Special Exhibit: "A Photographic Portrait of Cuba"

Heads up on a photography exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston now through January 16, 2012, "Violet Isle: A Photographic Portrait of Cuba" featuring the combined works of Alex Webb & Rebecca Norris Webb. Perhaps it's because I'm a child of the 50's-60's, perhaps because I was mesmerized by a photography exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum (Salem, MA) a few years back (was it Jeffrey Milstein's work?) or perhaps because one of our Ladies' Literary Luncheons was based on Isadora Tattlin's fascinating book, Cuba Diaries: An American Housewife in Havana that I find myself enthralled by any and all photographs of Cuba. It's like looking at a place out of time. There are the old cars in mint condition, the brightly colored buildings with art deco facades, the strutting roosters, the crumbling interiors echoing bygone days of splendor and always, there are the people themselves. I can't stop looking! I expect to find Hemingway leaning against the doorway of a bar, cigar in hand, telling outrageous fishing stories to a group of old cronies. So take advantage and see these works while they're here. The Boston Globe wrote the exhibit "presents all the lushness and liveliness of Cuba." Disfrutar!

Here's the book if you can't make it ...

Tang Dynasty Horses

Earlier this week I enjoyed spending the morning at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston with my oldest grandson, Nehemiah. On the way home he declared that he and I were "museum buddies," which truly warmed his Nana's heart! When I asked what his favorite work had been, he said he liked the Tang horses best. He's almost 5 and doesn't understand much about time and ancient history, but is able to connect with certain works, which greatly pleased me. I was particularly surprised when, unable to find a certain painting by Millet shown in his book, he pointed to another work by Millet on display and said, "There's another one of his paintings." Good eye, my boy! It will be interesting to see how his interest develops.

The Tang Dynasty horses, from the early 8th Century AD, have been popular with a number of children I've brought to the MFA over the years. This may be partially due to their resemblance to several famous "Disney" horses. Since I first saw them I have been convinced that the Disney artists were often inspired by ancient Chinese drawings and ceramics. The Chinese camel ceramics also have a familiar look about them.

I thought you might enjoy taking a look at these magnificent creatures. They are quite large, almost 2 feet tall and, as Nehemiah noticed from his low vantage point, they are hollowed out. (Take a look under their stomachs if you happen to see any at a museum.)

You can take a little self tour of some of the images of horses from the MFA in various mediums by clicking here. Enjoy!
If this area interests you, I'd recommend looking for a copy of "Imperial China: The Art of the Horse in Chinese History". Amazon has reasonably priced used copies. (Click on a photo for a closer look.)

Look familiar?

Sargent's "Mrs. Fiske Warren & Her Daughter"

Living near Boston provides access to many of John Singer Sargent's works. One of my favorites is a society portrait of "Mrs. Fiske Warren and Her Daughter", which can be viewed at the Museum of Fine Arts.

Sargent was born to American parents in Florence. He studied art  primarily in France under the teaching of Emile Carolus-Duran. Following the fervor over his controversial portrait, Madam X (originally painted with one strap off her shoulder; repainted with both straps up & now on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY), he relocated to England. Like his parents, Sargent was a world traveler. He spent his adult life traveling back and forth between England/Europe and the US, primarily Boston & NY. Among his friends were notables of the time such as artist Claude Monet, author Henry James and Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner, who commissioned several works from him and purchased his early large scale painting of a Spanish gypsy dancer, El Jaleo, which can be viewed at the Gardner Museum.

Sargent's portraits were in great demand. He preferred other genres, but his portraits proved so popular he was heavily sought after by high society. As a body of work, these paintings are a testament to the "Gilded Age". His style was often a combination of a more traditional treatment of the face & use of color (he was a great admirer of the Spanish painter Velazquez 1599-1660) and the looser style of Sir Thomas Lawrence ("Pinkie") & later Impressionist painters in his representation of the clothing (note his treatment of the chevrons on Mrs. Fiske's gown - click on the photo for a close look). At the height of his career he chose to turn away from portraits and dedicate himself to open air landscapes, watercolors and public art, some of which may be viewed on the ceiling of the rotunda at the Museum of Fine Arts and at the Boston Public Library.

Mrs. Fiske Warren (1868-1961) was born Gretchen Osgood. Raised on Beacon Hill, she was considered "an accomplished actress, singer and poet" from an early age. She studied at Oxford, graduating with  honors (no mean feat for a woman in her time!), and married Frederick Fiske Warren, who commissioned this portrait in 1903. [Their home, The Hutch, at 42 Bolton Road in Harvard, Mass. (near Concord) is on the National Register of Historic Places.]

The sitting for the portrait was done at Fenway Court, the home of Isabella Stewart Gardner (the current Gardner Museum) on the 3rd floor, in the same room where empty frames remind us of the artwork stolen from the Gardner in 1990 (including a Rembrandt and a Vermeer). If you visit the museum today, you will find a photograph of Sargent painting the portrait of Mrs. Warren and her daughter, Rachel. It's rather interesting to see what the subjects actually looked like and then compare them to the painting. Andy Warhol once commented that Sargent "made everybody look glamorous".

