Art Institute of Chicago

Deaccessions 2008

2011-09-17T17:47:00.000-07:00

In September, 2009, Tyler Green alerted us to a number of paintings that the Art Institute auctioned off at Christies, and I showed the pictures here .

More recently, they sold off some early moderns (Picasso, Matisse, Braque) to pay for the new Malevich, and I showed those works here

And today, I saw the above painting at the opening of "Re:Chicago" at the new DePaul University Art Museum which the A.I.C. auctioned off at Sotheby's in May, 2008.

What's especially noteworthy about this piece is that, as you can read above, it was given to the museum by Martin Ryerson who devoted his life to bringing exceptional art to the museum. (for example, this Jean Hey piece came from him - without which this spectacular exhibit of French art probably would not have come to Chicago earlier this year.)

Currently, there are four A.B.D. paintings left in the museum, two of which also came from Ryerson. (none are on display)

Other pieces include this Guy Carleton Wiggins a
New York impressionist.

And then were some Remington sculpture and paintings.

Milton Avery

I'm not sure all of these things should have been kept and periodically displayed.

And one good consequence of sending them to Sotheby's or Christie's is that the auction houses provide much larger images on the internet than the museum ever did.

But it's troubling that the A.I.C> is so tight-lipped about all these transactions.

The New Eloise W. Martin Director

2011-09-04T10:54:00.000-07:00

With last month's announcement that Douglas Druick would replace James Cuno , as the Eloise W. Martin Director of the Art Institute, it seems like the right time to contemplate the future.

It's hard to say just what kind of choices the new director has made in his curatorial career because the museum is run behind closed doors and there is no professional journalism that tries to peek behind them.

Except that, as Alan Artner noted in his above report, Druick was primarily responsible for the acquisition of the fake Gauguin shown above. Art forgeries can be very cleverly done, so we can't really blame a curator for being fooled. But we can blame him for making a major investment in something with zero aesthetic value, all the more painful because the museum has so little European figure sculpture unless it's done by non-sculptors like Degas, Daumier, or Matisse.

Was he also responsible for selling off four paintings by Picasso, Matisse, and Braque to help raise the 60 million dollars to purchase the Malevich?

Only the insiders know what role he played, but as director of the European painting and sculpture department, he had to be involved.

Perhaps the new director, as well as the board that hired him, subscribe to the recent trend in art theory that has demoted good taste to personal opinion. Even Clement Greenberg, in his later years, railed against such relativism.

If good taste is not relevant to museum exhibitions, what's left ?

Star power -- and, regretfully, that seems to be where our new director has been going, with his big exhibitions of of Van Gogh and Seurat from the 19th C. and Jasper Johns from the late 20th.

And what, beside star power would justify buying and exhibiting that horrible fake Gauguin ?

It's hard to be optimistic about the upcoming decade, but anyway, here's my wish list:

*Devote a gallery to Chinese painting. (and not at the expense of Chinese ceramics)
And in that gallery, please install a display case that's long enough to show an entire scroll.

For example, this painting (which I think is one of the greatest things in the entire museum) has only been put on display about once every 20 years - and even then, since the old display case was 8 feet long, it would take more than a lifetime to ever see all of it.

*Make rotating displays of off-view European painting, sculpture, and tapestry.

Just like there are special galleries for the rotating display of Japanese and European/American prints.

There is no good reason to keep things off-view unless they are periodically put on display. And if they're never put on display -- sell them! Let somebody else in the world enjoy them.

*Do SOMETHING about art from the Islamic world.

As proven by the rather sparse exhibit of the museum's collection of Persian art in 2010, that collection is threadbare.

One of the strongest arguments for an encyclopedic art museum is the improvement of international relations by making our public a bit less narrow minded, and no area of the world currently needs more understanding than the Islamic.

Currently, Islamic arts occupy a small, dark hallway near the connecting doors to the Modern Wing. They need more space -- and continuous new exhibits.

*The A.I.C. online.

Why can't the entire data base be accessible -- with information about exhibition history and pieces that have been de-accessioned? Why can't we have larger pictures - which is especially important for things like tapestries that only go on display every century or so ?

And what about museum statistics, like the Indianapolis Museum is offering on their Dashboard ?

I once asked Director Cuno about this, and though he was quite aware of what the director of the I.M.A. had done, he had no intention of following his lead into transparency.

Hopefully Druick will have a different attitude.

And why does the interactive blog have to be juvenile? Why can't it offer serious discussions like this one instead of idiotic posts like this one ?

Director James Cuno

2011-06-19T05:19:00.000-07:00

I was as surprised as everyone else by Director Cuno's sudden resignation last month.(especially since I didn't read about it until today)

His predecessor, James Wood, held the position for 25 years, and when coming aboard, Mr. Cuno wrote about this being a destination position in his profession. Where does one go after being the director of the AIC? The Met?

But, as it turns out, the President and CEO of the Getty Trust is actually a juicier plum. For one thing it pays more. His first year, he'll make 1.4 million instead of the 870 thousand he got at the AIC. For another, he's relieved of all the bothersome responsibilities of a museum director. With its 3 billion dollar endowment, the Getty won't need him to do fund raising, and it won't even need him to oversee the operation of a museum. Instead, he will direct the overall operation that includes research and scholarship as well as museum operation.

And more than an institutional director, Mr. Cuno is something of a scholar, and an outspoken advocate of the encyclopedic museum and its mission to display original artifacts from every time and place, regardless of how they were originally removed.

So yes, the Getty position will be a better fit for him.

What is his legacy at the A.I.C. ?

He was there when the Modern Wing opened, but that was really the project of the previous administration.

His primary bent as director seems to have been populist -- i.e. appealing to a broader public by emphasizing family programming. Though, on the other hand, he also eliminated the "pay what you wish" admissions fee that basically locks out that vast public which subsists on chump-change wages or social security income.

(BTW - that would have locked me out of the museum during my first decade in Chicago when basically I was living hand to mouth)

He also has emphasized the permanent collection - including all the stuff that's usually off-view - rather than the blockbuster exhibits. Not a single, specially ticketed exhibition has occurred during his 7 years. But there were several good shows made from things hardly ever seen: the tapestries , Japanese screens , and the Soviet War Posters

Regarding the re-installation of the non-European galleries after the Modern Wing opened up all that new space, it has mostly been disappointing.

The Alsdorf galleries of South Asia sculpture are poorly lit, and the new galleries of African and pre-European American work seem to have been designed for a museum of natural history.

Most painful of all, the gallery space for Chinese art has been reduced to accommodate a major donor of Japanese material - and the re-design of the Japanese galleries has replaced the spiritual with the clinical.

Regarding the modern wing, the good news is that several rooms are now dedicated to rotating displays of local artists.

While the bad news is that everything that's not contemporary academic is still locked out. No traditional landscapes, figures, or portraits -- even if such things continue to have a broader public appeal than either minimalism or conceptual mind play.

And the institutional policy of secrecy remains intact -- despite a national trend for transparency, led by the director of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, just three hours down the road.

With that closed-door policy in force, and with the absence of serious art journalism in our local papers, it's impossible for outsiders like myself to evaluate this director's brief tenure.

One can't even evaluate the acquisitions made in his administration because they aren't listed anywhere. The most notable one was the Malevich . That one looks much better in reproduction than in person and some very good paintings were auctioned off to help pay for it.

(By the way, in that last link, I concluded with the assertion that "Each and every museum curator and administrator would be gone in a New York minute when or if they were offered a better job elsewhere.")

It may just be that vested interests within both the departments and the boardroom are running the museum, anyway, and the director is little more than a figurehead.

But if it actually is an important position, what should the Art Institute of Chicago be looking for in the next director?

Good management and fund raising skills are obviously required.

But what about a sense of taste?

Is it too much to ask that the director of an art museum actually love to look at art and be able to make sharp distinctions concerning the visual quality of objects and how they are presented?

I don't recall that James Cuno ever expressed enthusiasm about how things look.

His predecessor, James Wood, was clearly a fan of Ellsworth Kelly. But an interest in minimalism is rather minimally an interest in the visual qualities of art.

Even if it's outside the theory and practice of contemporary academic art, shouldn't one of the missions of an art museum be to get the best looking things and show them to the best advantage?

John Marin's Frame of Mind

2011-02-05T06:50:00.001-08:00

John Marin's Frame of Mind

Inevitably,
the A.I.C. blog
discusses a technical detail
of presentation
rather than the art works themselves.

But what interested me
was some mis-information I got
about the museum's collection.

A friend from the club
went to the curator's lecture
and misunderstood her to say that
the museum owned 1/3 of Marin's oeuvre.

So I asked about that
and was quickly (and thankfully)
corrected.

But I still wish that a few of them
would always be on display
somewhere in the museum,
even if they have to be changed
every few months.

My response to the show
is posted here

Staff Picks - Tommy R.

2011-02-05T05:15:00.000-08:00

Staff Picks : Tommy R.

Tommy R. is a fine fellow
who loves the great outdoors,
understands that romantic notions of wildnerness
motivated the establishment
of our national parks,
and connects them to the above painting
thanks to the label posted beside it.

And so he begins his discussion with:

"I chose this painting
because if you read the text beside it...."

But what about the painting, itself, Tommy ?

How do you feel as you look at it?

How does it compare with the other 19th C.
American landscapes in that gallery?

Or with the neo-romantics like Thomas Kinkade ?

It's not one of the conceptual pieces in the Modern Wing
that have no value at all
without their explanatory text.

(I write some more about it here )

Her 15 Minutes of Mascot Fame

2011-01-25T08:20:00.000-08:00

Coinciding
with the opening
of a thrilling exhibit
of John Marin watercolors and etchings,
this post
from the museum's
Social Media Coordinator,
features herself
in a goofy lion suit.

(a few weeks after
her previous post ,
about involving the museum
in a scavenger hunt.)

Why is the A.I.C. blog
so serious
about
not taking art very seriously?

Special exhibits of art
are hardly ever discussed
except for tangential technical issues,
while so many of the posts,
like this one,
are pure fluff.

Fukusa

2011-01-25T08:10:00.000-08:00

This post
deals with Fukusa,
an ornate, embroidered piece of cloth
used to accompany a special gift
among the upper classes of Japan.

A very informative essay
but unfortunately
no exhibit of any of these objects
is either recent, planned,
or currently running.

So why talk about it?

Especially since
the museum is not even willing
to publish large, detailed
photos of them.

Upon Closer Inspection

2010-12-15T06:27:00.000-08:00

Ludovico Carracci (1555-1619)
"Something on Copper"

The A.I.C. blog
has finally gotten around
to mentioning
the new Carracci
that I deplored last week,
and
as usual
it discusses
something tangential
to the artwork's importance.

Or perhaps,
the copper support
really is
the only reason
this painting
is of any importance
to the art lovers
of Chicago.

