The Cloisters - 2/15/09

My last museum experience was a visit to the Cloisters, the upper Manhattan branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art dedicated solely to the exhibition of medieval art. What a fantastic place!

Originally a formal military fort, the Cloisters is at the top of Fort Tryon Park and overlooks the Hudson River. The museum looks like a castle inside and out and I found it hard to believe that this building was originally used by the military. I had always though that the Cloisters was originally built as it stands today, but my visit allowed me to learn that many architectural aspects of the Cloisters were actually portions of medieval ruins dismantled in their home country, pieced back together and incorporated into the museum. When you look closely at the various room portals (doorways) one can see that the materials of the walls and the doorways don’t exactly match up but the seamless method in which the structures were installed requires a conscientious eye to spot the slight differences.

I was hard pressed to choose one piece in the Cloisters on which to base my paper. I have settled on reviewing two pieces that I have a fondness for. The first is a 16^th century brass lectern. I was not able to get a shot of the information card so I cannot say what country this piece is from, but I would assume that it would be from a poorer country as it is made out of brass and not some other more expensive type of metal.

The eagle that forms the center of the lectern is said to be Saint John’s eagle, one of the four evangelists. In addition to the huge eagle, the lectern has been designed to look like tree branches supporting the raptor.

Three lion statuettes work as feet for the piece and there are several statues of humans installed at different heights and levels of the lectern’s core which resembles a cathedral tower. The reason why this piece caught my eye was the simple fact that it was made of brass. I collect brass pieces, so that would be a good excuse, but the real thought that crossed my mind was the idea that this lectern wasn’t the overdone and lavish gold covered religious pieces that I was used to seeing – it was brass. A simple metal that is easy to mold, brass looks for all-the-world like gold from afar. I liked the fact that a simple artisan had the same thought and strayed from building the normal wooden or stone lectern.

The second piece that I really liked is a simple late 15th century German carving of Mary Magdalene, or the Magdalene.

Everyone has heard of Mary, whether it be in the form of the prostitute-turned-saint or that of the wife of Jesus. I did not see this statue until after I had read the DaVinci Code and had I, it would not have held for me the same feelings that it does now. The DaVinci Code story (and its non-fictional predecessor Holy Blood, Holy Grail) holds that Mary Magdalene was pregnant with Jesus’ child and after his death fled to Europe where Jesus’ child lived to carry on the blood line of Christ, a theory defiantly denied by the Catholic Church. Now being the research driven person that I am, I began on my own little quest to find the Magdalene hidden in religious art. I have found many a portrait of the “Virgin and Child” or “Mary and Child” that do not reveal the actual sex of the baby. Could these paintings actually be of Mary Magdalene and her child instead of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus? Your guess is as good as mine, but the fact remains that there is much about Mary Magdalene that needs to be revealed.

I liked this statue of the Magdalene because of its flowing simplicity. Mary’s hair curls down to her robes which wrap around her body in a singular direction.

The fact that she is holding a jar (possibly the alabaster jar) is not wasted on this viewer. If one reads enough of the DaVinci Code or Holy Blood, Holy Grail the jar’s illusion to the Holy Grail is immensely apparent. Am I just another DaVinci Code freak or am I on to something? I urge you to look closely at the details of any religious painting or sculpture of “Mary” that you see in the future and ask yourself the same question: “Who is Mary?”

I immensely enjoyed my museum experiences and can easily say that this was one of the best classes that I have ever taken! My appreciation of art and the museums that care for the pieces has grown 100-fold and I will not be the same person for it – I will be better. Thank you!

The Met - 2/14/09 (Valentine's Day!)

The Met was huge and fantastic...and HUGE! I cannot believe that I have never been to the Met before and I have to say that I might not have gone for many more years to come if it hadn't been for his class!

This blog will be a photo tour of the Met, but before I get into pictures I should tell you a bit about my adventures in New York. As I wrote in my previous blogs, my fiance and I stayed in a hotel for the weekend and visited four different museums. Our hotel was on the East side at 94th and Broadway and Museum Mile is directly across Central Park from there, so we made our way to the Met by walking through Central Park and around the Jackie Onassis Reservoir. Wow! I had never walked in Central Park before and what a treat to get to the other side of a fantastic park and be greeted by the Met! We had a great day and didn't leave the museum until past 8:00 PM! Well, I hope you enjoy the pics because I sure did enjoy taking them!


