Salon Fantastique

Salon Fantastique 

By Tom Wachunas

    SALON: Official exhibition of art sponsored by the French government. It originated in 1667 when Louis XIV sponsored an exhibit of the works of the members of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, and the salon derives its name from the fact that the exhibition was hung in the Salon d’Apollon of the Louvre Palace in Paris. After 1737 the Salon became an annual rather than a sporadic event, and in 1748 the jury system of selection was introduced. During the French Revolution the Salon was opened for the first time to all French artists, although the academicians continued to control most of the exhibitions held in the 19th century. With the formation in 1881 of the Société des Artistes Français to take over the responsibility of holding the Salon, and with the growing importance of independent exhibitions of the works of avant-garde artists, the Salon gradually lost its influence and prestige.  - from Encyclopædia Britannica

   EXHIBIT: Salon Style: Works from the Permanent Collection Vault, at the Canton Museum of Art, 1001 Market Avenue North, Canton, Ohio / THROUGH OCTOBER 29, 2017   www.cantonart.org

 

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   Talk about ambitious, hard work. A few months ago, Canton Museum of Art (CMA) Chief Curator & Registrar, Lynnda Arrasmith, along with CMA Assistant Registrar, Kaleigh Pisani-Paige, took on the daunting (some might say absurd) task of hanging, salon-style, well over 200 works from the museum’s permanent collection. The pieces are presented in the museum’s large upper gallery, placed very close together in a display method made famous by the French Salon exhibits of the 18^th and 19^th centuries (illustrated above in a 1785 etching by Pietro Antonio Martini). 

   These days the method is considered inappropriate to optimal viewing of artworks mounted on a wall, and otherwise passé. We’ve come to appreciate sufficient breathing room between our pictures. Still, and interestingly enough, the gallery feels electrified by a giddy what-was-old-is-new-again energy, as if the cloistered aesthetic spirits of the past have come out of hiding to strut their stuff in a wild dance.  

    So what prompted the making of this wondrous anachronism? You could call it a necessary labor of love. As the CMA press release tells us,“…This wasn’t entirely an aesthetic choice – the skylights in the collection vault are being removed, so the paintings needed to be temporarily removed. Rather than store the paintings in the gallery and close it off to the public, the CMA curatorial staff decided to hang the works – all of them – for the public's enjoyment. This exhibition doesn’t include every piece in the collection, but it provides a good foundation of the CMA collection as a whole.” 

   Good foundation indeed. This unprecedented exhibit is certainly a breathtaking overview of the museum’s regionally and nationally acclaimed focus on American watercolors and works on paper from the 19th century forward, along with contemporary ceramics from the 1950s forward. 

   But beyond that remarkable enough distinction, what makes the exhibit – and the CMA collection as a whole – additionally impressive is the significant and generous variety of other iconographic genres, including nonobjective abstract works. They provide an altogether exhilarating depth to this mad spectacle of beautiful plenitude.