99 Ways to Paint Snow

2010-12-14T05:59:00.000-08:00

In this post
Jason F.
(who works in the A.I.C. Prints & Drawings Dept.
as well as edits the art section of New City)
takes us on a tour
of the minimalist white paintings
in the Modern Wing.

And taking a hint
once suggested by Salvador Dali,
I wonder
whether
we might just as well
be looking at the
white painted walls
behind the frames.

Jason quotes from
Boris Groys
and concludes that:
"It has everything to do with artistic intention and strategy,
and that is an agreed upon reference for people who like art."

It's just that
I'm not one of them
who agrees.

On further research,
I discover that
many of these white pieces
were introduced into the museum
in the 73rd Annual
American Exhibition in 1979
along with extensive explanatory text
that seems quite different
from Groys' notion of
"strategic dis-communication or even self-excommunication"

Many thanks to Jason
for introducing
some serious thought
into the A.I.C's
mostly frivolous blog.

A regrettable New Acquisition

2010-12-07T08:32:00.001-08:00

Ludovico Carracci (1555-1619)
"Vision of Saint Francis"

While listing all the current shows last week,
I discovered this one
I hadn't known about,
so I had to run downtown
and see it.

Ouch!

Flaccid, insipid,
saccharine,
and completely enervated.

Like what you'd expect to find
in a parish gift shop.

(and at 14" X 11",
it's not much larger
than a big postcard)

Here's some detail views
from
the auction house
that sold it.

Why would anyone attribute this
to the same artist ....

...who painted this version
from the National Gallery, London
(dated 1583-6)

Christie's quotes
a leading scholar as follows:

Brogi, however, dates this copper to c.1602-1604, comparing it to the Genoa Annunciation and to the Birth of Saint John the Baptist, Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale, which displays evident parallels to the present lot in the profile of the Virgin and the treatment of the hands and draperies. 'The enameled luminosity of the color', he writes, 'notwithstanding the nocturnal ambience, the exquisite drawing and above all the totally idealised delicacy of the forms and even more of the sentiment lead one to a much later dating [than previously thought], and place this work in the middle of of the most decisively classicising phase of Ludovico's career'.

Text on the A.I.C. site picks up on that "classicising" theme as it asserts that the Carracci "transformed painting in Bologna at the end of the 16th century into the compelling blend of classical and naturalistic elements that would dominate 17th-century Italian painting"

But one should note
that everything
about the attribution
of this painting
is speculative.

The artist
did not sign
or date it.

There is no original
bill of sale,
and incredibly enough,
its provenance
only goes back
to 1973.

The primary value
of this piece
is the scholarship
that has enshrined it.
(which primarily consists of
A. Brogi's 1989 PHD dissertation)

And yet,
the A.I.C.
paid $842,500 for it.

Ludovico

The Carracci family
is best known
in America
for its sketches
which show up
in almost every exhibit
of Italian master drawings,
and the A.I.C.
owns quite a few of them.

Ludovico

Agostino

Annibale

Ludovico

All of which
are so much stronger
than the
newly acquired painting.

It's fun
to go through
the rest of
Christie's Sale #2282
and dream
about how you'd
like to spend $842,000

So many of the lots
are long on famous names
but short
on aesthetic quality.

It may be some consolation
that the A.I.C.
could have spent much more
and gotten even less.

...................

Note:
a discussion of
recent AIC accessions
can be found
here

The worst
would have to be
this one,
while I'm quite fond of
this one

Why hasn't the

A.I.C. blog
ever discussed
the new acquisitions
of historic art?

The A.I.C.
is so secretive
about everything.

No listing of acquisitions,
no listing of de-accessions,
no listing of personnel.

And even the participants
in its own blog
are mostly anonymous
except to insiders.

The Plethora of Current Exhibits

2010-12-01T05:26:00.000-08:00

In one sense,
the art lover
and the art museum administrator
are natural enemies.

Because the one determines
what the other gets to see,
and other than traveling out of town,
the art lover has no other options.

(unlike the music or book lovers
who can order anything in the world)

Museum professionals need to be
concerned with "art" (the idea) and career,
to which personal taste
is mostly irrelevant
and may be a liability.

If they were offered a better job
at any other institution,
they'd be gone in a New York minute.

While taste
is what loving art
is all about,
and it's exercise
is distinctly local,
being limited
to what can actually
be seen on display.

****************

And after that little coup was pulled in 1878,
the administrators of the Art Institute
only report to a small, self selected board
of Chicago's wealthiest citizens.

Art lovers have neither choice nor voice,
so it's no wonder they have come to accept
a passive role in museum affairs
and mostly ignore the A.I.C.'s
new interactive blog
which serves as a self-promotional tool
for various staffers and departments.

Nor is there an outside platform
where a critical stance can be taken,
especially now when none of the
major newspapers have an art critic.

So I have volunteered
to be the fly in the ointment.

But that's not to say
that I don't really appreciate
the plethora of small exhibits
now running:

*George Fan's Chinese bronzes
*Richard Gray's collection of drawings
*Roger Weston's collection of Japanese scrolls
*photos and fragments of Louis Sullivan's designs
*monumental stone and terracottas from ancient Mexico
*June Wayne's tapestries (plus selections from the fiber arts collection)
*the brief re-installion of arms and armor - but especially some tapestries

(and those are just the ones I like.
The Modern Wing has many more
that don't happen to interest me)

It's like a spectacular buffet table
at the world's most expensive restaurant.

And credit should probably go
to James Cuno, the current director.

His predecessor, James Wood,
was focused
on fewer but bigger shows
(the blockbusters of
Monet-Degas-Van Gogh etc.)

Cuno seems to have more
of a common touch,
which is not a bad thing
in an artworld where
elite currently means minimalist,
bizarre, or atrocious.

So, I don't remember
ever enjoying the museum
as much as I do now.

(but I do wish
it would quickly
find some space
to display its
Chinese paintings!)

The New Weston Wing

2010-11-30T09:20:00.000-08:00

This post
celebrates the new Weston Wing
of Japanese art
primarily
for how its wide aisles
better accomodates
the stools carried in
by educational groups.

My unpublishable review
for New City
deplored its anticeptic aesthetic
and the de-sanctification
of the Ando Gallery
by removing its heavy glass doors.

This "Guest Blogger" post
also informs us that the
Ando's lighting was also changed.

But since the gallery has no lighting
(except within the cases)
I asked just what those changes
might have been.

And apparently this question
remains too difficult to answer.

A Case Lift

2010-11-30T08:07:00.000-08:00

This post
discussed
how the shelves
were stained
in the new tea-bowl display case.

Mostly,
I just ignore these trips
"behind the scenes".

But this one interested me
because
as much as I enjoy the
new display of Japanese tea bowls,
I also miss the former display
of Korean calligraphy.

All of the new space
now given to Japanese material
was taken away from
the Chinese and Korean displays,
which is especially regrettable,
since the museum recently increased
its floor space so much
by adding the Modern Wing.

That's the real
"behind the scenes"
story here,
and apparently it was done
to accomodate a major donor.

Show Me the Monet

2010-11-30T06:47:00.001-08:00

This post
explored the legal issue involved
when others use text and images
that the A.I.C. has under copyright.

Being a tourist attraction,
like, say, Wrigley Field,
the A.I.C. is a rather obvious subject
for those who make tourist paraphernalia.

And if someone put the Cubs logo
onto a coffee mug or t-shirt
one would expect that the Cubs
need to approve the design and be paid for its use.

But what about our art museum,
which is a private corporation,
but also a not-for-profit
on public property
with the purpose
of educating people about art?

Doesn't the above image
further that goal?

After some discussion,
it was explained that
"The key issue would be the likelihood of confusion
as to source or sponsorship"

Apparently,
that confusion was avoided
by changing the type-font
or inserting a copyright symbol.

But I don't see how.

And while protecting their own copy rights,
it's more than a little ironic
that the A.I.C. gives no credit
to the living artist who designed the above image
that was reproduced on its blog.

(and beyond giving that person credit,
they might consider
commissioning him or her
to illustrate their own
promotional literature )

The Wolf on the Wall

2010-11-29T09:08:00.000-08:00

Here's
a post about the
upcoming exhibit
Soviet war posters.

I queried why
Russian Impressionism
was never given
a special exhbit.

Wouldn't such paintings
be appropriate
for a museum
that specializes
in French Impressionism?

I could have added
that no other genre
of Russian art
(other than Icons)
has ever been given
a special exhibit
at the A.I.C.

And I also could have added
that no Russian art
of any kind
is currently on display
except
for the early 20th C.
avant Garde (Kandinsky etc)

This really is an oversite
in a museum
that claims to be
"encyclopedic",
but is just following
the curatorial fashion
of the American artworld.

Hopefully,
this enthusiasm
for the propaganda posters
will carry over
to Soviet painting and sculpture.

Like most of my queries,
this one went un-answered,
but I do notice
that a month later
someone asked me
when the Tass exhibit would occur.

Unfortunately,
since her name was linked
to a website
that sells hearing aids,
I fear that she
was spamming the blog.
(while assuming that
many of us
were old enough
to need her products)

A Pope, a Fish, and a Puzzle

2010-11-24T08:43:00.000-08:00

I don't care for puzzle play,
and why would anyone who did
follow the A.I.C. blog
to find good, challenging ones?

But, nevertheless,
the staff who blogs

here

must find them to be
a pleasant diversion
from what is probably
a tedious job.

And neither the blogger,
nor anyone else,
is interested
in the issues
my comment raised
concerning
the A.I.C.'s collection
of Persian art.

Julia Fish Paintings

2010-07-22T09:06:00.000-07:00

Julia Fish: Paintings 1989–2005

Happily,
the curators of the Modern Wing
have put the collection
of contemporary art
on a rotational display.

So the artists who were featured
when the wing opened last year
have already been replaced by others.

Also happily,
many of these artists are local
which is something
that may not have happened
fifty years ago.

Which doesn't mean
that I like all of them,
and especially not this artist
whom I find terminally boring
and uttely dependant on explanatory text
like the following
which explains how the artist:

"has drawn upon the poetics of domestic architectural elements—including the structural appearance of the brick walls, varied floor surfaces, and glass-paned windows of her Chicago residence."

Ho-Hum.

And perhaps to emphasize
the irrelvance of the actual
qualities of the painting,
the blogger, Jenny G. (whoever that is)
has presented images that
are the size of postage stamps,
provoking someone from the blogosphere, Pat Miller,
to comment that:

"it would be nice if we could get a closer look"

In the discussion that followed,
it was suggested that Ms. Miller
should visit the museum to see the actual painting,
or failing that, could at least click on the links
to the AIC web museum.

But it's a good bet
that this posting
will be on the internet
long after those paintings
have been replaced by others.

And the images in the AIC web museum
are not much larger.

Possibly, some copyright issues are involved,
but couldn't permission be sought from the artist?