Royal Acquaintances Memi and Sabu
Giza, Dynasty 4


Fragment of the Face of a Queen
Dynasty 18
yellow jasper


Temple


Temple lagoon


William Henry Reinhart
Clytie, 1872









Inlaid wood room. The whole room was done like this!


Greenman!


Sallet (helmet) in the Shape of a Lion's Head





Greenman holster


Armor



Albert Bierstadt
The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak, 1863
**Aaron's favorite. Can you tell?









Greenman bellows


Medieval pruning set


Cupid --the man of the hour!


Frederick Lord Leighton
Lachrymae, 1884


van Gogh
Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat, 1887



van Gogh
Wheat Field with Cypresses, 1889

The Guggenheim - 2/13/09

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is one of the foremost museums of modern art. Another rich industrialist like Henry Frick, Guggenheim began collecting modern art when he was 66 years old. In 1937 he started the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and opened the Museum of Non-Objective Painting. In 1943 Frank Lloyd Wright was commissioned to design a building that would house the large collection. It is this building that sets the Guggenheim apart from any other museum in New York. I was not allowed to take pictures in the museum and sadly have only two exterior shots of my own to share.

The building is made up of a series of spirals that gradually grow wider as it goes up. A skylight at the top of the structure allows natural light to flood the museum and the openness of the spirals floors allows one to look at multiple floors of art at the same time.

At the time that I visited the museum a special exhibition entitled The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860–1989 was on display throughout the whole museum. To get a good idea of the exhibition, take a look at this the exhibition web page which has a short clip, including footage of the Hsieh exhibit that I talk about below: http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/exhibitions/on-view-now/third-mind

One thing that strikes me funny is the trick that the exhibit curator, Alexandra Munroe, has pulled on the museum visitor. The Third Mind exhibit is all about Asian influence; Buddhism, Taoism, all of that good stuff, right? Well, the Guggenheim website explains that Wright’s intention was for the visitor to enter the museum on the first floor, take the elevator to the top floor and gradually wind their way down to the first floor again. Not so with the Third Mind exhibit. Instead of shooting right up to the seventh floor, the viewer is guided up the first floor ramp and climbs to the summit – a bit like the Buddhist ideal of enlightenment, eh? Oh those curators!

It was at the "summit" that I found my artist of choice. Tehching Hsieh, otherwise known as Sam Hsieh, has a room all to himself on Annex level 3. The walls of the large room are painted grey, like cement grey, and are line with row after row of pictures. A single time card is at the top of each row and the person in each picture is Sam Hsieh. Sam’s art is what is called performance art and this exhibition is about time and performance. Each hour, on the hour, for a year (366 days) Sam Hsieh punched a time card and took his picture wearing the same uniform. To accentuate the passage of time, Sam shaved his head on the first day and let his hair grow out naturally.

At the end of the year, Sam combined all of the pictures together and made a 6 minute time-lapse movie which plays over and over at one end of the gallery. Below the screening is the time clock that Sam used and on the floor are two painted footprints marking the spot in which Sam would have stood to take the picture. In the middle of the room is a glass case that contains Sam’s statement of exactly what his performance will be, a signed statement by a friend stating that he had signed all 366 time cards on that date and would sign no additional cards, a statement verifying a tally of the days and hours that Sam missed punching his time cards, and the folded uniform and pair of boots that Sam wore throughout the “performance”. I have to say that I loved this exhibition. The dedication that this man must have had to pull it off, never mind the sheer exhaustion he must have been suffering from after not getting any REM sleep for a year is mind-numbing. The presentation is neat and orderly as are the papers and uniform in the case. The overpowering industrial feeling that you get from the room really accentuates the rigidness in which Sam approached the performance. It was astounding!

All in all, my visit to the Guggenheim was a successful one. Although I am not a fan of modern and contemporary art, I found the museum to be a great place to learn a little about the art form. Certainly the Hsieh exhibition has gone a long way in teaching me that I have a lot more to learn about modern art before I can really make a judgment.

Works Cited:

http://one-year-performance.com

http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/about-us/frank-lloyd-wright-building/chronology-1920s

http://www.artsjournal.com/artopia/2009/02/tehching_hsieh_caged_fury.html

The Frick Collection - 2/13/09

The Frick, as it is commonly referred, is a mansion-turned-museum on Museum Mile (5th Ave.) in Manhattan, New York. Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919) was a wealthy industrialist who collected all manner of art. Paintings, murals, bronze and marble sculpture fill Frick’s collection and the mansion that holds it is just a beautiful. Facing out on Central Park, the Frick mansion is a library on the left side…



…and a museum on the right...



