PORTLAND, Maine — Step away from the bustle of Congress Square, walk through the red velvet curtains at the Portland Museum of Art and enter a time of monarchs and battleships, corsets and coursers, a rare crucifixion and queens.
The “Treasures of British Art” exhibition at the Portland Museum of Art, on view through Jan. 4, spans six centuries of English portraiture and idealized landscapes, from gilded altar works to splashy modern paintings. Unexpected depictions of artists, such as David Hockney, make an appearance too.
On loan from The Berger Collection at the Denver Art Museum, this array of 50 works from 1400 to 2000 is exemplary.
The portrait-rich show includes a closeup of a young Henry VIII done in 1513. The piece provides an unusual look at the monarch on the rise, before his first of six marriages and before he became a fearsome absolutist. Painted by an unknown artist, this earliest surviving portrait of the king at age 22 reflects a medieval style commonly reserved for saints.
To collectors William M.B. Berger and Bernadette Johnson Berger, “the British people and their culture did more to advance our material well-being than did any other country in the world.”
In regard to well-being, this show provides a chance to see Henry VIII as a soft, young man; a skeptical looking Queen Elizabeth, who went on to define the Elizabethan age; and Trafalgar Square before motor cars. Not so much art for art’s sake, the exhibit is a panoply of history on canvas.
“The works are individual and extraordinary. There is a rareness and specialness of the work,” Karen Sherry, curator of American art for the Portland Museum of Art who curated the local exhibit, said.
Artist Hans Holbein the Younger was a favorite portraitist of scions of aristocracy. Henry VIII hired him to scout out and portray his prospective wives and to paint his son, Edward, in 1538. The German-born artist represents the toddler in the robes and stance of a king complete with an ostrich plume feature for a pop of pomp.
“This ushered in a new style of meticulous realism. Everything, every dimple on the chin is meticulously rendered,” said Sherry.
The painting presented to Henry VIII as a New Year’s gift, comes with an inscription that reads, in part, “Little one, emulate your father and be the heir of his virtue.”
Taking a chronological march through English and art history, one century later, the style shifts.
Sherry points to a portrait by one of England’s most influential painters, Anthony van Dyck. “Dorothy, Lady Dacre” is a depiction of a young widow is “more elegant, naturalistic and shows viewers more in terms of the essence of personality and physicality,” Sherry noted.
The broad survey includes pastoral landscapes that gush with lush pre-industrial revolution beauty, a royal battle at sea and biblical scenes, such as “The Ascension,” by Benjamin West, which was commissioned for Windsor Castle in 1779 but never left his studio.
“With the exception of the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, this is the kind of art not normally on view in museums in Northern New England,” Sherry said, adding the diverse collection “represents a unique opportunity to see art from another part of the world. As someone who firmly believes that art is something that helps us understand humanity and culture and society, this work offers new perspectives.”
There are a few American artists in the show, notably West, James McNeill Whistler and John Singer Sargent. These cosmopolitan artists looked to Europe for inspiration.
Whistler’s small oil panel of a “Little Housemaid at the Doorway of an Inn,” is a sweet plein air piece done on the streets of London around 1889, demonstrating an abstract departure from the earliest intricate works.
“So many artists in the 18th and 19th centuries were looking to England for artistic models for art. Later art became more globalized and international trends emerged. We see in American art reflected in British art,” Sherry said.
Urban scenes like “Trafalgar Square,” painted in the mid-1800s, capture the golden era of London’s horse-drawn coach age. In the painting by James Pollard, you can almost hear the clip-clopping of the hoofs clambering around the city’s commons before paved roads. It is a “romantic reminder of a bygone era,” the show’s catalog rightly states.
“I encourage people to take advantage of the collection. It’s a real treat to have them here in Portland,” said Sherry.
“Treasures of British Art 1400-2000: The Berger Collection” is on view through Jan. 4. Portland Museum of Art, 7 Congress Square, Portland.