Although, I would ask
whether this kind of painting
really needs to be carefully seen, anyway,
once we've gotten the idea
that the artist wishes to celebrate banality
just because it is
personal to her.

BTW -- in case anyone
cares how the piece
looks up close,
here's a larger image
from my camera.

Installing Sol LeWitt

2010-06-26T05:39:00.000-07:00

Installing Sol LeWitt

For those of you unfamiliar with LeWitt’s work, much of it doesn’t exist like most artworks do, as a tangible painting, drawing, or sculpture. Rather, it is a list of instructions on how to create the artwork. As a conceptual artist, LeWitt believed that it wasn’t the finished work that was the “art”; art instead begins and ends with an idea. .....Katie R.

Then why do we need the actual painting at all?

Actually, I find LeWitt paintings to be rather pleasant,
at least, no less so than the decorated walls
of Burger King or Starbucks,
which also are painted according to a list of instructions.

And what's especially interesting about this post
is the comment from Rhona Hoffman,
the local LeWitt dealer,
who wasn't quite sure the instructions
were being followed properly by Matt,
the museum's "technical painter"

In her first comment, she noted :

” A tape painting?’I will read the rest of the article later but think that Matt is up the creek."

Then, in her second comment, she apologized for that above phrase, but still wondered:

"who did come from the Estate to do the drawing?"

So, perhaps the "finished work"
actually is the painting
that's up on the wall?

What's also notable about this entry
is Matt's admiration for LeWitt.

Not as a good designer,
but as:

"a dominant force, completely respected"

I saw the work in progress the last few weeks,
and will see the final version today,
but I suspect that the A.I.C. blog entry
will be far more memorable
than the art itself.

(just like it was
for the airplane engines
on the roof)

Remembering James Wood (and Alan Artner)

2010-06-21T05:14:00.000-07:00

Former Tribune art critic, Alan Artner's 1200 word tribute to former A.I.C. director, James Wood, appeared in the Chicago Tribune yesterday (June 20)

But hardly any details were offered to support its laudations.

Of course, there is the Modern Wing, and if that would not have happened without James Wood, then he deserves a lot of credit.

And the same thing for the dark and quiet Ando Gallery of Japanese screens and ceramics.

But how can we judge his contribution to the "numerous groundbreaking exhibitions" unless we know which exhibits were turned down, and which ones really had to be fought for?

And what is involved in "a higher level of professionalism"?

Has anyone ever described his predecessor, the former Kansas University President, Laurence Chalmers, as un-professional?

The problem is that the administration of a not-for-profit corporation, like the Art Institute, happens behind closed doors, and nobody can get behind those doors except a journalist from a major newspaper.

We don't need the kind of adversarial relationships that a columnist like John Kass has with Mayor "Shortshanks" Daley, or Governor "Deadmeat" Blagojevich.

But we do need a reporter who is looking for a story, instead of looking for approval from the powerful people he is covering.

From the little that I know about James Wood, he shared my enthusiasm for the Japanese Print room (which may be why it happily continued to be put on regular rotation), but he also had a taste for minimalism in contemporary art, and so I think we were shown a bit too much of Ellsworth Kelly and Jasper Johns.

But more importantly, it was at the beginning of his tenure that the Art Institute discontinued both it's American Painting and Sculpture Show and the Chicago Vicinity Show.

Two shows which the museum had been conducting regularly for the previous 90 years.

Why were they cut?

Perhaps because it was no longer fashionable to entertain an idea of Chicago art or American art as distinct from an international artworld.

So to assert the former would be to lose status in the latter.

But who knows?

This decision, along with all the others, was made in a boardroom closed to the public, and the city's most important art critic appears to have been more concerned with being the Director's friend than with being his critic.

A Parting Gift Before Matisse Leaves for MoMA

2010-06-18T07:25:00.000-07:00

A Parting Gift Before Matisse Leaves for MoMA

Having gone through
the entire program
on the kiosks at the
Matisse exhibit at the Art Institute,
I can report that
it was pretty much worthless
except for effortlessly delivering
the self-contentment
of erudition.

As if browsing through x-radiographs
of the seven stages
in that painting's eight years of development
somehow gives one
a deeper understanding of how
Matisse developed that painting.

It doesn't.

Because those small, sketchy, rugged
little radiographs
give so little idea
of how this large painting actually appeared
in each of its stages.

The radiographs are just a gimmick.

Too bad the "parting gift"
wasn't one of those still-lifes
or studio views.

Roger Hiorns in Conversation

2010-06-17T19:34:00.000-07:00

Roger Hiorns in Conversation
(an entry on the A.I.C. blog)

The roof of the Modern Wing is a spectacular setting

As recorded here, when it first opened.

But what can compete with all that
late 20th C. Chicago architecture ?

Only things which, themselves,
are also out-sized and
perhaps a bit ridiculous.

Like the Scott Burton chairs,
or now the rusting mega-jet engines.

The Romantic side of me
enjoys seeing awesome ruins,
especially train wrecks
and tall buildings in demolition.

So I've got no problem with these giant, corroding engines
and am looking forward to whatever other crazy junk
the curator of contemporary art
wants to put up there.

But I do get annoyed
by the art talk
that inevitably must accompany it.

The "symbolic power of culturally “dominant” objects" ??

How thrilling to feel dominated!

And who better to explain that domination
than that cute, fey, blond young Brit, Roger Hiorns,
with his long, slender, delicate hands
fluttering in the air:

So, I think the video
is the best part of this installation
(and actually,
is the only part
that I'm going to see,
since I've seen
free standing jet engines
up close before)

But there is a dark side
to all this frivolity.

Because this is art
that despairs of our civilization
rather than attempting to improve it
(like the great artists of the past did,
or almost every blue collar worker
of today)

The only admirable artists
in the above video
are the skilled hard-hats
who delicately maneuver
the tons of art-junk into position.

The Art Institute Blog

2010-06-12T05:16:00.000-07:00

On October 26, 2009 the Art Institute began
it's own blog
and announced that :

We’re looking forward to using this space to give you behind-the-scenes access to the museum. Think of it as the deepest, darkest secrets of the Art Institute. Kidding of course, but we’re really excited to tell you all the stories that—quite simply put—don’t have a place in our other communications. And it’s certainly a work in progress, so we look forward to your feedback along the way.

Well, that's exciting!

A chance to interact with museum personnell
concerning things that interest me.

But will they -- or can they --
really answer any questions?

Or.... is this just
a very cost effective
promotional tool
written, on demand,
by staffers who hope
nobody pesters them?

Below are the comments
I have posted to date:

*******************

What our Director is Reading June 8, 2010

Wow!
This is the most fascinating entry, yet,
since it's done by James Cuno, the director,
as he discusses the Enlightenment
and the notion of an
"encyclopedic museum"

Jim C. (as he signs himself)
is a rather game fellow
who has always responded
to the various letters
I have sent him over the past four years,
usually asking why the inclusivity
that is applied to the encylopedic collections of historic art
does not apply to contemporary paintings and sculpture
(where all traditional portraits and landscapes are
categorically excluded)

To this post of his,
I query whether reason
can be applied to the vetting of art works
and ask why the democratic ideals
of the Enlightenment
have not been extended to
American cultural institutions, like his own,
that are invariably run
by self-selecting boards of directors
drawn from the social and economic elite.

And as always,
he graciously and carefully
responds to my query,
while side-stepping
my questions.

BTW, this is a ground-breaking post
in a couple of ways.

It's the first entry on the AIC blog
that actually invites discussion
about important issues,
and it may be the first time
that the director a top ranked museum
has made himself available for interaction
on the internet.

And it's way - way more serious
than the chit-chat on the Indianapolis Museum of Art blog
which is mostly about their damn garden.

But so far, there
have only been two responses
other than my own -
one of which was an "attaboy"
and the other a "oh, this is so exciting"

Looks like hardly anyone
really cares about what their museum is doing.

Because, of course, everyone (except me)
knows that it's not their museum.

*******************

On-line Sleuthing April 23, 2010

In this post, Sam Quigley
Vice President for Collections Management,
Imaging, and Information Technology /
Museum Chief Information Officer,
proudly announces how much additional
information is now being added
to entries in the museum's online collection.

So, I asked him why the images are so small.

It's not like publishing a book
where it costs more to make
the pictures really big.

And his response to this question
was to ignore it
and then turn the comments off
for his post.

Guess he didn't want to answer me
(or anyone else)

But this is a very important issue,
especially to those interested
in what the museum keeps off view
-- because the online image is often the way
it will ever be seen.

For example, last year the A.I.C.
showed many of its tapestries
for the first time in over 50 years,
and now, once again, they are all off view.
The details on those objects
are wonderful and delicious,
but few will be able to see
them again in their lifetime.

And then there are those around the world
who will never visit Chicago,
but may wish to see a work
which is discussed by art historians,
as I have been doing in my reading
of Norris Kelly Smith.

Since his primary aesthetic interest
is in music,
perhaps Mr. Quigley
simply does not agree that the
most important information
about a work of visual art
is how it looks.

Which is a real problem.

Not that the A.I.C. is the very worst
in this regard,
but it certainly is not among the best.
Here's a run-down of various other museum web sites.

*******************

Behind the Paint March 3, 2010

Whatever happened to this statue?
I vaguely remember
seeing it decades ago,
but when will it ever go
on display again?

Apparently, the blogger
has no idea.

BTW - most of the posters on this blog
remain anonymous to everyone
except each other,
since they don't share their last names
and there is no such thing
as an online personnell directory.

Why is there such a corporate culture
of secrecy at the A.I.C. ?

*******************

Coming Soon January 12, 2010

Why can't this blogger tell us
where the Chinese art
will be located
when the AIC reopens
it's Asian rooms next Fall?

Will the new space
have room for more than one
horizontal scroll display case?

Does the A.I.C. staff assume
that nobody cares?

The 717 Items in the Smithsonian Catalog

2008-03-25T17:23:00.000-07:00

Daniel Garber, "Towering Trees" - acquired 1911

There are currently 717 American paintings/sculpture
that belong to the Art Institute
as cataloged by the Smithsonian.

But at least of them are not on display,
and not all of the ones on display
are in the Smithsonian catalog.

Which is a bit puzzling.

Deaccessioned: Part One

2008-03-21T06:16:00.000-07:00

Jean Louis Forain "Sentenced for Life", 1910

This painting was acquired by the Winterbotham fund in 1921 (a fund that specialized in contemporary work)

It was sold at auction in 2005 for $31,000 -- which is probably substantially less than its purchase price 80 years earlier -- so I guess that Forain's star is setting.

But is it such a bad painting ? I suppose it's outside the narrative of modern art -- and best belongs in some attorney's collection. But I'm also wondering -- who does this kind of narrative any better ?