If you visit the Boston area you have a splendid opportunity to view both the portrait and the photograph. The Museum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum are within easy walking distance of each another, with ample parking available at the MFA parking garage. You might also wish to view the Warren home in Harvard, Mass. the next time you happen to be in the Concord area. It's a little piece of art history come to life!

Be sure to check your local library for books displaying Sargent's works. Two works featuring his portraits are John Singer Sargent: Portraits of the 1890s and John Singer Sargent: The Later Portraits.  An inexpensive way to introduce your children to his work is to purchase the following sticker book. If you're homeschooling, be sure to tie-in Sargent when you teach the Gilded Age.

Ennion Glass on Exhibit

The Israel Museum just opened a special exhibit of mold-blown glass from the Roman Empire, including many pieces of 1st Century AD Ennion glass from a private collection. I understand this is the largest display of Ennion's work ever available for public viewing.  The Getty offers the following information concerning the artisan, Ennion. If you happen to visit Israel before the end of January 2012, be sure to take advantage of seeing this exhibit! [Click on each photo for a close-up look.]

"Ennion worked as a glassmaker about 1 to 50 A.D. His signature is known from over thirty surviving pieces, and many other works are attributed to him on the basis of style. Ennion created the ground-breaking technique of blowing glass vessels into molds. This new process allowed the vessel and its decoration to be created at the same time and permitted the creation of multiple copies of the same vessel. Ennion's clear, precise designs distinguish his work; he also minimized the visibility of the lines caused by the seams in the mold.

The location of Ennion's workshop is debated, in part because his work is found throughout the Roman Empire. Some scholars believe he worked in Sidon in modern Lebanon, while others assert that he worked in northern Italy. The inscriptions he frequently used as decoration may provide a clue. Though his name may have been Semitic in origin, he signed it in Greek, the language of the eastern Mediterranean, not Italy. The city of Sidon, where he may have worked, had all the raw material for glass-making and extensive trade connections." 

"Pinkie" & "The Blue Boy" - Behind the Story

"The Blue Boy"

"Pinkie"

These two portraits are familiar to even the most casual art appreciator.  We're used to seeing them displayed together, but they were painted by two different artists and were not originally intended to be shown as a pair.

"Pinkie" was the family nickname of Sarah Barrett Moulton.  Her portrait was painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence in 1794, when she was about 11 years old.  She was born in Jamaica to wealthy English plantation owners and died about a year after the portrait was completed.  Her brother, Edward, later changed his surname to Moulton-Barrett, and fathered the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

"The Blue Boy",  thought to be a portrait of Jonathan Buttall, the son of a wealthy English hardware merchant, was painted by Thomas Gainsborough around 1770, in clothing from an earlier period in tribute to artist Sir Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641). [Click on a photo for a closer look.]

In 1921, American railroad pioneer Henry Edwards Huntington purchased both paintings, to great British consternation, I might add.  He displayed the two full length portraits side by side, and they have been shown that way ever since.

The Huntington Art Museum, Library & Botanical Gardens is well worth visiting if you ever find yourself in the Pasadena, CA area.  One of my fondest memories is having my son & his wife take me there when they lived in the area.  If you have an opportunity to see "Pinkie" and "The Blue Boy", I hope you'll be able to appreciate them more now that you've heard a little bit about their background.  You may visit the Huntington online here.   Brew a cup of tea, put on a classical CD and enjoy perusing the collection online.  And remember ... there's a story behind every painting!

A Few Surprises in Cleveland!

I thought I would share a few significant antiquities from the collection at the Cleveland Museum of Art. As I descended the stairs to the antiquities area, I was shocked to discover a full sized bronze statue from Classical Greece staring at me. Greek bronzes are extremely rare. Most of our knowledge concerning them comes from their more recent Roman copies. (The Romans loved Greek culture!)  The only original bronzes I have ever seen were those discovered in a sunken ship off the coast of Greece and placed on display in a small museum in Piraeus, the port of Athens. And here was one in the collection at Cleveland! It's called "Apollo Sauroktonos (Lizard Slayer)" and depicts a youthful Apollo, holding an arrow, about to stab a lizard climbing the tree he's leaning against. The tree & arrow are gone. Other than that the statue is in wonderful condition. It's attributed to Praxiteles himself (400-330 BC). The eyes are made of stone. It's even more unusual for the eyes to be intact. The viewer has a vivid idea of how this statue actually appeared to the Greeks in the 4th century BC! This is a real treasure!

