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Calvert Vaux (1824-1895) and E. C. Miller, Archway under Carriage Drive, Lithograph, frontispiece in Third Annual Report of the Board of Commissioners of the Central Park. January 1860. New York: Wm. C. Bryant & Co., 1860, Collection of Elizabeth Barlow Rogers.

Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) and Calvert Vaux (1824-1895), Central Park Competition Entry No. 33: The Greensward Plan of Central Park, 1858, Brown ink on paper, City of New York/Parks & Recreation.

John Martin (1789-1854), View of the Temple Suryah and Fountain of Maha Dao, with a Distant View of North Side of Masion House, Etching with aquatint added by Frederick Christian Lewis (1779-1856), in Martin’s series of view of Sezincote, ca. 1818, Bequest of Gordon N. Ray, 1987; PML 143240

Charles Joseph Natoire (1700-1777), The Cascade at the Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati, 1762, Pen and brown and black ink, brown wash, black and red chalk, heightened, with white, on light brown paper, Purchased as the gift of the Fellows; 1965.18.

Colored aquatint with overlay after Constant Bourgeois (1767-1841) in Alexandre, Comte de Laborde (1773-1842), Teoria dei giardini. Florence: Fondacci di S. Spirito [ca. 1830], Collection of Elizabeth Barlow Rogers.

William Callow (1812-1908), The Garden at Versailles with the Fishing Temple, 1837, Watercolor and gouache, Purchased on the Sunny Crawford von Bülow Fund, 1978; 2007.82.

Samuel Palmer (1805-1881), The Haunted Stream, ca. 1834-35(?), Pen and brown ink, brown wash, over traces of pencil, Thaw Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum; EVT 125.

Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806), Interior of a Park: The Gardens of Villa d’Este, Gouache on vellum, Thaw Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum; 1997.85.

Matteo Ripa (1682-1746), Etched view of a pavilion by a lake at Jehol. [Jehol, China: s.n., 1713?], Gift of Paul Mellon, 1980; PML 76758.

Humphry Repton (1752-1818), A Romantic Bridge, Pen and brown ink and watercolor on paper, in Repton’s Red Book of Ferney Hall. Album, 1789. Collection of Mrs. J. P. Morgan, Jr., Gift of Junius S. Morgan and Henry S. Morgan; 1954.17.

The Morgan Library & Museum
225 Madison Avenue
at 36th Street
212-685-0008
New York
Romantic Gardens:
Nature, Art, and Landscape Design
May 21-August 29, 2010

Scenic vistas, winding paths, bucolic meadows, and rustic retreats suitable for solitary contemplation are just a few of the alluring naturalistic features of gardens created in the Romantic spirit. Landscape designers of the Romantic era sought to express the inherent beauty of nature in opposition to the strictly symmetrical, formal gardens favored by aristocrats of the old regime.

The Romantics looked to nature as a liberating force, a source of sensual pleasure, moral instruction, religious insight, and artistic inspiration. Eloquent exponents of these ideals, they extolled the mystical powers of nature and argued for more sympathetic styles of garden design in books, manuscripts, and drawings, now regarded as core documents of the Romantic Movement. Their cult of inner beauty and their view of the outside world dominated European thought during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

This important episode in artistic and cultural history is the subject of Romantic Gardens: Nature, Art, and Landscape Design. The exhibition features approximately 90 highly influential texts and outstanding works of art, providing a compelling overview of ideas championed by the Romantics and also implemented by them in private estates and public parks in Europe and the United States, notably New York's Central Park.

"The landscapes represented in the exhibition are extraordinary in every respect; they are novel, beautiful, and often breathtaking in scale," said William M. Griswold, director of The Morgan Library & Museum. "One can follow the genesis and dissemination of new design approaches from their beginnings in the private estates of the European aristocracy to the great city parks of America, where Central Park is perhaps the best example. Drawings and literary works from the period offer viewers interesting and unexpected connections with a wide range of prominent artists in the forefront of Romanticism."

Drawn from the Morgan's holdings of manuscripts, drawings, and rare books as well as lavishly illustrated landscape albums from private and other public collections, the exhibition attests to the artistic creativity and intellectual ferment of the era, a time when technological advances in book production greatly enhanced the transmission of ideas. Steel engravings in William Cullen Bryant's Picturesque America (1872-74) helped to celebrate the scenic splendors of this country. Lithographs in Prince Pückler-Muskau's •Hints on Landscape Gardening• (1834) depict the improvements he made in his vast estate at great expense — his "parkomania" eventually drove him into debt and compelled him to sell the garden paradise he had created.