The Academy's Plea for Library Land

2007-12-16T07:06:00.000-08:00

Marshall Field
(portrait bust at the Merchandise Mart,
sculptor: Milton Horn)

(note: the following clipping was taken from the Art Institutes's scrapbook. There was no reference to a date or name of the newspaper from which it came)

"The recent prosperous state of affairs throughout the country and particularly in Chicago, encourages us to once more put art on its feet in Chicago and rear an institution that shall not only be an ornament and credit to our city, but of incalculable advantage to all classes of our citizens as well as to the great Northwest. The effort now being made to procure for the use of the Public Library the space known as the Dearborn park seems to offer just the opportunity needed to secure a start in the right direction, there being ample space on the park ground for the two institutions., if the general government will grant the academy 125 X 162 feet of the same for the purpose of erecting a building thereon, we have no doubt of our ability to raise the necessary funds for its construction, as the academy is held in high estimation by our best citizens.

As showing the truth of the later statement, I append a copy of a petition that will shortly be submitted to Congress with the signatures thereon attached:

“To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, Washington D.C.: the undersigned artists and citizens, interested in the progress of art culture, now resident in Chicago, respectfully request your honorable body to grant a portion of the land asked for and known as Dearborn Park, and specified in a certain bill now before your honorable body, and which was sent by the corporate authorities of Chicago, in behalf of the public library of said city, to the Chicago Academy of Design. There being 385 feet frontage by 162.6 feet in depth in the space asked for in said bill, and there being more space than is required for library purposes, we ask that 125 feet of said frontage and 162.6 feet of depth be granted to the Academy of Design for the purpose of creating thereon a building devoted to art purposes.

Your petitioners pray that said bill be so amended by inserting the words “Chicago Academy of Design” after the words “Chicago Public Library” so as to read
“Chicago Public Library and Chicago Academy of Design”

Enoch Root, president Chicago Academy of Design, John F. Stafford, recording secretary; Paul Brown, J.F. Gookins, H.E.C. Peterson, G.S. Collis, A.D. Bucher, Leonard W. Volk, R.W. Wallis, , council of the Chicago Academy of Design

It is also signed by the following named gentlemen:

, Charles H. Schwab, C.W. Henderson, C.H. Fargo, M.D. Wells,

Marshall Field
J.W. Doane: Coffee and Tea importer; director of Pullman Palace Car Company
C.H. Fargo is a shoe manufacturer
M.D. Wells : wholesale boot and shoes
Charles H. Schwab: boot manufacturer
Max A. Mayer – Jewish philanthropist
Williams Sewars (an abutting property owner)
D.B. Fisk, Reid, Murdock, and Fisher (abutting property owners)
Joseph Rutter
F.A. Winston
J. Russel Jones: Delegate to Republican National Convention from Illinois, 1868; member of Republican National Committee from Illinois, 1868-70; U.S. Minister to Belgium, 1869-75.
Herbert C. Ayer
Potter Palmer (hotelier - The Palmer House)
S. B. Cobb
W. P. Nixon
John B. Drake (hotelier - son built the Drake Hotel)
Robert Law
E.G. Keith
Henry W. King
George C. Walker
F. F. Spencer
H.F. Evans
J.H. Dole (??)

An impressive list -- in order of importance, one presumes -- with the city's richest man, Marshall Field, at the top.

(but why is J.H. Dole included ? Is this the same man who is also quoted as being against this plea for land ? Are parts of this list fictitious ?)

ACADEMY vs. LIBRARY

2007-12-08T19:29:00.000-08:00

The year is 1881,
one year before the Chicago Academy of Design
reorganized itself with its 1882 Constitution
(copied in the previous post)

and a clipping from a
Chicago newspaper,
"The Inter Ocean",
runs as follows:

A Rumored Attempt on the Part
of the Academy of Design
to Defeat

The Public Library-Dearborn Park Project,
Unless the Academy Can Get a Portion
of the Land.

What there is to the Institution Which Thus
Threatens a Very Valuable Public
Institution.

A Charter, $12,000 in Debts and Brazen
Effrontery Their Whole Stock in
Trade.

ACADEMY VS. LIBRARY

The passage of that most worthy measure, the Public Library Bill, by Congress, is being hampered and impeded by a gentleman named John F. Stafford, who represents an at one time very creditable institution called the Academy of Design, and which has been forgotten by well nigh all men except its creditors. There is no doubt about this Stafford's possession of the charter of the defunct academy of Design, and in that case he also assumes ownership of some $10,000 or $12,000 of debt under which that once well meaning institution went down. All this is nothing strange nor out of place, but when an attempt is made to trade upon the good name and splendid reputation of the present Academy of Fine Arts, it is time that the truth should be known. The Academy of Design is dead and well nigh buried; the Academy of Fine Arts is one of the best art schools in America, well managed, prosperous, and patronized by the best classes of society of Chicago and the West and South. The Academy of Design, a name, a charter, and a debt of $12,000, with no local habitation, and no existence except upon paper and in the pocket of Mr. John F. Stafford, now assumes to say that Dearborn Park shall not be given to the people for a site for a public library except the land thus acquired be shared with Mr. John. F. Stafford, who owns the charter of the dead and gone institution. The only danger in the matter is that Congressmen may be induced or allowed to think that the Academy of Design or its memory and the Academy of Fine Arts are one and the same.

Is there a confusion between the two similar names ?
Just why do you think
the founders of the new institution
chose a name so similar to the
one they was trying to replace ?

John T. Stafford, nicknamed "The Watchdog of the Lake"
presumably for keeping the lakefront free from development
was also noted for his participation
in the Chicago Art Exposition of 1875

Note: the "Inter Ocean" began as the
morning Chicago Republican (1865),
and was renamed the Chicago Inter Ocean in 1872
an upper-class arbiter of cultural tastes.
It went into decline after 1895, when it became the property
of Chicago politician, Charles T. Yerkes.

To put this matter properly before the public, a reporter for THE INTER OCEAN yesterday interviewed various officials of the Academy of Fine Arts and the result will be found below.

Mr C. L. Hutchinson, President of the Academy of Fine Arts, was found at his office, No. 15 Chamber of Commerce. When asked to define the difference between the Academy of Design and the Academy of Fine Arts, he said:

"The Academy of Design is dead. The Academy of Fine Arts Succeeded them"

"Did you use their charter?"

"Certainly not: we organized under the laws of the state. We had nothing to do with them, whatever. It is a sad and yet a ridiculous thing that the general public should be continually mixing the two names up. The Academy of Fine Arts is on good, solid, substantial basis, while the academy of Design is entirely bankrupt"

"How long has the Academy of Fine Arts been in existence?"

"Three Years. The school is a on a paying basis and one of the best in America"

"Have you heard anything of the effort to get part of Dearborn Park for the Academy of Design?"

"I have heard that Mr. John F. Stafford is in Washington urging amendments to the library bill, which asks for 125 feet fronting on Randolph Street"

"In this you academy has no interest?"

"No, unless it be to wish the library to get the entire block. We are constantly annoyed at being confounded with that defunct institution, and suffer constantly from its reputation."

"Do you know Stafford?"

"No, but I presume he is a very nice fellow"

The reporter looked keenly at Mr Hutchinson, but he never smiled.

"What is his object?"

"Why I suppose to resurrect the old concern and put it on its feet by a land grant, but I am afraid he will never be able to do it"

"The Academy of Design is very successful, is it not?"

(note: the reporter himself has confused the names here,
and the editor never caught the mistake )

"Very, as a school, and in all other ways. The present premises on State St. opposite the Palmer House , are too small. We are hoping nows to buy the corner. We are hoping now to buy the corner of Van Buren street and Michigan Ave, erect there a suitable building and transfer the school, and open a permanet art gallery.That is the spot formerly occupied by the Old Academy of Design. The present building is 54 feet front and 100 feet deep. We want to erect a new building with the same front but 175 feet deep. If we can't do that we will put up a temporary
building in the rear to which the school will be transferred as soon as completed.

"This will cost something?"

"Yes, $50,000, but we have $40,000 already subscribed for the purpose. It is a most feasilbe scheme. I don't believe in castles in the air, but this is a solid brick and stone reality."

"Who is president of your academy?"

"L.Z. Leiter, and C.L.Hutchinson is Vice President"

"Then I understand that you do not oppose the Library's getting control of the Dearborn Park?

"Certainly not. We want the library to have it. It is a very excellent and praiseworthy object"

(Note: Charles L. Hutchinson was President of the Board of Trade,
director of the Northern Trust Bank,
and first President of the Art Institute of Chicago
until his death in 1924)

The next gentleman seen was Mr. James H. Dole, who was found in his office at #27 Metropolitan Block.

"Mr. Dole, you are one of the trustees of the Academy of Fine Arts and a member of the executive committee?"

"Yes"

"You were also a trustee of the Academy of Design?"

"Yes. There were 15 of us appointed, and I was selected for President. After it had been running a year or so the question of the old debs came upo, and the trustees becoming disgusted dropped the thing and started the institution -the Academy of Fine Arts"

"Then there is no connection between the two institutions?"

"Of course not. The present academy is on of the best and most prosperous schools of the kind in America. The other is dead."

"What remains of the old academy?"

"Nothing but the charter and a lot of old debts"

"What good is the charter?"

"It allows them to hold personal property without taxation"

Another gentleman present during the interview said: "The old academy of Design is all broken up . The only man who takes any interest in it now is John F. Stafford, and he has no influence whatsoever."

"How did it happen to "bust""?

"Debt"

"How much?"

"Some $10,000 or $12000"

"And that still hangs over the charter ?"

"Yes, the effects of the Academy of Design were all sold out on an auction, and all that remains is the charter and the claims against it."

Mr. Homer N. Hibbard, United States Register in Bankruptcy in this city, was also interviewed.

"Mr. Hibbard, I understand you are familiar with the past history of the old and defunct institution known as the Chicago Academy of Design, whose supporters are now endeavoring to secure the passage in Congress of a bill granting to them equally with the Public Library, the
right to the Dearborn Park as a site for an academy building. What do you know of this old institution?"

"I know that there was such an institution, and that I paid a considerable amount of money which has never materialized anything. It never did amount to anything and finally it go financially weak in the back that all its things were sold - what little it did have in the way of room fixtures, art collections, study appurtenances etc. These were purchased by the parties who organized the present Academy of Fine Arts, which is in a prosperous condition, and which, if any art institution should share in the Dearborn Park lot, should do it.

"You think then, that the parties who claim to constitute the Old Academy of Design should not be considered in any bill for the alienation of the Dearborn Park lot?"