In the Ancient Near East collection I was also surprised to find a few other treasures. There are a number of ancient stone figures from the Greek Cyclades islands dating to c.3000 BC that seem almost modern in their simplicity of line & feature (see example on left). They're referred to as "Cycladic" art and I've only seen examples which came from this group of Greek islands in the Aegean. [The Benaki Museum in Athens has an excellent collection.] Well, it appears that Cleveland has one of similar style from the same time period which was found not in the Cyclades islands, but in Western Anatolia (modern Turkey)! No mythology has yet been found to go with these statues, but I suspect they were cultic in nature, probably representing a fertility goddess. The one in Cleveland is not identical to the Cyladic examples, but very close in style! (See Cleveland's "Star Gazer" on right.) One difference is that the head looks up in the Cleveland statue. The Cycladic statues usually have a straight-forward gaze. It's easy to imagine trade and exchange of ideas and culture between the Greek islands & Anatolia, even in 3000 BC. This truly fascinated me.

And finally, I was thrilled to discover finds from an "old friend". Mystery writer Agatha Christie's second husband, Max Mallowan, was an eminent British archaeologist. She accompanied him on digs in the Near East just before and after WWII and wrote about the experience in one of my favorite books, Come, Tell Me How You Live. It's a wonderful read and gives a fascinating depiction of the Near East in that time period. Mallowan is well known for his discovery of a number of small ivory carvings he found in a well in the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud (modern Iraq). Since they were detached from the furniture where they originally appeared, it's probable they were part of the loot taken by an Assyrian king from some Near Eastern palace. [They are carved in a Phoenician (modern Lebanon) style.] They had been tossed into the well, perhaps  during a subsequent attack of Assyrian Nimrud, and there they remained until discovered by Mallowan. A number are on display at the British Museum and others can be seen in the National Museum in Iraq. Good news, friends... some of them can also be viewed at the Cleveland Museum of Art! I walked around a corner and came upon an entire display case of them! Breathtaking and so unexpected. Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of the ones from Cleveland, but here are a few examples found in other museums. This is a peek into the Ancient Near Eastern world we read about in the Old Testament!

The Art of the Book Pile

As we age we discover we have become adept at many esoteric things. One of my gifts is apparently the ability to create good book piles. (And we all know beauty is in the eye of the beholder. My husband does not find them quite as mesmerizing as I do.) I keep several piles around the house. Next to my "study" chair and ottoman is the "Study Pile". There you will find my two basic Greek books... kept within hand's reach for easy access, the books needed for whatever projects I'm working on, Challies' current classic book and a few candidates for future Ladies' Book Clubs. Next to the love seat is a stack of Seminary Journals, an easier to read book for the evenings I'm brain dead and two fat puzzle books (crossword & Suduko) for emergency use. Upstairs beside my bed are the books I read at bedtime, along with my "waiting to be read" stacks. In the Library are some works I am working through more slowly, as well as the overflow stacks of books I've already read, but wish to keep near for reference, lending or rereading. The system seems to work for me, so I thought I'd give you the visual basics of book piles.

Here's a good example of a "project pile". Using table space, however, can be problematic as you may want to actually use the table for eating. [Table surfaces tend to get covered much too easily!]

This is a cardinal sin... NEVER place knick-knacks where books should be. Don't listen to HGTV! This is a waste of perfectly good bookshelf space. It IS acceptable to place small items in front of the books, as long as it doesn't slow down your ability to grab a book quickly. Pictures hung on book shelves over books are also no-nos.

This is what the book pile next to my study chair normally looks like. You can tell it's an "active pile", that serious work is going on here and that it's more than just a dust collector next to my chair. A slightly cluttered pile shows thinking is going on.

This is that same book pile after Tina has cleaned my house. It takes me an entire week to get it back into its "proper" position!

                                                                                                                                                                        And this is how Tina REALLY wants to stack them! Beware of overachievers like this!

Travels: Curved Stairways

The architecture of Paris is stunning. I could spend a month just walking around appreciating the intricate architectural beauty of the city... interspersed with sidewalk cafes, books, public fountains and people watching. A feature I especially identify with Paris is the interior curved staircase. I find them visually fascinating and thought I'd share a few shots with you. Aren't they beautiful? And you wonder how French women stay thin!

A Fascination with Hiroshige's Prints

Recently "Chronicle" featured a NH artist who created a series of woodblock prints inspired by the style of the well-known Japanese printer, Hiroshige (1797-1858), probably best known for his series of prints based upon different views of Mt. Fuji. His representations of waves and water are also quite familiar.

I have always been drawn to Hiroshige's prints. There's something about the layering of woodblock prints that fascinates me. I admire the ability to see a finished work broken down into its layered components. I don't have a brain capable of that type of thinking, but admire those who do. His use of color also draws my interest. The range of blues can keep me looking at a print for ages. I also like his contrast of blues with browns. I remember as a child I would wear those two colors together and be teased for it. But I always liked them together.

A third fascination in his work is the opportunity to look into a world far different from my own... not only in time, but in culture (East vs West). His prints, therefore, hold my interest on several levels. I've posted a few for you to enjoy and recommend borrowing a book of his work the next time you go to the Library. Perhaps you'll find the prints as mesmerizing as I do.  Here is a reasonably priced volume of his famous work, ""100 Views of Edo".