This picture is one of the only ones I was able to take as no photographs are allowed to be taken inside of the museum.


When entering the front door you are immediately ushered into a side room which holds the coat check and the admission desk. All I can say is “Thank God for coat check rooms!” They come in very handy allowing one to stash their winter garb instead of walking around the museum with it. One of our first stops was to pick up an audio guide – a small device that allows the user to type in the number of an art piece and listen to the description and history of the art piece in question. Our self-guided tour first led us through a gorgeous cloister or garden room called the Garden court, complete with a fountain and a skylight, surrounded by bronze and marble statuary. Upon review of the web site I found out that this room is supposed to be the last stop on the tour, but with my horticultural-driven fiancé with me, we couldn’t help but be drawn to the soothing sound of water and soft light that drew of the beaten path.


There are a total eight rooms and two hallways in the mansion that are used as galleries to showcase the collection, all of which harken back to the museum’s original use as a personal residence. Built in 1913-14, the mansion was originally designed by the American architect Thomas Hastings to replicate the European style. Additions were made to the building in 1977 to better accommodate the growing collection and growing crowds.


I found my artist of choice in the East Gallery: James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903). Whistler was an American born painter who spent the majority of his life in Europe. His art education began in Russia at the age of nine and ended in Paris, where Whistler lived for many years until he took up residence in London and eventually married Beatrix Godwin in 1888. I know right away why I like Whistler’s paintings so much – it is because of my affinity for Aestheticism. Whistler was influenced by the Realism, Orientalism, and Pre-Raphaelite art movements and was later connected to the Impressionism movement. I can definitely see the Impressionism aspect of his work as he uses broad strokes and color to express the subject and mood of his paintings.

I have to say that it is also Whistler’s fascination with and incorporation of Asian art in his work that really caught my eye. In Whistler’s six by three and a half foot oil on canvas entitled Symphony in Flesh Colour and Pink: Portrait of Mrs. Frances Leyland, one can easily detect the influence of Asian art in the way that Whistler painted what look to be bamboo leaves on the mid-right hand side of the painting. Another Asian-inspired element is his signature which is nothing more than Whistler’s initials in the form of a butterfly that is painted in the style of a Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock print.




The woman in the painting is obviously a love interest of Whistler’s given the romantic way in which the woman is painted. When looking at the area of Whistler’s initials, one can not help but see the closeness of the subject’s hands to butterfly image. Is this a coincidence or the artist’s subtle way of telling the viewer that Mrs. Leyland held something for the artist or vice versa? The title also denotes an air of romance using the specific terms “flesh” and “pink” to describe the colors used in the painting – pink is the color of love, don’t ya know! Regardless of my theories, for me this painting is the height of romance. , this painting is powerful. With its soft colors and the woman’s flowing gown, how could anyone see anything other?


The Frick is a fantastic place to spend a few hours and is just one of New York’s many hidden treasures. I urge you to visit it on your next visit to Museum Mile!


Some other pics, courtesy of the Frick Collection web site:



James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834 - 1903)
The Ocean, 1866
oil on canvas



James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834 - 1903)
Arrangement in Brown and Black: Portrait of Miss Rosa Corder, 1876-1878
oil on canvas (lined)




James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834 - 1903)
Arrangement in Black and Gold: Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac, 1891-1892
oil on canvas



Riccio (Andrea Briosco) (1470 - 1532) (Style of)
Satyr with Inkstand and Candlestick, late 15th century
bronze




Johannes Vermeer (1632 - 1675)
Mistress and Maid, 1666-1667
oil on canvas



Hans Holbein, the Younger (1497/1498 - 1543)
Thomas Cromwell, 1532-1533
oil on oak panel (cradled)



Hans Holbein, the Younger (1497/1498 - 1543)
Sir Thomas More, 1527
oil on oak panel



Works Cited:
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/whistler/
http://www.frick.org/virtual/index.htm

The Wadsworth Atheneum - 2/7/09

Ah, the Wadsworth! Looks like a castle from the outside but it is nothing short of a high-level museum on the inside. Incorporated in 1842 by Daniel Wadsworth, the Atheneum was not officially opened until July 31, 1844. The original “castle” was designed and executed by two 19th century architects, Alexander Jackson Davis and Ithiel Town, to recreate the gothic revival style. Since its opening in 1844, four additional wings (there are plans for a fifth wing!) were built to exhibit the 50,000+ pieces that the museum current owns. Now for the tour!