"I do. There is nothing of it left that can be called an art academy. It has no property. It is doing nothing for the encouragement of art, and has not done anything in that direction for years. It has nothing now but its name. It is simply a name tucked under the skeleton of the past, and has no real existence, and in fact never at anytime amounted to anything. Whereas the present Academy of Fine Arts has been working faithfully for years and is now in good working condition and doing good work for the promotion of a taste for art in this city; and yet this new art society has not asked for, and does not now ask for a site on the Dearborn Park lot. I cannot
see, indeed, that the body of men who call themselves the Academy of Design

HAVE ANY CLAIM WHATEVER

even the slightest, to a sight on the property. They have no capital at their back - no substantial supporters to warrant us in hoping that it would ever be able to effectually to utilize such a site should be given to them, for the wealthy friends of art in this city are the friends exclusively of the new organization - the Academy of Fine Arts -- which has practically shown its value and is now showing its value as a promoter of a taste for art in this city.

It is interesting to note that Homer H. Hibbard,
an attorney, does not claim that the Academy of Design
is still in debt.

It is also interesting to note that in 1885
he was on the Executive Committee of the Art Institute
of Chicago

Chicago Academy of Design - 1882

2007-12-02T05:28:00.000-08:00

From the Stephen Douglas monument
by Lawrence W. Volk, founding member
of the Chicago Academy of Design

Note the date, 1882
four years after it's officers
had declared bankruptcy
and then joined a new organization,
the Chicago Academy of Art,
that would purchase its property at auction,
and later change its name to the Art Institute of Chicago

Note that this a free school,
supported by studio rents and exhibition sales

Note the stated purpose:

"Encouragement of the true and the beautiful in the arts of design"
(no doubt referring to the "Academia del Designo"
founded by Cosimo De Medici in the 16th C.)

and note that the dominant governing class of membership,
"the Academicians"
are to be those recognized as Artists

The "Honorary Academicians" is a self-appointed body
that chooses one of the three directors,
and would include both artists and major donors.

The other kinds of members are either
students or donors

note that whatever income exceeds expenses
is to be devoted to the purchase
of works of art and books
for the establishment of a permanent
art gallery and library

President: annually elected by academicians. His job is to preside at meetings,
oversee the work of treasurer and secretary (meetings may be called by any three members)

Vice pres: annually elected by academicians. Serves in place of president when necessary

Secretary: annually elected by academicians (he may be an honorary academcian)

Treasurer: chosen by the board of 3 directors from among themselves

3 directors appointed by: mayor, honorary academicians, academicians -- 5 years
in charge of all property, executes all contracts

Council of 6: annually elected by academy

Executive Committee: All of the above

Director of schools: 5 year term, appointed by executive committee

Recording secretary: 5 year term

So...

The Academicians (artists) have final say,
since they can meet whenever they want,
and elect the majority of the executive committee

But the organization is mostly run by the 3 directors
(one of whom is chosen by the Mayor of Chicago)
who serve 5-year terms
and enter into contracts on behalf of the academy.

(I believe this system
was modeled
after the large, free
art academies of some European cities,
like Munich)

***************

Here is the original 1869
charter
for the organization

Note that both

Lawrence W. Volk
and
J. F. Gookins

are among the founding members,
as well as those who
who presented
the revised
constitution of 1882

Here's a painting by Gookins

who was also something of an art critic
as evidenced by
a quotation printed
in the New York Times of 9/13/1886:

Gookins attacks those "who are bent on warping and prejudicing the public mind in favor of the greenery-gallery school in landscape and the Plutonian school in figure painting" as well as "They ,in a languid assumption of blase repose, commend the things done bya few young men in imitation of French landscapists who have done the same things so much better and they are aesthetically entranced by the pictures of what may be termed the mother-may-I-go-out-and-swim school and the lost-her-fig-leaf school, and they seek to make all that sort of thing fashionable and force it upon the American public to the exclusion of much that is pure and nobel and greater in every way."

...while Leonard Volk was the leading Midwestern sculptor
of his time
(and even got Lincoln to actually sit for a portrait)

(note: a fine essay on this topic may be found here )

Another day at the Museum

2007-03-07T06:45:00.001-08:00

The day, once again, began at the library --
where someone has turned to the next page of "Oriental Field Sports"
by Captain Williamson

Though, I'm not sure that the artist, Samuel Howitt, was quite as familiar with elephants and tigers as he was with horses and pigs.

My next destination was the Vollard exhibit -- but I never got there

---( the waiting line was way too forbidding )---

So instead I visited the Japanese rooms -- to meditate on the distinction between
the Heian era (very important to fans of Lady Murasaki)
--and the Kamakura era that followed it ( very important to those who like Samurai movies)

The above is an iconic Kamakura piece by Unkei and Kwaikei (still found in Japan)

while this piece -- and the others that follow are now in Chicago.

The difference seems pretty drastic here, doesn't it ?
The Heian guardian looks strong -- but he's hardly forbidding,
while I can't imagine any thing , living or dead, that wouldn't run in terror from
the Kamakura piece if it began to move

But.. what about this piece ?
-- which is also Kamakura but oh-so-quiet

maybe .. it's too quiet ....

compared, say to this one ?

Well... that's my explanation anyway.

The Heian piece just feels a little more natural -- like a tree or natural feature

while the Kamakura seems more devoted to a specific purpose like
"I have come to save you from the terrible world"

Here's another Heian piece...

these things are sooooo relaxing..

like stumbling across a waterfall in the forest

and now for further comparison --- here's a Nara period piece in the same room
(Nara being the capital in the few centuries before the building of Kyoto)

This was the time when Chinese civilization was adopted
..and doesn't this fellow seem to be saying:

"I have come with the Truth"

Well.. moving onto something completely different -- I shot this Turkish dagger (1800-1900)

..because I knew Gawain would like to see its ornate detail
(and I really like those clusters of jewels)

Which is the same reason I shot this Indian mirror
..it's just too gorgeous (especially with that tiny rupee that perched on top)
(and I'd love to daydream about the faces that once were looking into its other side)

Finally -- yet again in tribute to Sir Gawain --

I found these
Seven sages of the Bamboo Grove
by Yashima Gakutei, c. 1825

Apparently in imitation of the 4 sages of Mount Shang,
these seven wise individuals fled from the evil Cao Cao's Kingdom of Wei
(i.e. in the time of the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms")

to look at scenery, make word games , write poetry, play music, and generally do all the things thatGawain thinks his friends should be doing.

(regretfully, one of them, Xi Kang, was executed for "immoral behavior" (i.e. excessive blogging) in 262

The poem in the above depiction was translated as follows:

With the arrival of spring
wise men stop in their tracks
a bush warbler disporting
in the bamboo grove

No matter how wise
in the spirngtime capital
fresh young bamboo
in Yuanji's eyes

A Day at the Museum

2007-03-07T06:44:00.001-08:00

The library has now become the first place I go whenever I visit the Art Institute -- because it's so quiet -- and I feel so comfortable surrounded by the the early 20th American painting on its walls (and it even has the last remnant of the plaster cast collection: a life-size Khmer figure)

It's generally the stuff that otherwise would be in the basement -- but today I found something new --in the big glass display cases: some hand colored aquatints by Samuel Howitt serving as illustrations for the first, 1807 edition of "Oriental Field Sports" by Captain Thomas Williamson:

BEING A COMPLETE, DETAILED, AND ACCURATE DESCRIPTION OF THE
WILD SPORTS OF THE EAST;
AND EXHIBITING, IN A NOVEL AND INTERESTING MANNER, THE
NATURAL HISTORY
OF THE ELEPHANT, THE RHINOCEROS, THE TIGER, THE LEOPARD,
THE BEAR, THE DEER, THE BUFFALO, THE WOLF, THE WILD HOG,
THE JACKALL, THE WILD DOG, THE CIVET, AND OTHER DOMESTI
CATED ANIMALS : AS LIKEWISE THE DIFFERENT SPECIES OF
FEATHERED GAME, FISHES, AND SERPENTS.
THE WHOLE INTERSPERSED WITH A VARIETY OF
ORIGINAL, AUTHENTIC, AND CURIOUS ANECDOTES,
TAKEN FROM THE MANUSCRIPT AND DESIGNS OF
CAPTAIN THOMAS WILLIAMSON

Here's the text that accompanied by favorite picture -- and I'd like to pretend I'm Conrad, analyzing its peculiar sonorities, diction, and strings of subordinate clauses.

I like Captain Williamson (he served 20 years in Bengali)
He has a neat way of putting things.

Here's the full picture -- which is good -- but maybe not as exciting as Delacroix would have done -- or as gorgeous as a Mughal miniature.
And I especially like the detail that I posted at the top -- reminding me -- with its action and balance -- of the Sung calligraphy that I've recently been cutting and pasting.

And I have to mention -- this book was ENORMOUS.

Each page was nearly 24" wide -- so when open -- the book stretched out nearly 4 feet.
Now that's a coffee table book !

Then I went to re-visit the Vollard: Cezanne to Picasso exhibit
..but I had to wait in line for a few minutes
..which gave me the opportunity to notice things in the adjoining galleries that I might not have ordinarily looked at.

Like this Arthur Dove "Weathervane and crucifix"
God knows what it means (presumably something quite profound)
..but it did dominate the wall in that gallery -- reminding me, again, of a character from Sung calligraphy, perhaps Mi Fu -- being just as goofy -- but maybe more casual.

It feels like a sunny Easter Sunday to me -- where everyone has eaten too much and is ready to fall asleep in church.

Then ... finally .. I got into the exhibit .. and dived right into the detail areas of the Van Gogh.

(note: this is probably the place to mention that I am soooo grateful for the museum's new policy of unlimited free access for members to special ticketed exhibitions)

And moved on to the details made by Maurice de Vlaminck.

He claimed -- quite provocatively -- that he never set foot in the Louvre -- but I think he should be considered a kind of folk artist. He found somebody making things that he liked (Derain) and got coached on how to make more of same.

So what should we call him -- an urban folk artist ? Or maybe just another Flemish genius.

These detail-areas seem like fabrics to me --- except that each thread has been drawn -- and I think that what can make it so electric (too exciting by-a-half as Gawain might say)

For whatever reason -- broad strokes of intense colors seems to have fascinated several painters of this period (c. 1905) -- but when you see how terrible the results can be in the contemporary paintings found in summer art fairs -- you have to appreciate the special ability that was required to make it work out.

I recall a commentary suggesting that Vlaminck's landscapes recall the images that would have been flashing by his face as he pursued his earlier career as a competitive cyclist.

Roualt was no cyclist -- and the images aren't flashing by -- but there's still that love of intense colors

-- and enjoyment of textures that reminds of some photographers

(note: I'm only showing the details of this painting -- because I didn't like the whole thing)

Then I strolled over to the Chinese rooms to make some comparisons with things recently discussed over on Heaventree.

How does this piece (c. 1630)...

Or these pieces (c. 1730) compare with these that Gawain recently purchased in Taipei ?

What do you think ?

I'd say that these older pieces seem to demand more attention -- while the 21st C. pieces want to be more ambient -- creating a delicious - not so obtrusive - background for domestic behavior.

Similar to the difference I'd find between the following examples of 18th. C. carved calligraphy -- compared with the 11th. C. calligraphy examined a few posts ago.