Also on view are two manuscript "Red Books" by Humphry Repton (1752-1818), the leading landscape architect of his time and author of theoretical treatises greatly admired by Pückler and other European connoisseurs. In these publications and the Red Books (known for their characteristic red bindings), Repton developed a technique of showing before-and-after views of picturesque scenery so that his readers and clients could see at a glance what he expected to accomplish.

The proposals of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux for the design of Central Park can be seen in their famous "Greensward" plan (1858), a large and detailed pen-and-ink drawing they submitted to a competition organized by the park commissioners. For their prize-winning "entry no. 33," they also prepared presentation boards with the "present outlines" in photographs attributed to Mathew Brady and the "effect proposed" in oil sketches made by Vaux. Two of the twelve presentation boards are on display.

The exhibition includes literary manuscripts for important Romantic and Pre-Romantic works, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau's hugely popular novel, Julie, ou, La Nouvelle Héloïse (1761), which introduced highly influential theories of landscape design. Equally influential was Alexander Pope's Epistle to Lord Burlington (1731), a verse satire admonishing wealthy proprietors of country estates to scorn self-indulgent follies and respect the "Genius of the Place," the natural beauty of the terrain. Here, too, the author's original manuscript will be shown.

Landscape art of the Romantic era expressed a reverence for nature and aesthetic ideals also apparent in garden design of that period. Among the drawings on view are such Romantic masterpieces as Caspar David Friedrich's Moonlit Landscape (ca. 1830) and J. M. W. Turner's The Pass at St. Gotthard (1843), which formerly belonged to the art critic John Ruskin. Turner's drawing is shown in conjunction with Ruskin's manuscript of Modern Painters, which defends the work of Turner — just one of many cultural connections revealed in this exhibition.

Romantic Gardens: Nature, Art, and Landscape Design is organized by John Bidwell, Astor Curator and Department Head of Printed Books and Bindings at The Morgan Library & Museum; Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, founding president of the Central Park Conservancy and president of the Foundation for Landscape Studies; and Elizabeth S. Eustis, a faculty member in the Landscape Institute of the Boston Architectural College.

The catalogue is made possible by The Foundation for Landscape Studies; the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts; Patrick and Elizabeth Gerschel; Furthermore, a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund, Inc.; the German Consulate General in New York; the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in New York; and the Andrew W. Mellon Fund for Research and Publications.

The Morgan exhibition program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

The catalogue for the exhibition, which was prepared by co-curators Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, Elizabeth S. Eustis, and John Bidwell, contains a book-length essay along with numerous color illustrations and descriptions of more than eighty objects in the exhibition.

Noël Le Mire (1724-1801) after Jean-Michel Moreau, called Moreau le Jeune, 1741-1814), [Le premier baiser de l’amour], Engraving and etching, part of a suite of plates made for Collection complète des oeuvres de J. J. Rousseau. Brussels: Jean-Louis de Boubers, 1774-83. Bequest of Gordon N. Ray, 1987; PML 140140.

Carl Gustav Carus (1789-1869), Fountain Before a Temple, ca. 1857, Charcoal, heightened with white gouache, on blue paper, The Thaw Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum, Photography by Schecter Lee.

Pierre-Philippe Choffard (1730-1809) after Nicolas André Monsiaux (1754-1837) , Approchez, contemplez ce monument pieux où pleuroit, en silence un fils religieux, Etched plate in Jacques Delille (1738-1813), Les Jardins: poëme. Nouvelle édition considérablement augmentée. Paris: Chez Levrault freres, 1801. Purchased on the Gordon N. Ray Fund, 2004; PML 129580.

Humphry Repton (1752-1818), View of the Welbeck Estate in Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening (London, 1794), Gift of Henry S. Morgan and Junius S. Morgan, 1954; PML 46448, Photography, Graham Haber, 2009.

Joseph Constantine Stadler (active 1780-1812) after Humphry Repton (1752-1818), The General View from the Pavillo, Folding acquatint in Humphry Repton, Designs for the Pavillon at Brighton. London: Printed for J.C. Stadler and sold by Boydell and Co., etc., 1808. Bequest of Julia P. Wightman, 1994; PML 152316.

