiele followers- it is infinitely beautiful. His ability to capture artist Peschka's solitude- and not disrupt it-with his brilliant paints of coal black -fragile lavender, confetti green and dazzling Klimt-like pattern mesmerizes. Peschka's hands emerge from Schiele's exercise with great tenderness and reverence. Perhaps Schiele needed only his 28 years-this when he was 19.

Schiele 
Anton Peschka

 (39" x 43")

 c. 1909

Such a diverse collection with the exception of the 3 Italians-those Renaissance boys-4- including the elder Van Eyck of Flanders. The Renaissance-a period I could easily select 10 paintings from-yet there is no Titian's Man with A Glove, no Masaccio profile, no macho Veronese, no menacing Bosch. That would be too easy. Branching out- I've always admired the work of the handsome Frenchman Courbet and the figures of Schiele -easily an equal of Klimt. No collection would be complete without Sargent who captured an age of excess-but with faces that still are full of life nor complete without the mastery of Picasso-Master of them all. 

As I've noted-the Sandys painting of Battersea is just because he may be my ideal Man-alas there was no 2nd Baron of Battersea-his marriage to Constance de Rothschild was childless.

10 Portraits

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A recent post by Mark Ruffner writing the blog All Things Ruffnerian-prompted me to take up this challenge to cull through countless Portraits of Women & fantasize - If I could own 10 ?, which would I choose? Mark followed suit after Yvette of In So Many Words-did the same. You can see where this is going... While I still stretch my imagination on where to hang them & worry about negotiating with the Met, the Hermitage and likewise-I found narrowing down my choices difficult. No portrait-its value-its obscurity or its notoriety has been excluded. A few were easy-sorting and narrowing it to a mere 10 virtually impossible.

Pure fantasy-but doesn't it exercise the eye? Force us to edit-in a world where pinning, tumbling,blogging,linking-blinking tweeting-etc etc. allow us to gluttonous Excess?. Of course seeing Mark's picks and Yvette's IT is Temptation to say-"oh  yes, That one," but that would have been too easy. I must say it shocked me that some of my favorite portrait painters-Boldini, Whistler, Helleu did not make My List-nor did Zubaran-I immediately excluded his paintings of Saints-choosing just ONE would be treasonous-and choosing 10-unfair.


(The 10-in no particular order & linked in the text with insights about the work)

Petrus Christus, Portrait of a Young Girl

 c 1470.

what can I say? it might be my favorite of them all. It fits the Bacon quote at the heading of this experiment like no other.

El Greco's Lady in a Fur Wrap

c.1580

El Greco? Yes, one of his mysterious paintings of women-there are few. Uncharacteristic,yet his brush is evident-and while there are disputes about that-it's all the more reason to want it.

 Ingres' Mademoiselle Rivière

 c.1805

Ingres, for me the Master portrait painter-this is one of two Ingres paintings I've included. Can you deny it?

 Liotard's Portrait of Marie Fargues, his wife

 c. 1749

This portrait satisfies all things- sitter, dress, complexity of patterns, book, flowers and mirror. The 18th century was a period where women like Mary Wortley Montague were forging paths of individualism and leaving brilliant trails of their lives in memoirs and letters. Liotard painted many women of the period in Eastern dress. Almost any of Liotard's paintings would suffice-I would be content with 10 of them.

Sir Joshua Reynold's Mrs. Baldwin

c. 1782

Another painter I would not leave off any list-Reynolds and again it  is the 18th century with its certain brand of  Beauty and its allure of Exoticism.

Ingres' The Comtesse D'Haussonville, née Louise de Broglie

c.1845

It's charms are evident.the Comtesse d' Haussonville, grand-daughter of Madame de Stael- one of the most fascinating women in Europe," was also a remarkable person in her own right.
(I've written about her here & Ingres here)

Sargent's Madame X,  Virginie Gautreau

 

c.1884

Sargent. This portrait- his most memorable and he considered his best- was also his most controversial. Of course I would pick this one.Virginie Gautreau was not happy with the portrait-it revealed too much-much too much. Eager to paint her Sargent wrote a friend, "I have a great desire to paint her portrait and have reason to think she would allow it and is waiting for someone to propose this homage to her beauty. If you are 'bien avec elle' and will see her in Paris, you might tell her I am a man of prodigious talent." Books have been written about the painting. Sargent is another great favorite and I've devoted many posts to my intrigue with Sargent in a series called seeking Sargent -where images today remind me of his work, here.

I have a lithograph of Sargent by William Rothenstein  I love.

Portrait of Emilie Flöge, by Gustav Klimt

c. 1902

Model, muse and partner-Floge and Klimt were priest and priestess in turn of the century Vienna when everything was wonderful and art was everything.

 Balthus' "Japanese woman with red table," Countess Setzuko Klossowska de Rola,the artist's wife.

 c. 1967

This painting until recently was owned by Helene Rochas and sold at auction this fall. I wrote about it here.

Picasso's Nusch Éluard 

c. 1938

Picasso painted Nusch Elard numerous times-muse to the Surrealists, artist in her own right. The great painter painting a painter with a personal story as intriguing as the great one himself- no wonder he adored her. Picasso is the great painter of all time-here-Barbara of It's About Time shows you why-and would have me tossing out this entire list to have 10 portraits on scraps of paper with "Picasso" signed in the corner.

& No list is worth listing- without adding 1 to-

Lady with an Ermine (Cecilia Gallerani) - Leonardo da Vinci

c.1490

 

If it couldn't be a Lady with dog-a Renaissance ermine will do.

& as dual portraits go...

who could resist

 this portrait of  Monsieur & Mademoiselle?

Liotard's "Monsieur Levett and Mademoiselle Glavani in Turkish costume

or 
Sargent's Mr. and Mrs. I. N. Phelps Stokes, 1897
it is another favorite Sargent- with two fascinating subjects

I've written about Edith here

 & Yes, I fantasize about 10 Men too-

alas,Correggio's fetching Portrait of a Young Man did not make the cut.

Now-what about you? Do you have a favorite from my 10? your own?




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