These are actually rubbings taken from slabs -- and used in their own time as a kind of printed edition -- where a master copy would be carved and then copies could distributed throughout the empire.

These letters are very pleasant -- well balanced - well designed -- elegant and all that

..but I don't think they're intended to distract the reader from the text's message.

This is the first time I've gone to the museum -- wandered around looking at whatever catches my interest -- and then jammed it all into the same post in a rather confused, arbitrary way.

Hopefully, future posts will be a bit more focused -- but then -- maybe not.

This might be the first of many aimless excursions.

Ambroise Vollard -- Doctor Evil ?

2007-03-07T06:42:00.000-08:00

I'm just back from "Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde " at the Art Institute -- where Pierre Bonnard's portraits of him are the ones that stick in my mind.

This portrays the dealer at one of his famous dinner parties thrown in the basement beneath his gallery -- apparently a very damp place -- with no pictures on the wall -- and Vollard's own chicken curry the only item ever on the menu.

But Bonnard also portrays the dealer with his best friend -- which has possibly been the inspiration for a notorious villian in late 20th Century cinema.

Doctor Evil ? Maybe not -- but I also don't think he should be called a "patron" of the avant garde.

He wasn't a patron -- he was a salesman/promoter/publisher -- just like the role Clive Davis famously played in the American popular music industry.

No matter how much you like something -- when your living depends on selling it -- you become a businessman, not a patron (I know ! -- that's my life as record dealer) -- and the first question you HAVE to ask is : "where's my money in this ?"

Ambroise Vollard discovered, promoted, commissioned many wonderful artists in that great European golden age at the turn of the last century -- but when you look at the things he chose for himself -- he was not especially a man of taste. He appears to have mostly collected things of personal interest -- portraits of friends etc -- while the very best things he bought were sold (at a profit) to others.

And here's the man who made him rich -- Paul Cezanne (who also did the portrait shown above)

Vollard is credited with "discovering" Cezanne -- like Colonel Parker discovered Elvis -- and since Cezanne, the trust fund child, never needed money, he let Vollard keep most of it -- which was quite a bit -- considering that over 650 Cezannes passed through his ledgers.

And this is a question I have to ask: has the market for avant garde painting ever been especially more sophisticated than the market for rock-n-roll records ?

Regarding Cezanne -- he spent, apparently, hundreds of hours working on that portrait (while Vollard was patiently posing) -- though I don't really see how that time was well spent. And the exhibit had a room full of his multi-figure mock-classical compositions (I 'm not showing them because I can't stand a single one)

But I enjoy his still life -- and especially his landscape --like the one shown above.

(the great Chinese landscape painters were not known for ever making any figure compositions -- and maybe Cezanne should has followed their example)

But the highlight of the show -- for me -- was Vincent!

His paintings are so alive -- they crackle with energy -- like this pair of old boots shown above.

..or this sunflower from the Met. (I'm not sure that Gawain would like them -- but Vincnet reminds me of those eccentric Sung calligraphers -- like the beloved "Recluse of Verdant Obtuseness")

...or this street scene -- with the judicious use of heavy-texture paint -- that can only be sensed in person (so the jpg's don't work)

But Vincent was already dead when Vollard became a dealer -- so although he did some shows with the estate --- very little sold --- and he sold the remainders off cheap. Why keep it ? It didn't look like a good investment -- at the time.

Oh, and really love this Vuillard -- it's hard to tell from the jpg -- but the pattern on the lady's blouse feels like a cluster of precious stones.

I so much like to be lolling about while a woman is preparing me dinner !

And, of course, I also like young women with their shirts off.

This Renoir is really glowing -- and the drawing is perfect -- even as it sometimes appears to be careless. (BTW -- Rodin saw this painting and bought it -- so now it can be seen at the Hotel Biron

Speaking of Rodin -- here's a design he made to accompany one of Vuillard's art books.. The story involves some kind of torture garden (ouch!). A bit misogynistic, perhaps, but so beautiful -- and the feeling that Rodin's figures settle into a delicious design the way I might settle into a big comfy chair.

And speaking of publications -- I never realized that Vollard was responsible for all my favorite Picassos -- i.e. the etchings he made for the Vollard edition of "The Sculptor's Studio"

Usually I condemn Picasso for his arrogant -- sloppy -- self indulgence -- but here's he's indulging my favorite fantasies -- and drawing like Raphael -- so I forgive him everything !

Vollard is also known for his investment in the late work of Degas --- the things that Degas never gave to his dealers -- for what, I think, was good reason -- i.e. the sharpness -- and maybe his eyesight -- was gone.

There was an exhibit of late Degas here in Chicago about 15 years ago -- and I hated it -- and especially its promotion as "Degas the Modernist" - "modern" because the work was so loose approaching ugly.

But I really like the large painting (above) that accompanied this exhibit.

Thrilling.

I also liked Degas' memoirs of the whorehouse -- monoprints that were not marketed in his lifetime. Very poignant -- very tasty --and kind of sad.

Vollard is credited with getting the aging Renoir to sculpt -- or, not actually to sculpt -- since his arthritic hands were too crippled -- but to collaborate with a young Spanish sculptor, Richard Guino -- and I think the word "collaborate" is giving Renoir a bit too much credit -- since Guino actually modeled the things -- Renoir was more like the producer (with Vollard as the "executive producer") Just like Billy Strayhorn with Duke Ellington -- Renoir, at first, got all the credit -- but since the 50's, the Guino family has been given the copyrights.

But Vollard's greatest achievement, so far as I'm concerned, was making Maillol a sculptor !

Yes! --- he is somewhat credited with directing Maillol's career toward sculpture. For example, he bought the above wood carving -- made a mold -- and began to cast copies in bronze -- circulating them throughout the artworld (Rodin bought one) and then giving Maillol his first solo sculpture show (before then he made decorative paintings and tapestries)

I have no illusions about Vollard's taste --- he did the same thing for Picasso's clumsy/ugly sculptural events -- and he sold quite a few --- but still ---- what if Maillol had never become an art star ? What if Elvis had spent his life driving trucks ? Businessmen are needed !

But my biggest disappointment in the show -- was that it didn't include any of the Vollard artists who DID NOT become art super-stars (the unfamiliar will always interest me the most)

This show -- like every museum show about art after 1850 --- is a kind of sacred narrative -- about the days when art-gods descended to earth -- and the great faith of MODERNISM was revealed to ignorant humanity.

And I'm just not sure that public institutions should be used to promote religious faith.

Charles Sheeler

2007-03-07T06:41:00.001-08:00

I've been going to the Charles Sheeler (1883-1965) show every week now at the A.I.C. -- and I'm becoming a fan.

As Gawain wrote about his taste for Chopin here , if my mind is a lock, his painting fits like the key.

Fountain of the Great Lakes

2007-03-07T06:39:00.000-08:00

This is Lorado Taft's "Fountain of the Great Lakes" completed in 1913

Now installed against a blank wall of the south wing of the Art Institute

Within a very pleasant garden courtyard, behind a rectangular pool

Though it originally had a more magnificent setting --- set before, not against, a classical facade -- broken by windows and columns -- and within a circular pool that raised it another three-feet off the ground -- giving it the opportunity to measure and control a much greater space. (it feels like a fountain in Rome, doesn't it ?)

These seem to be simple mid-west college girls

Dressed up in togas for a soiree at the sorority house. And I do wonder why they're spilling the water onto each other, instead of into the basins that they carry (each basin is supposed to represent one of the great lakes: Michigan, Superior, Ontario etc)

From the front -- it feels a bit heavy-handed and cluttered

But from the sides -- this statue does have some majestic views

More Xugu

2007-03-07T06:38:00.000-08:00

Even if nobody here likes old Xugu except me -- I can't help myself -- I've got to post more !

Reflections off the glass make it impossible to show the entire painting (and it doesn't work at computer-screen-size anyway) -- but the above is a larger fragment of the fish pond.

And this one shows the calligraphy set into the garden-scape -- which is where it belongs

Here are some close-ups of the garden-scapes -- like sticking your head into the bushes -- just like with Jackson Pollock -- except that these bushes are measured-balanced-controlled-beautiful (and make me feel like a teenager in love)

I guess this could feel like chalk-on-a-blackboard ---- ouch ! ---- but it feels to me like acrobats dancing on the high-wire -- beautiful and breathtaking.

AIC: calligraphy of Xugu

2007-03-07T06:36:00.000-08:00

The story on Xugu (1823-1896) is that he was an army officer who became a Chan monk and made a living as a popular painter in Shanghai. Did the Taipei rebellion/disaster have any connection to this career change ? I don't know -- but thanks to this temporary exhibit of these items from the AIC basement, I do know that Xugu was a wonderful painter.

The use of light-versus-heavy brush strokes to create illusions of space in a human-size vertical, rectangular box --- well -- it's so delighful -- and just about impossible to reproduce on a computer monitor - even if I had a good camera -- and even if the illusion was not destroyed by glare from the protective glass.

But I could shoot the calligraphy -- and that is such as wonderful and ideosyncratic -- a world away from the rigid, boxed-in characters that are found so frequently.

Something about his painting -- and his calligraphy -- just makes me long for a night of food, music, and pleasure.

Maybe that was the purpose.

A.I.C. : the Braude Memorial Collection

2007-03-07T06:35:00.000-08:00

Dorothy Edinburg collected drawings (18th - 20th C.) -- and this exhibit celebrates their donation to the museum -- as well as a certain approach to collecting that was spelled out in a monumental text that covers the first wall of this exhibition.

Rather than just picking what she liked to see, she chose drawings that would:

* effectively present the essence of an artist's achievement
* relate to objects in other media but also function as significant independant statements
* play a seminal role within an artist's ouvre
* satisfy high standards of authenticity and condition.

Here's the ones I liked the most:

This is what, for me, European figure drawing is all about: the crisp articulation of of volumes in space -- that just feels endlessly refreshing. The artist is Francois Lemoyne (1688-1737)-- and the subject is Hercules -- forced by a petulant queen to do woman's work (in the buff, no less !) Does this really feel like a Hercules ? I don't think so -- but there's so much rational optimism and vigor there -- I'm ready to believe that the whole mythological set-up is just a showpiece for good figure drawing (as Baroque opera might be called a showpiece for good voices)

Alessandro Magnasco (1667 - 1749) was a great cartoonist who was, perhaps, a little ahead of his time -- i.e. he had to place his whimsical, electric sketches into historical or religious paintings -- often leaving others to paint the landscape or architecture. Leaving the great symphonic compositions to a contemporary like Tiepolo, he was master of detail. (this exhibit had a Tiepolo -- but it was a disappointment -- compared to many others that I've seen)

Jean Baptiste Oudry (1686-1735) "Sick Stag": The previous drawings seemed to be preparatory sketches for paintings -- but this one, like many others in the show, seems to have been done as a decorative item iself -- drawing on paper just as others might paint on ceramic plates. Usually this kind of work bores me -- even if it is evidentaly well made. But this one has such an atmosphere of sweet melancholy -- and I love to feel sad. (and Oudry is one of my favorite animal-painters)

Over the years, I've collected books of "Master Drawings" and Piazetta is one of the usual suspects. I've always enjoyed the fullness of his volume -- but was never happpy with how it all fit together. The notes that accompanied this drawing may have explained why: Piazetta sold these sketches to tourists, not to churches or courtiers -- so sentimentality was more valued than profundity.