Albrecht Dürer, Design for the Pommel Plate of a Saddle, Pen and dark brown ink, 220 x 287 mm, The Morgan Library & Museum; I, 256.

Albrecht Dürer, Abduction on Horseback, 1516, Pen and brown ink, with traces of underdrawing in, black chalk; inscribed with stylus, 251 x 201 mm, Gift of J. P. Morgan, Jr., 1924; I, 257a.

Albrecht Dürer, Portrait of the Artist’s Brother Endres, ca. 1518, Charcoal, background later washed with white lead, 324 x 262 mm, Gift of Mrs. Alexander Perry Morgan in memory of Alexander Perry Morgan; 1973.17.

Albrecht Dürer, Melancholia, 1514, Engraving, 240 x 186 mm, Bequest of Belle da Costa Greene; 1950.33.

Albrecht Dürer, Constructed Head of a Man in Profile, ca. 1512-13, Pen and brown ink and dark brown wash, 244 x 188 mm, Gift of J. P. Morgan, Jr., 1924; I, 257b.

Albrecht Dürer, Folio from Four Books on Human Proportion (detail), Nuremberg: 1532/34, Gift of Mr. John P. Morgan II in memory of Mrs. Junius S. Morgan, 1981; PML 77029.2.

The Morgan Library & Museum
225 Madison Avenue
at 36th Street
212-685-0008
New York
Clare Eddy Thaw Gallery
Defining Beauty:
Albrecht Dürer at the Morgan
May 18-September 12, 2010

"What beauty is, I know not, though it adheres to many things . . . "

— Albrecht Dürer

Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), preeminent master of the German Renaissance, transformed drawing in Northern Europe. Using his unrivaled talent as a draftsman and the force of his powerful artistic personality, Dürer tirelessly promoted drawing as a medium, creating works of exceptional beauty and remarkable technical skill.

Eight extraordinary drawings by Dürer demonstrate the variety and dynamism of his draftsmanship. Exhibitions focused on Dürer's drawings are rare, and this occasion marks the first time in more than 20 years that the Morgan's outstanding Dürer holdings will be displayed together. Also included are prints and treatises by the artist..

"Albrecht Dürer was one of the greatest, most inventive artists of all time," said William M. Griswold, director of The Morgan Library & Museum. "His range and skill in a variety of media are extraordinary, and his pursuit of the idea of beauty singular and obsessive. To experience the Morgan's spectacular collection of Dürer drawings in the small, almost chapel-like setting of the Thaw Gallery is to come face to face with pure genius."

Among the many highlights of the exhibition that demonstrate Dürer's preoccupation with beauty are his seminal engraving of 1504, Adam and Eve, along with its most important extant related preparatory drawing. To create the work, Dürer joined several sheets of paper, then unified the composition with brown wash to create a perfect balance between the two figures. Dürer's efforts to resolve the composition are evident; both figures hold the apple that led to their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Ever cognizant of his authorship, Dürer added his monogram and the date to the drawing. This iconic image, perhaps more than any other, documents how the artist strove to create both beauty and harmony in his depictions of the human form.

Demonstrating the persistence of Dürer's fascination with perfect proportions is another work from about a decade later, Head of a Man in Profile. By overlaying a grid on a man's head delineated in pen and brown and red ink, Dürer used geometry to construct a profile with mathematical precision. Also on view is a 1532–34 edition of his landmark treatise, Four Studies on Human Proportion, a book in which he articulated his artistic philosophy and the centrality of proportion in his depictions of the human body.

Dürer, however, did not limit himself exclusively to a mathematical ideal. He also turned to the natural world as a source for his art. During Dürer's lifetime, empirical observation became increasingly valued throughout northern Europe, as exemplified by the accurate topographical view of his hometown in the Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493. One of the most famous printed books of the fifteenth century, it was published by Dürer's godfather, Anton Koberger. A similar commitment to observation is evident in the rugged features and fuzzy textures of Dürer's unidealized charcoal portrait of his brother Endres. For Dürer, perfection could exist in no single individual; he appreciated humanity's variation and even its flaws.

