paul

"Contemporary and ancient art are like oil and water, seemingly opposite poles....now I have found the two melding ineffably into one, more like water and air."  Hiroshi Sugimoto, Japanese artist Louise Bourgeois, Untitled , 1952, Spring , 1949 and Mortise , 1950 National Gallery of Art Two separate exhibitions in Washington at the moment illustrate the commonality of modern art and prehistoric -- especially in sculpture.  The me, that theme resonates with two sculptors who lived through most of the 20th century, Louise bourgeois and Isamu Noguchi.  The National Gallery has a two-room exhibition Louise Bourgeois:No Exit , and Noguchi (hopefully in another blog) 's works are part of the Hirshhorn's exhibition, Marvelous Objects: Surrealist Sculpture from Paris to New York . Constantin Brancusi, Endless Column, 1937 Three sculptures by Bourgeois in the National Gallery are what she called personages.  As a whole they're not unlike the archetypal images of Henry Moo...

Little Dancer Aged Fourteen , 1878–1881, pigmented beeswax, clay, metal armature, rope, paintbrushes, human hair, silk and linen ribbon, cotton and silk tutu, linen slippers, on wooden base overall without base: 98.9 x 34.7 x 35.2 cm (38 15/16 x 13 11/16 x 13 7/8 in.) weight: 49 lb. (22.226 kg)   National Gallery of Art, Washington, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon It was a joy to see the Kennedy Center's world-premiere production,  The Little Dancer , which closed on November 30th.  Tiler Peck, principle of the New York City Ballet had the lead as 14-year-old Marie van Goethem, the ballerina who posed for Degas' famous statue, Little Dancer.  Although Peck is definitely far more mature than Degas' model was, she certainly was a good choice for the role.  Boyd Gaines, as Degas, really does not look like him but I guess it doesn't matter.   Some of the settings and compositions are the same as you will see in his paintings.  ( My blog about Degas'...

           William Alburger , Forest, 2013, 65" x 108" x 9"  rescued spalted birch, in an solo exhibition at GRACE       Eco-friendly art is meeting the world of high art, if we're to take a cue from what's showing at local art centers and galleries.  It can be stated that the earliest environmental art started with the artists' visions and applied those visions to the environment, with little interest in sustainability.        Quite the opposite trend is developing now.  Several emerging  artists, the “environmental artists” of the 21 st century put nature in the center--not the artist or the idea.  Nature is the subject and the artist is nature's follower. The following artists' creations are about the land and earth; other artists interested in the environment have been more concerned with a world under the sea .   William Alburger, Non-traditional Backwards One-Door, ...

Sicily was controlled or settled at various times by Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Saracens, Normans and Spaniards.  This view is Monreale, in the north, east of Palermo. The island of Sicily has a central location in the Mediterranean Sea which has made it the most conquered region in Italy, and perhaps the world.  Even the Normans who ruled England also went to Sicily.  Despite the violence of the Middle Ages, today we can recognize that era in Sicily as providing an example of cross-cultural cooperation which is to be admired.  Islam, Judaism, Greek Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism lived in tandem and with tolerance during most of that period.  The different religious and cultural groups poured the best work of various artistic traditions in to the building of Monreale Cathedrale, about 8 miles outside of Palermo. Bonnano of Pisa cast the bronze doors in 1185 A Norman ruler, William II (1154-89), built Monreale Cathedral between 1174 and 1185. When the Roman...

An exquisite of exhibition "mourning" statues at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, have a beauty and realism that give us something to cry about, a phrase Michelangelo used to describe Flemish painting. In the 15th century, Flanders was ruled by the Duke of Burgundy and similarities to the Flemish style of painting can be are apparent in the style of sculptors Jean de la Huerta and Antoine de la Moiturier. They learned their art from the great Claus Sluter, a Netherlandish sculptor who worked in Burgundy. The Dukes of Burgundy had one of Europe's richest courts, in rivalry with the King of France to the west and Holy Roman Empire to the east. The 40 statues line up as if in a funeral procession. At the exhibition, viewers have a chance to see the statues in more completeness and in a more realistic way than in the location they were originally placed, below the bodies of Duke John the Fearless (Jean sans Peur) and his wife, Marguerite. In the current display, th...

Six famous women hold up the Porch of the Maidens of the Erechtheion, a temple on the Acropolis of Athens. These statues are admired for their graceful poses and drapery, but who notices the hair? An Art Historian who specializes in the sculpture of the Acropolis, Katherine Schwab, has studied the hairstyles and made a project of it for her students at Fairfield University in Connecticut. Here's a summary of a presentation she gave last night at the Greek Embassy in Washington. In the New Acropolis Mus eum, Athens --which was just built a few years ago -- one can see the statues from the back with their beautiful long braids of hair, falling in fishtails followed by more curls. In fact, the hair of the statues is in better condition than the faces and bodies whose arms are completely missing. (Caryatid is the name given to a feminine statue which acts as a column to hold up a building; Kore is a statue of a maiden. ) These six caryatids are labeled Kore A - Kore F. Every ha...