Yale Art Gallery Crosses The Atlantic

While the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) undergoes renovations, the Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) has volunteered to host a selection of their paintings in an exhibition entitled ​“In a New Light: Paintings from the Yale Center for British Art.” The show — running now through Dec. 3 — houses over 50 paintings, mainly from the 18th and 19th centuries, that attempt to capture the scope and breadth of British life at the time through a series of intimate glances into another country’s art and culture. ​“In a New Light” offers a glimpse into British painting with little explanation and few qualifiers, allowing viewers to simply view the artwork and draw their own conclusions.

As viewers enter the gallery, they are met face first by Frederic Leighton’s portrait of Ellinor Guthrie (neé Stirling). She seems to confront viewers as she welcomes them in: turning from a table of flowers, her body posture suggests she has been caught unawares, but her eyes hold a knowing acceptance bordering on sorrow. The dark color palette of Leighton’s oils lend an air of melancholy to the figure, who at the time of painting donned black garb in mourning for her late father. 

At the same time, the flowers on the table, and the floral theme carried through in the details of the chair behind Mrs. Guthrie implies a new life beginning, perhaps referring to the recent birth of her fifth daughter. Behind her, background figures swirl, suggesting inner turmoil. Ellinor Guthrie the painting captures the plight of women in the 1800s, defined by their relationships to others: wife, mother, daughter. She accepts viewers into her space, invites them into her privacy, in the way that only art can do.

Passing on from the wisdom of age to innocence of youth, Sir John Everett Millais’ painting L’Enfant du Régiment portrays a little girl during the Napoleonic wars. She lies asleep, feet bare and one armed bandaged, upon the tomb of a knight. The image contrasts the child’s naive sweetness with the horrors of the war around her, pairing the rosy flush of her cheeks with the stark white tomb. In the upper left corner, the battle rages on. But in the soldier’s coat covering the girl as a blanket lies a suggestion of hope: someone is watching over her. Surrounded by despair and violence, perhaps this child can come ​“through the jaws of death / back from the mouth of hell,” as Tennyson wrote in ​“The Charge of the Light Brigade,” which occurred around the same time as Millais’ painting.

The first two rooms of the exhibit contain portraits and tableaus, which, like L’Enfant du Régiment, capture humanity at its most personal. George Stubbs’ painting Reapers concerns itself with another aspect of daily life: good old-fashioned work. The oval peephole of the canvas creates the illusion that the viewer is peering in at the scene, like looking through a window. A man sits on a horse, two men scythe down wheat, another man and a woman collect it into bundles, a dog reclines on the ground. The painting features bright colors and sunny skies, an idealized version of a hard and thankless job. It’s picturesque, ​“nature as God intended,” to quote Tom Stoppard. The workers appear neat and orderly, showing no signs of exertion. The painting captures a sense of fairness, as if it were possible to ​“reap what you sow” in the most literal sense.

Nearly half of the gallery dedicates itself to seascapes — it would hardly be British art if it didn’t. Joseph Mallord William Turner’s Dort or Dordrecht: the Dort Packet Boat from Rotterdam Becalmed looms high on a wall. Looking at the painting feels like a dewy morning, full of lark song and possibility. The great ship possesses a certain majesty, reclining in the glassy water as rowboats go out to meet it. A close look reveals minutely detailed faces within the vessel, alight with high spirits and fresh air. In the background swarms a cluster of ships, creating a frozen moment of serenity before the hubbub of the day sets in.

Some of Turner’s more abstract seascapes also feature in the exhibition. The unfinished Inverary Pier, Loch Fyne: Morning provides a study in color, using shades to create shapes rather than to fill them in. The cool blues of the horizon contrast with the reds and oranges of the cresting hills, creating an image almost like a heat signature. The landscape appears muted, as if seen through mist, but almost glowing with warmth. Inverary Pier, Loch Fyne: Morning captures the same sense of peace as Turner’s clearer work, using soft, broad strokes rather than sharp, precise touches. It is an abstraction only in the sense that it captures the perspective of the viewer’s own fallible eye, obscured by mist and hazy in the morning light.

John Constable’s Hadleigh Castle, The Mouth of the Thames — Morning after a Stormy Night continues the theme of a break in a storm. A lone traveler and his dog approach castle ruins that look like a tree rent by a stroke of lightning, while in the background a man herds cows and ships hover on the horizon. The painting explores a general feeling of survival, and of clearing up after a mess. Great Britain is an island nation, therefore storms and the sea compose a significant portion of daily life. The exhibit does not have to tell the viewer this; it’s apparent in the artwork, which speaks for itself.

“In a New Light: Paintings from the Yale Center for British Art” feels like stepping into another person’s house. The Yale University Art Gallery doesn’t try to transform the show into one of its own, but rather leans into the feeling of borrowing a glance through a window into a different person’s life. It informs without preaching, sharing beauty without feeling the need to comment on it. From intimate portraits to sea and landscapes that are in themselves portraits of resilience and experience, the exhibition shows British art for what it is, and invites viewers to draw their own opinions.

“In a New Light: Paintings from the Yale Center for British Art” runs at the Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St., through Dec. 3.