paul

Temporary floor mandala, flashed by light onto the floor of the Smithsonian's Sackler Gallery of Asian Art Mandalas, an important tradition in India, Nepal and Tibet have spread well into the West, or as some think, have always been in the West.  The exhibition,  Yoga: The Art of Transformation  at the Smithsonian's Sackler Gallery of Art, takes us into art and history surrounding the physical, spiritual and spiritual exercise of yoga.  It's the first exhibition of its kind. This is the last weekend of the show, featuring works of art in Hindu, Jain and Buddhist practice.   Yoga hold some keys to mental and physical healing. We're led into yoga's 3,000-year history by a series of light patterns flashed on the floor--patterns that are mandalas and have lotus patterns. (Lotus is also the name of a yoga pose.) After this weekend, they'll be gone with the show, but that's the spirit of mandalas, at least in the Tibetan tradition. Light Pattern on the floor of th...

Detail - Marc Chagall, with Lino Melano, Orpheus , 1971, from the upper right side--Pegasus, Three Graces, Orpheus   The nation's capital city added a sudden burst of color this season in the form of Marc Chagall's  Orpheus, a glass and stone mosaic.  It's a 17' by 10' wall standing in the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden, between 7th and 9th Streets, NW, Constitution Avenue and Madison Avenue.  Evelyn Stephansson Nef, who died in 2009, donated it to the museum.   (The composition is one of three new acquisitions in the National Gallery, a must-see along with a Van Gogh, a Gerrit von Honthorst and a loan of the Dying Gaul from the Capitoline Museum in Rome.) The mosaic stands in the garden behind the restaurant, but in front of the heavily traveled Route 1.  Fortunately, a lot trees shield it from view of the traffic, providing a reflective space for viewers.  The sculpture garden is on the National Mall, but open only from 10-5 daily and 11-...

Vincent Van Gogh,   Green Wheat Fields, Auvers, 1890 at the National Gallery of Art, a recent gift from the Collection of Mr & Mrs Paul Mellon Vincent Van Gogh's Green Wheat Fields, Auvers came into Washington's National Gallery of Art on December 20, 2013.  It's a windswept scene that sucks us in with intensity and urgency.     Green Wheat Fields, Auvers is among the 70 or so paintings he did during the two months of 1890 when he lived in Auvers-sur-Oise.  Experts believe he painted it in June, 1890, the month before he died. Fortunately the new painting entered the museum at the same time Washington's Phillips Collection is hosting an exhibition, Van Gogh Repetitions, until February 2, 2014. The exhibition of 14 paintings examines why the artist repeated compositions in the same format with different colors and very minor design changes. It features several portraits, The Bedroom at Arles and two magnificent Van Goghs owned by the Phillips Coll...

A first century temple to Mars, or possibly Janus, near Autun (ancient Augustodunum) in Burgundy may have inspired the large churches of this region in the 11th and 12th centuries. Only a fraction of this building remains today.  Here, a family from the Netherlands had a picnic while climbing the ruin. A movement  to dot the landscape of Europe with large churches in the 11th and 12th centuries was fueled by deep Christian faith, but, initially, the important building technologies had inspiration from the remains of ancient, pagan buildings. The population surged at this time and the last invaders, the Vikings and Magyars, had settled down. A transept of St. Lazare, Autun, built around 1120 has tall arches and a blind arcade like many late Roman buildings. The rib vaults vault are an innovation of Romanesque Romanesque is the name given today to that style of art, reflecting its common traits with Roman architecture: arches, barrel vaults and groin vaults.  Altho...

Diego Velázquez, Joseph's Bloody Coat Brought to Jacob, 1630 oil on canvas, Monastery of San, Lorenzo, El Escorial,  Spain, 87 3/4 x 98 3/8 in.  wikipedia image Cheating card players and fortune tellers by Caravaggio and Georges de la Tour are among the best-known paintings of deception .   Two extraordinary Velázquez paintings completed in 1630, The Forge of Vulcan and Joseph's Bloody Coat Brought to Jacob , above, are also allegories of deception from the Baroque period of art.  Although a Biblical painting and a mythological painting would not seem connected, the canvasses match in height, format and the number of figures, six each.  The painting of Jacob and sons has been cut at either end, while the other image has added canvas to the left.  Both paintings have large window openings onto landscapes on their left sides.  There are only male figures, many of them scantily dressed to show the artist's extraordinary ability at depicting muscles of...

The Erechtheion is an Ionic building, with its porches going in different directions. It commemorates the founding of Athens, with the contest between Athena and Poseidon Glistening white marbles which is seem to grow out of the hill form the picture on my mind of the Athens' Acropolis, from what I've seen in textbooks.  The city's highest hill has been a wonder to the world for 2500 years, and a symbol of Greek civilization since ancient times. One climbs the hill to get to the Propylaia, monumental gateway to the Acropolis.  A wide opening in the center allowed horse-drawn chariots to enter.  This view is from inside the hill. Although the Parthenon is Doric, this column on the ground was Ionic Yet, at any given time, so much on the Acropolis is in the process of restoration, covered up by scaffolds.  I was there on the first day of June, which, unusually, was not a sunny day. A view of the Acropolis ruins leads to another hill, capped Athens Tower I was surprised ...

This summer I finally had the opportunity to go to Greece and see the sprawling Palace at Knossos.  Actually, it's not certain if this site was a palace, administrative center, giant apartment building, religious/ceremonial building, or all of the above.  Yet it is so huge that, when discovered in 1900, archeologist Arthur Evans certainly thought he had found a true labyrinth where the legendary King Minos lived and kept his minotaur.  The name Minoan for the Bronze Age people who lived in Crete from about 2000-1300 BC has stuck. Covering 6 acres, the palace of Knossos and the surrounding city may have had a population of 100,000 in the Bronze Age According to legend, the king of Athens paid tribute to King Minos by sending him 7 young men and young women who were in turn fed and sacrificed to the half-man, half-bull minotaur. Eventually, with the aid of Minos' daughter and the inventor Daedalus, Theseus carried a ball of thread to find his way out and to slay the beast. ...