When you enter from the front entrance of the museum, you are greeted by a fantastic Sol LeWitt wall drawing that encircles the entryway and draws the eye up to the cathedral ceiling. The museum store is on your right...



...and the Auerbach Arts Library on the left.



One of the paintings in the first gallery really caught my eye for one of the very reasons listed on the info card. The Portrait of Mademoiselle Henriette Ferre (1841) by Jean-Francois Millet depicts a well-to-do yet sickly young woman whose haunting gaze and pale complexion really draws one in to the painting.



I was obviously caught up in the museum’s vast collection within steps of the front door. The next painting that I really liked was Avenue de Clichy painted by Louis Anquetin in 1887. This painting reminds me of van Gogh’s Cafe Terrace at Night with the depiction of a Paris street and the hot and cool colors that really give you the feeling of a cool, wet street and a warm, inviting store front. Love this painting!!



Here is a pic of the archway into the special exhibitions gallery.



It gives you a good idea of the detail and artisan ship that went into even the smallest aspect of the Atheneum’s gothic revival architecture.


The painting that I chose from the Wadsworth is the Vale of St. Thomas, Jamaica painted in 1867 by Frederic Edwin Church (b. 1826, d. 1900). Church is known as an American landscape painter who trained at the Hudson River School out of New York. At the time of his fame, realistic landscape painting was the art of the day. The 19th century infatuation with the discovery and exploration of new places coupled with the preference for aesthetic, nature-themed art added fuel to the artistic fire.


**The pic above is from my camera, but the one below is a professional shot and is of a much better quality.

Below are some close ups of the unbelievable frame that this piece is in.





It actually has a shelf like structure that makes it more of a shadow box that acts like a window frame...




At four foot high by seven foot wide, this tropical masterpiece allows the viewer to stand far away and take in the view as if they were actually standing in Jamaica or come up close to the canvas and discover the nuances of the individually realized plants, flowers and rivers that make up the piece.



My favorite aspect of this painting is the sun and the sky. The dark rain storm, swirling clouds and intensely shining sun on the left side of the painting totally contrasts with the calm serenity of the right side of the painting that depicts a winding river and glistening tropical plants and palms.















This contrast shows the viewer just how quickly the weather can change on the island and mixes the feelings of turmoil and serenity together in such a way that the viewer is drawn in to explore the myriad details of the painting.

This oil painting is a fantastic example of aesthetic landscape painting. One can see the affinity for detail which calls back to the art movement called Academicism, known for its rules and doctrines that required the artist to depict the paintings subject as realistically and anatomically correct as possible. It is interesting to see the jump that people made from Academicism to Impressionism to Aestheticism, a softer version of Academicism. I guess people got tired of Impressionistic art that depicted a world as seen through old wavy, bubbly glass and yearned for the more finite and realistic details of classic paintings.

There are two points that make this painting important both to the Wadsworth’s history and my own. It was actually Daniel Wadsworth who discovered Church and introduced him to the Hudson River School founder, Thomas Cole. Cole trained Church until his death in 1848, but this was still enough time to train Frederic to learn the tricks of the trade that would eventually make him the most famous American landscape artist in history. Church is also buried in Hartford, so he can be considered a local artist -- a famous local artist whose career was directly connected to the Atheneum and its founder.

My fiancé actually worked at the gorgeous Olana State Park which is the site of Church’s Moorish-style Victorian mansion -- a place near and dear to the artist’s, and my, heart.. The grounds have a phenomenal view of the Hudson and give hikers access to various cliffs and mountains along the river valley and there is even a heart-shaped pond that Church had made especially for his wife, Isabel. If you get a chance, I would definitely suggest that you take a ride up to Hudson, NY and visit Olana -- I promise that you will not be disappointed!

Here are some additional pics of pieces that I had to include in my photographic montage:

The Charter Oak - Charles de Wolf Brownell, 1857

This frame is actually made from the Charter Oak itself! Unbelievable!!




Ruben Peale - Rembrandt Peale, 1834






Girl with Black Eye - Norman Rockwell, 1953