Dürer saw beauty not only in the world around him but also in the spiritual realm. Kneeling Donor, a study for his altarpiece Feast of the Rose Garlands for the church of San Bartolomeo in Venice, reveals how deeply he was inspired by religious subjects. He adopted the technique of brush and black ink with gray wash and white heightening on blue paper during his 1505-7 stay in Venice. Also on view is one of his most famous engravings, Melancholia I. This enigmatic image of the allegorical figure of Melancholy, her head leaning upon her hand, has been seen alternatively as a statement on artistic creativity and as evidence of Dürer's interest in ancient debates over the definition of beauty.

In other instances, Dürer turned to the aesthetic tradition of Germany, Nuremberg in particular, for inspiration. Dominating his drawing Abduction on Horseback is a hairy brute resembling the Wild Man, a folk figure with a long tradition in German art. The frenetic pen lines may be explained by the fact that the drawing was made in preparation for one of Dürer's six known etchings — a new technique in northern Europe. He drew from the rich metalwork in Nuremberg as well; both his father and father-in-law were among the legion of renowned gold- and coppersmiths for which the city was famous. Dürer's intricate design in pen and dark brown ink for the pommel plate of a saddle shows the artist's personal commitment to this decorative tradition. Further documenting his inventiveness is the bright, multicolored watercolor for a wall scheme in the Nuremberg town hall, a civic center and source of local pride whose decoration was extremely important to the city.

In his pursuit of beauty, Dürer devoted careful attention to every aspect of artistic production. On view in the exhibition are a woodcut, its associated woodblock, and a letter to the patron for whom it was made. In the letter Dürer wrote, "Please let it be as it is. No one could improve it because it was done artistically and with care. Those who see it and who understand such matters will tell you so."

Defining Beauty: Albrecht Dürer at the Morgan is organized by Elizabeth A. Nogrady, Moore Curatorial Fellow in the Department of Drawings and Prints at The Morgan Library & Museum.

Albrecht Dürer, Coat of Arms of Michael Behaim, ca. 1520, Woodcut, 295 x 206 mm, The Morgan Library & Museum; 2006.81.

Albrecht Dürer, Original woodblock for Coat of Arms of Michael Behaim, Wood, 282 x 197 mm, Gift of J. P. Morgan; AZ127.

Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), Kneeling Donor, 1506, Brush and black ink, gray wash, heightened with white gouache, with accents in pen and dark black ink, on blue paper, 323 x 198 mm, Signed with monogram and dated, at lower left, in brown ink, 1506. Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1910; I, 257c.

Albrecht Dürer, Design for Decoration of the Town Hall of Nuremberg, 1521, Pen and brown ink, with watercolor, silhouetted and mounted on another sheet, 256 x 351 mm, The Morgan Library & Museum; I, 257.

Plaster model of Monticello, Model by Timothy Richards, Bath, England.

Plaster model of Villa Rotunda, Model by Timothy Richards, Bath, England,

Andrea Palladio, Conjectural reconstruction of the Baths of Diocletian, Rome, 1540s, RIBA Library Books & Periodicals Collection.

Plaster model of United States Supreme Court, Model by Timothy Richards, Bath, England.

Plaster model of Pantheon, Model by Timothy Richards, Bath, England.

Plaster model of Drayton Hall, Model by Timothy Richards, Bath, England.

Andrea Palladio, Design for a Palace, early 1540s, RIBA Library Books & Periodicals Collection.

Andrea Palladio, Design for Palazzo Civena, Vincenza, ca. 1539, RIBA Library Books & Periodicals.

The Morgan Library & Museum
225 Madison Avenue
at 36th Street
212-685-0008
New York
Palladio and His Legacy:
A Transatlantic Journey
April 2-August 1, 2010

Andrea Palladio (1508-1580) is considered among the most significant and influential architects in the Western world. His clean, elegant interpretation of the architecture of classical antiquity was to spread throughout Europe and North America, and his finished buildings, drawings, and writings have become cultural touchstones.

Now, for the first time in New York, a collection of 31 rarely seen drawings by Palladio from the outstanding collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects Trust is on view in a special exhibition at The Morgan Library & Museum entitled Palladio and His Legacy: A Transatlantic Journey.

