By Marilyn Bauer
The Cincinnati Enquirer

The imposing Victorian construction of the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery in Glasgow, Scotland, has made it a historic landmark. But equally imposing is its collection of 200 French Impressionist paintings - the most important civic collection in the British Isles.

Few of these paintings have been seen outside Scotland, but now that the red sandstone giant is undergoing its first renovation since opening in 1901, 65 of the paintings have taken to the road.

Millet to Matisse: Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century French Painting from Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland will be on view at the Speed Museum of Art in Louisville through Feb. 2.

"As the premier venue for the international tour of Millet to Matisse, we are thrilled to be bringing an exhibition of this quality to Louisville," said Peter Morrin, director of the Speed. "This year marks the Speed's 75th anniversary so we are especially pleased."

IF YOU GO

What: Millet to Matisse: Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century French Painting from Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland When: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday, until 8 p.m. Thursday, through Feb. 2 Where: The Speed Museum of Art, 235 S. Third St., Louisville Timed tickets: $15, museum members $7.50, for a specific date and hour Information: (502) 634-2700; info@speedmuseum.org

The exhilarating selection of work by the once revolutionary painters is stunning: Monet, Renoir, Picasso, Cassatt, van Gogh, Gauguin, to name a few. And the inclusion of rare early works will surprise even those who believe they have seen it all.

Arranged thematically by the Kelvingrove's Vivien Hamilton, Millet to Matisse spans the extraordinary period of creativity that reigned in France from the late 19th through the early 20th century. Primarily gifts and bequests, the paintings were originally bought by the newly rich Scotch industrialists who preferred contemporary French art to the Old Masters. At the time this was thought avant-garde, as the Impressionists challenged long-held ideas about making art.

What's interesting about this exhibition is that it also informs us of the social history of the time, as well as the relationships between artists, dealers and collectors.

Nineteenth century Glasgow prospered as one of Scotland's centers of trade and industry. As the city grew increasingly cosmopolitan, an affluent class began to purchase new work for an increasing number of local dealers. One of the most important was Alexander Reid, whose gallery La Societe des Beaux-Arts, opened in 1889, specialized in Impressionist paintings.

Vincent van Gogh's portrait of Reid is the high point of the Speed show. Reid knew both van Gogh brothers and lived with them in Paris where he sat for the portrait. It is visual proof of not only the link between the Impressionists and Glasgow but also the role of Scottish dealers and collectors in the creation of the Kelvingrove collection.

The Reid portrait is an extraordinary example of pointillism. Thick, strong, staccato brush strokes in contrasting hues form a face that appears to be van Gogh's.

In fact for more than 40 years the painting was catalogued as a self-portrait. It wasn't identified until Reid's son came upon the portrait in a book of van Gogh's work and arranged to buy the painting from another Vincent van Gogh, the son of van Gogh's brother Theo.

A show of many surprises

One of the show's many surprises is also a painting by van Gogh, "The Blute-Fin Windmill, Montmartre" painted in 1886. This early landscape shows the bridge from van Gogh's earliest work - dark, brooding oils made in Antwerp - to the frenetic brushstrokes and unequaled color of his best-known canvases.

In "The Blute-Fin Windmill" there is a lightening of color and a looseness of brushwork that presages the emergence of form from pure color seen in later work.

An evolution of personal style also can be seen in an early landscape by Paul Gauguin, "Ostre Anlaeg Park, Copenhagen." The painting was done after Gauguin who is generally considered a Post-Impressionist, lost his job as a stock broker and followed his family to Copenhagen where he worked for a year for a tarpaulin wholesaler.

He was miserable but began to experiment with Impressionism in his portraits, still lifes and landscapes. What resulted was a lighter, more luminous style, epitomized by this landscape, which led him to exhibit in the final Impressionist show held in Paris in 1886.

Nature is a star

There are Modernist, Post-Modernist and Impressionist interpretations of nature throughout the show. A stormy seascape, "The Headland" by Barbizon School painter Jules Dupre, represents inclement weather with an angry sea and rich palette. Theodore Rousseau's "The Forest of Clairbois" is dominated by a dark tangle of ominous forest that dwarfs the figure of a woman in the background walking toward the viewer.

Representing the 20th century, Edouard Vuillard's "Interior - the Drawing Room, 1901" highlights a tousle-haired child crawling across an elaborate Aubusson rug in a decorative Parisian apartment. Because it's painted from the point of view of an adult standing over the child, we are able to see another type of forest - that of the legs of Bergerre chairs and tables populating the Parisian apartment.

It is one masterpiece after another: Camille Pissaro's early landscapes hung alongside the scenes of Paris he painted from his Rue de Rivoli apartment toward the end of this life; an extraordinary portrait, "Mademoiselle de Foudras," by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.

Fifty thousand visitors will see Millet to Matisse by Feb. 2, according to Mr. Morrin. With a price tag of $1.1 million, Millet to Matisse is expected only to break even, but city officials are hoping for an increase in tourist dollars.