This little Italian landscape by Jacques Louis David (1748 - 1825) actually gave me more enjoyment than anything else in the show. He did it in 1775 -- soon after winning the Prix de Rome and and a trip to Italy. It's all that thrill of Classical culture -- its stateliness -- it sunniness - and more than any other, this drawing takes me to a place I want to be.

Prudhon (1758-1823) is the hero of French drawing because he turned the standard academic exercise into an objet d'art - with a charming classical atmosphere. This drawing is nice -- but as it recalls the drawing of the previous century (Lemoyne) or the classical sculpture of the next (Maillol) -- I feel its shortcomings. Did he successfully negotiate that delicate space between the model's right arm and her torso ? I just don't think so.

Maybe you have to love cats to enjoy this pastel -- but it just seems to present the essence of the feline mischief with which I am all too familiar. If a choice must be made between thorough and lively --- I'll always pick lively.

One of the things that irritates me the most about this kind of exhibit is the servile compliance with the canon: the endless repetition of the same famous artists -- as if there weren't tens-of-thousands of good, interesting drawings made by names unknown. But then the collector would have to rely on taste -- and that's not how this -- or many other collections --were made.

But the above artist, Hermann Max Pechstein (1881-1955) is pretty far from the A-list -- and I really enjoyed the hippie atmosphere of the above scene: zoftic art chicks cavorting nude in the campground beside his big red tent. Looks like fun to me !

The most recent piece that I enjoyed was this lifesize charcoal drawing by Nicholas De Stael done in 1953. American abstract painting interests me about as much as lawn bowling -- but I like the story -- and the results -- of this abstract painter's love affair with a tall young woman -- whose beautiful body brought him back to the world of figurative art.

No erudite theory is required to enjoy drawing -- and looking at -- the beloved.

Could Cezanne draw ?

2007-03-07T06:33:00.000-08:00

Could Cezanne draw ?

This is a question to which I've always figured the answer was "No" -- he just didn't seem to have the ability to imagine a 3-dimensional space (whether deep or shallow) and articulate lines within it. When I see a painting like "Bathers" -- I'm thinking this is a man who would like to draw, but couldn't ---- so he developed a style that didn't require that ability. (a style which, by the way, I think was often very successful with landscape or still-life.)

But then I saw the following drawing at an exhibit at the Art Institute:

This drawing is dated to 1862 -- when Cezanne was taking art classes at the age of 23 -- and it looks to me like a fine academic study. It has volume, volumes-on-top-of-volumes, and a sense of design within space. It's kind of strong -- and delicious -- and it's what I'd want from a talented performer in the school of Jacques Louis David -- a figure set to do some noble thing in a Classical dream.

But did Cezanne actually do it ? There's a unbroken provenance from the artist's hand to the current owner -- but how much was done by his teacher ? Especially when we consider the next drawing that was done one year later:

What a difference a year makes -- or -- what a difference the presence of a good teacher made.

I hate to lock-step with conventional art history -- but it does now seem to me that Cezanne had the ability to draw figures in the European tradition -- he just chose to go in a different direction. (and having made that decision, I wish he -- and those who followed his lead -- had stayed away from the figure thereafter)

A.I.C. : Hands of the Heian and Kamakura

2007-03-07T06:29:00.000-08:00

It looks like the 12th Century was something of a watershed in Japanese history -- and this large-scale event was marked by new styles of painting - sculpture - and prose -- that are memorable, dramatic, and often-called realistic.

Can we tell that difference from looking at the hands of a few near-life-size statues in the collection of the A.I.C. ?

Here's the Heian:

Heian: 10th-12th C. -- Yakushi Nyorai (deity of healing)

Yakushi Nyorai

Heian: 11th C. -- Bishamon -- deity who guards temples directions)

Bishamon

-------- and here's some Kamakura:

Kamakura:1185-1333 -- Shukongo Jin (deity who protects the law)

Kamakura:1185-1333 -- Shukongo Jin

Kamakura:1185-1333 -- Shukongo Jin

Kamakura: 1185-1333 -- Nyorin Kannon (deity of compassion, wish granting)

Kamakura: 1185-1333 Fudo Miyo-o

Fudo Miyo-o

Kamakura: 1185-1333 Jizo Bosatsu (deity of compassion)

Jizo Bosatsu

I'm not sure what conclusions to draw.

The Kamakura deities of protection seem much more fierce -- with energy being expressed rather than potential -- and that Heian deity of compassion seems
oh-so-delicate. Overall -- maybe the Heian feels more other-worldly or heavenly -- while the Kamak

Lee Mikyung

2006-05-24T06:52:00.000-07:00

Once every year, I send a memorial to the emperor (i.e. the new director of the Art Institute) -- giving him valuable advice concerning the administration of his empire.

I realize that -- given my bad attitude -- were this a real emperor/empire -- I would have been beheaded several years ago -- but Mr. Cuno tolerates my opinions -- and is actually kind enough to write me in reply.

The problem is --- whatever I raise an issue -- he addresses it -- but not as I would have wished.

For example -- on one of my walks through the galleries, I discovered the following piece:

Ode to Balsam Flowers (detail)

The above is a small section of a 4-screen , 6-foot high, display of calligrapy --
by the Korean artist Lee Mikyung. According to the label, the script is an anachronistic, Korean style preserved by aristocratic women ( while their husbands preferred to write in Chinese characters).

Lee Mikyung was born 1918 -- and this piece was done in 1991 -- so chronologically, she would be considered a contemporary artist. (everything done after 1950 is now considered "contemporary")

I'm glad the piece is being shown --- it's a bit regimented/formal -- i.e. the characters don't seem to play with each other very much --- but each one is wonderful to study -- and god knows there are enough of them.

When I wrote to Mr. Cuno, I asked why this traditional Korean contemporary calligraher was on display --- but not-one-single traditional Euro-American -style painter was on the walls. (and god knows there are enough of those -- painters of portraits/landscape/still-life etc) Why should traditional Korean culture be honored -- but not our own ?

Last week I discovered that this problem had been solved: the Lee Mikyung had been sent to the basement -- and a different ( and much older ) Korean painting was now on display.

I suppose this is just a coincidence --- but in the same memorial, I asked why members should wish to renew their membership to the museum -- since the admitance fee is "pay what you wish" -- and the only real benefit was free admission to the high-priced special exhibits (which new museum policy has discontinued)

And now -- I have just learned that "pay what you wish" will soon be replaced by "pay $12" (or some such amount)

So once again -- my concerns were addressed -- but not in the way I would have wished !

Ancient Egypt

2006-05-23T04:42:00.000-07:00

The Field Museum is beginning to announce its blockbuster "King Tut" exhibit -- and looking through the fat brochure -- I realized that I'm not going. I mean -- even the things that they choose to display as highlites don't interest me.

The terrible truth is that most Egyptian art doesn't interest me any more than American automobile designs. Most things are well made -- but so what? In a world of a million-choices, well-made doesn't cut it -- in any genre (even Japanese prints)

(plus.... they're going to charge me $25 .... plus ... they're not going to let me take pictures .... plus ... I'm going to be fighting a crowd ... plus ... they don't let you back in the exhibit if you have to leave to use the restroom)

(BTW -- the Field Museum had a great exhibit of Egyptian artifacts from the British museum about 2 years ago -- and I'm telling myself that it had to be much better than Tut)

So.... instead..... I decided this week to look at the (meagre) collection of Egyptology at the A.I.C. ---- and it does make me wish I lived in NYC (where the Met has tons of Egyptian stone on display)

But the A.I.C. does have a two things that are memorable -- and interestingly enough -- my good friend Tor and I agree on what they are:

These small plaques are very recent as Egyptian history goes -- at 300 BC -- they are practically mid-way between the Old Kingdom and the present day --- and I'm not even sure how Egyptian you would want to call the Ptolemaic period.

But whatever you call it -- these pieces came from Egypt -- and they're wonderful.

Utamaro

2006-05-23T04:41:00.000-07:00

The Buckingham gallery of Japanese prints changes its display about every 6 weeks -- and about once every 10 years -- it's all Utamaro.

I worship Utamaro -- he's the Titian/Michelangelo/Botticelli of this genre -- and I think it's only custom that puts his prints (instead of European paintings) on rotating, instead of permanent, display.

He just seems to be a few steps ahead of everyone else -- in drama -- in power -- in range -- in arrangements that seem new-clever-exceptional -- the way a top athlete stands above his accomplished peers -- always innovating -- always pushing himself -- and I notice by the dates posted beside each print, that he kept getting better -- with the most exciting things done in the last five years of his life (he lived to the age of 50)

This was my favorite in the show (although it must be noted that the museum owns many more not on display -- and I remember some that I liked just as much. "A sweet disorder in the dress, kindles in clothes a wantoness"

Here's a detail of the smoke that beautiful, young, partially undressed lady is blowing -- printed not with ink -- but just with the impression of the wood block.

Here's one that the guard helpfully suggested was an inspiration for Van Gogh (with the strong floral pattern in the background) Maybe she was right -- if I were a young painter who had never seen an Utamaro before -- I think I'd start lifting ideas too.

(This jpg badly fails, by the way, to give the effect of the patterns in this design.)

Ren Yi

2006-05-23T04:40:00.000-07:00

Ren Yi (1840-1896, Shanghai, Mynahh and Bamboo, 1892 -tribute to Zhu Da (17th c.)

The paintings on display in the A.I.C. Chinese gallery change about four times a year -- and usually I just don't care for them -- i.e. like all bad traditional art -- they just seem to be following a formula -- rather than using it to ascend to the heavens. The last exhibit of rock painters was unspeakably bad --- but this one, featuring the paintings of Ren Yi--- from the collection of Florence Ayscough -- was at least decorative -- and actually seemed related to the French, post-Impressionist decorative painters of the same era.

The exhibition includes photos of the collector, Ms. Ayscough, and properly emphasizes the role that local collectors play in a museum collection: i.e. a museum's collection is no better than the taste of those who have donated to it.

Ms. Ayscough was apparently a big fan of Ren Yi --- and the gallery walls are now exclusively dedicted to his works. They're facile -- showy -- elegant -- well-drawn --- reminds me of Singer Sargent's nearly contemporary portraits of English aristocracy --- but just like Sargent feels fluffy compared with the Baroque masters -- these painting proclaim a melacholy decline from the power of earlier Chinese painting.