The drawings, together with Palladio's architectural texts and pattern books, highlight the growth of his design sensibility. They range from early studies and sketches to perfectly executed later drawings of villas and other commissioned works. Also on view are a number of detailed architectural models, demonstrating the spread of Palladio's architectural theories to America, most notably in the work of Thomas Jefferson and in designs for monumental buildings in Washington, DC.

"The Morgan is delighted to partner with the Royal Institute of British Architects Trust to present this magnificent selection of work to New Yorkers for the first time," said William M. Griswold, director of The Morgan Library & Museum. "Palladio's drawings function both as groundbreaking architectural designs and as extraordinary individual works of art. When combined with his seminal texts and the beautifully rendered models of his and other buildings, the exhibition immerses the viewer into the achievements of an unsurpassed architectural genius."

Palladio was born in Padua, then part of the Republic of Venice, and early on worked as a stonecutter in sculpture studios in the Veneto. He would later be drawn to architecture and studied Roman ruins as well as the work of the classical author Vitruvius. In 1570, Palladio published his seminal I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura• (Four Books on Architecture), which fully lay out his architectural theory and demonstrate his core beliefs in the beauty and harmony of classical architecture.

Primarily known for his villas and palaces for the aristocracy, Palladio also designed buildings for wealthy merchants and untitled landowners. These structures include churches, apartment blocks in Venice, and even barns. Throughout, he was able to incorporate classical design elements while exploiting Renaissance-era advances in engineering and construction technique.

The exhibition begins with five drawings from Palladio's early career and his intensive study of the architecture of antiquity. His sketch of the warehouses of Trajan at Ostia shares many design elements found in his later Basilica in Vincenza.

A drawing of the antique bases of columns in the Lateran Basilica shows that they were intended to add height to preexisting columns that were too low. He adopted this approach in the interior of the church of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. Assisi's Temple of Minerva is a rare example of a classical building with columns on high pedastals. Palladio's study of this temple anticipates his design of the giant pillars on pedestals at the Palazzo Valmarana. This section of the exhibition also includes a model of the Pantheon in Rome, which Palladio measured and found a particular source of inspiration in terms of proportions and detail.

The only extant Roman text on architecture in Palladio's day was De Architectura by Vitruvius, for which the original illustrations had not survived. Several drawings in this portion of the exhibition demonstrate how Palladio "interpreted" the text, including a plan and elevation for his Vitruvian Peripteros Temple.

The exhibition also presents drawings that demonstrate Palladio's creative process. On view are rough sketches, with unfinished areas and traces of earlier ideas, for the Villa Mocenigo and the reconstruction of the Mausoleum of Augustus. Juxtaposed with these are perfectly executed drawings made for some of Palladio's patrons, including an elevation drawing of a villa that demonstates the effect of sunlight on the building. Several of the architectural drawings are complemented by modern bas-reliefs that express in three dimensions what the drawings represent.

Since its publication in 1570, Palladio's landmark text, I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura, has exerted enormous influence on architects. The book's graphic design and sequencing of text and illustrations became a model for subsequent architectural publications. The autograph sheets in the exhibition shed light on Palladio's creative process in designing the text, beginning with studies of how to integrate a building's plan and elevation, followed by preliminary studies for the woodcut illustrations.

Palladio's influence on the architecture of the United States is examined in the final section of the show, which consists of a series of specially commissioned models of key American buildings. During the eighteenth century, Palladio's impact was almost entirely on domestic architecture, as house design increasingly incorporated classically proportioned porticoes. Thomas Jefferson's design for his famous home, Monticello, in Charlottesville, Virginia, is one of the best examples of this. Jefferson also incorporated Palladian principles into his design for the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond as well as in an unsuccessful competition submission for The White House.

Palladio's restoration drawings of ancient Roman monuments, presented in the fourth book of I Quattro Libri, became the primary source of inspiration for some of America's most ambitious public buildings of the late-19th and early-20th-century American Renaissance. These include the Supreme Court and National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the New York Stock Exchange.

Frontispiece to Andrea Palladio’s I Quatro libri dell’architettura, 1570, RIBA Library Books & Periodicals.

Andrea Palladio, Measured drawing of the Arch of Jupiter, Ammon, Verona, ca. 1540, RIBA Library Drawings and Archives Collections.

Andrea Palladio, Design for the Villa Repeta at Campiglia, ca. 1560s, RIBA Library Books & Periodicals Collection Andrea Palladio.