I think the difference here is one of silk --- in the earlier masters, the blank silk behind the trees/birds/flowers is equally important -- so there's this tension of presentation -- foreground with background --- and a sense of eternity that is so delicious when contrasted with the brush strokes that feel so spontaneous/in-this-moment.

Without that tension -- the images just feel blowsy --- superficial --- and -- that horrible word -- decadent -- a feeling that's not diminished by the sensual colors which Ren Yi -- and the traditional Chinese brush painters of the 20th C. -- like to use.

(note: I couldn't photograph the other paintings because of the reflections on the protective glass case -- which also, by the way -- makes them difficult to see. Isn't there a better way to display this kind of thing ?)

Mogollon Hero

2006-05-23T04:39:00.000-07:00

The A.I.C. just opened a special exhibit of pottery made by people who lived about a thousand years ago in the areas now called Arizona, northern Mexico, and New Mexico.

This is the piece that caught my attention on the first visit -- a hunter-hero, wearing a fish-swallowing-heron on his head -- with an assistant who carries a rabbit head. It is classic Mimbres, 950-1150 A.D., from New Mexico.

This powerful, rhythmic drawing is what captures me (as well, I suppose, as the small game that he hunts) -- made with all the focus and precison that hunting requires.

This is a no nonsense world -- the immersion is complete -- the focus is unbroken -- the purpose is direct -- and his arrow never misses.

And ..he's kind of a cute young guy, isn't he ? He's fleet of foot -- eyes wide open -- missing nothing -- his lithe body coiled like a spring -- and his world spins around with him at the center. He's Isao -- the hero of Mishima's novel, "Runaway Horses", and powerful capitalists (as well as rabbits, heron, and deer) had better beware.

(I wish this piece went on permanent display -- it's several notches above what the museum shows from its own collection)

Age of the Medici

2006-05-23T04:38:00.000-07:00

About three years ago, the museum hosted one of my favorite shows of all-time --- primarly due to the inclusion of the following two objects:

In the 1540's, to celebrate the consilidation of their autocratic control over Florence (and the duchy of Tuscany)-- the Medici family began planning for a monument to brute force -- centering on the depiction of Hercules and Anteus set into a fountain. After several false-starts, Nicolo Tribolo was chosen to design the monument, and Ammanati to make the broze figures, completed in 1559.

What an incredible masterpiece ! The power that ripples through every joint and tendon -- connecting to a majestic, awesome, symphonic unity. I went to stare at it every week it was on display. It's brutal -- monstrous -- dynamic --- relentless -- just like the modern secular states that eventually would dominate world history.

Ammanati -- you rule ! -- and much longer, and much better, than the Medici ever did.

Then there was this masterpiece by Christofano Allori (1557-1621) painted near the end of his life in 1616-18. Christofano was almost an exact contemporary of Caravaggio -- and like any other painter in his right mind -- followed the lead of that incredible genius -- into a world of dark, dramatic, sordid passions.

The story, as you must have guessed, celebrates that most notorious femme fatale, Judith, and her lover/victim, Holofernes, who touched her flesh just once -- and
immediately lost his head. Above is a detail of that crafty Jewess, Judith -- which, according to historians, is also a portrait of Christofano's young lover.

And this is a detail of poor Holofernes -- the great Iraqi general -- which is also said to be a portrait of the artist himself -- an aging devotee to the muse -- who also lost his head to a striking young woman. Look at the languor in her eyes -- and look at the severed power of his head -- and it tells a story that is tragic -- but not necesssarily one that should be considered cautionary.

Harihara

2006-05-23T04:37:00.000-07:00

I was walking past this temple niche for Shiva/Vishnu from Madhya Pradesh -- and time stopped.

It wasn't the central figure -- which seemed no more than formulaic -- but the figures on the side -- as they caught the late afternoon sun -- and created an empty space between them that never left the 9th Century.

I'm doubting that photos can convey that delicious sense of space -- but here's another, slightly different view that might help reconstruct the volumes in the imagination.

The thing about deep relief is that it bites into -- includes -- the space of the room -- the space also inhabited by the viewer --- so a viewer so inclined, can become immersed in the mind of the sculptor -- which in this case -- moved ever-ever-so-slowly-and-carefully -- weighing, turning, composing every volume, every nuance.

Here's the rest of the piece (maybe the presence of Shiva/Vishnu was too powerful for me to want to photograph it the first time around)

The Persian Lover

2006-05-23T04:35:00.000-07:00

Persians have a long tradition of sensuality and languor -- i.e. 'Oriental decadance' so disdained by their enemies, the Periclean Greeks, who fought these long-haired warriors who brought women and chefs with them as they invaded Greece. (just as Mark Antony's Roman army carried their pornography with them a few hundred years later when they invaded Persia -- much to the contemptuous amusement of the Persians who captured their baggage train)

This is how I've always imagined myself as lover --- going back to my teen years and the Persian miniatures at the Cincinnati Art Museum -- soft, sleek, dreamy, shimmering, languid, sinuous, gentle -- and usually (but not always !) alone -- in solitary reverie. Are there any such images of lovers in European painting ? Venus and Mars ? ( I've just never identified with that scary couple)

How many paintings are there in the A.I.C. ? Are there any others dedicated to the love between a man and a woman ? (I guess there are --- but I can't recall any right now.)

Seated figure style of Reza Abbasi, Isfahan, 1640 -- accompanied by lines of poetry that read: "In my hand is neither my heart nor the one who ravishes my heart"

(final note: it looks like the Persian lover may well play a decisive role in the history of my own family -- for the ONLY great-great grandchild of my immigrant, Jewish grandparents is currently a little girl named Aleaa -- whose father is a Persian lover -- and whose mother (my niece in Johnson City, Tennessee)providentially resembles an Iranian movie star.)

Tomb figures from Ancient Mexico

2006-05-23T04:34:00.000-07:00

About 5 years ago, the museum hosted a large exhibit of terracotta figures from western Mexico -- the areas west of Mexico city, through Jalisco, and over to the Pacific coast -- and from centuries -- even a millenium -- earlier than classic Maya civilization.

It was less stately -- but more intense --- less divine -- but more human -- similar to how Etruscan figures differ from the later Roman/Hellenistic sculpture --- and it looks like I prefer those earlier periods -- on both sides of the Atlantic. Several early 20th C. sculptors and collectors shared this preference -- and by way of comparison, the exhibit also included some small pieces by Henry Moore that used similar elements -- though less deftly -- demonstrating, at least to me, the achievement in these apparently simple little pieces. Most of my favorites seem to come from Colina, in the Comala phase dated 200BC to 300 AD.

I know guys like this -- the ones who do their jobs -- don't ask any questions -- but in private put on the headphones and listen to space music. Am I the only one who feels that these pieces are connected to drug culture ? I just wonder how much of daily life -- or especially ritual life -- was conducted while under the influence. There's something psychedelic about those distorted proportions and colorful surfaces -- or -- maybe I'm just having a sixties flashback .

this is a sculptor -- rather than a figure -- at play.

Here's my picks from the AIC's permanent installation -- and all of them come from this same period. (they do have a large Mayan architectural relief -- which might once have been awesome -- but it's condition has suffered badly over the past thousand years)

Love these dancers -- especially in comparison to each other -- each different, but moving to the same rhythm -- so I'm thinking of the "California Raisins" -- as they danced to "Heard it through the Grapevine"

This weird guy called a "chieftain" -- and I've noted how their chieftains/leaders are sitting rather than standing tall -- sitting , perhaps, because they're so stoned, they'd fall over if they tried to stand.

Not an especially good looking woman -- but probably quite vigorous.

This mime is not Mexican -- he's Tang Dynasty Chinese (from the Field Museum) -- but he reminded me of the Mexican acrobat pictured further above. All these things come from tombs -- and I like the idea of providing

Eyes of the Prophet

2006-05-23T04:33:00.000-07:00

My favorite European sculpture in the A.I.C. has always been this fragment from Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. It was knocked off the facade back in the 1790's by ramapaging sans coulottes -- and who can blame them for wanting to keep the eyes of God from looking at the brave new secular world they were trying to build ? But the power of this abused fragment is so great, it could not be kept from public display -- and here it is, 200 years later still passing judgement on the frivolities of modern life.

Corners of Renoir

2006-05-23T04:32:00.000-07:00

One of my 40-year favorites at the A.I.C. is Renoir's "On the Terrace" of 1881" -- that adorable woman in the red hat with the cute kid never fails to send me into ecstasy -- and today was no exception -- except that this time, instead of stepping back to take-it-all-in, I stepped forward to dive into the corners -- which was an equally rewarding trip.

It was this upper-left corner that first got me -- the colorful dipping and jumping through space -- the feel of thick paint or thin -- just where it needs to be one way or the other. The happy sense of eternal youth on an eternal Saturday afternoon in Spring. This is how it looks to be happy.

This section reminded me of the Chinese bamboo painting noted back in November (which is , BTW, equally great, but now off to storage for another 10 years) It's just a nice trip to follow a paint-filled brush as it cuts through, measures, and composes space in one bliss-ful movement. (I'm ignoring, this time, the explosion of color among the flowers on the hat -- it's too exciting for words)

Finally, we've got the up-front left corner --- where R. has given us the joy of colors that are intense but controlled -- and the joy of string (though not quite as exhuberent as the string of Vermeer). And look around the edges of that sleeve !--where it's sharp and where it's loose -- and how it works with the balls of yarn.

Renoir is so mellow ! -- he saunters, casually through the space of his painting -- fit for the lines: ".. the wandering orange and curious peach into my hands themselvs do reach"

Maybe someday I'll write about the young woman and child -- but for today, I'm just sticking to the corners.

Girodet on various visits

2006-05-23T04:31:00.000-07:00

First week: I must have seen this guy back when I toured the Louve all those years ago - but when time is limited -- and Rubens. Poussin, and Delacroix beckon -- I didn't give him a moment's notice. Now though -- with a show all his own -- he's an oasis of splendor in the most threadbare of exhibition schedules the A.I.C. has ever had.

There's a self-portrait right at the beginning of the show that I might pick as his first and last great painting. He was 28 -- it was 1791 -- he was David's crack assistant breaking into his own career -- European history was being made on a day-to-day basis at the national assembly - and he portrays a young man who is sharp, keen, and hungry (much -- much more exciting than the later self-portrait in the Hermitage which is all over Google).

Of course he went on to make many great paintings -- he was a master of space, form, and color -- but he was not a prophet. He mirrored the taste of the rising bourgeoise -- seeking the shallow comfort of gorgeous but petty sensuality that at least never sunk to the sentimentality of Bouguereau and the later academy -- and that deserves to be called decorative -- but what decorations ! I can't imagine living a room surrounded by his life-size figures -- it would be so electric, I would never be relaxed.

The piece shown above was at the show -- and, though thorougly delightful (far more so in person) -- shows the pettiness of his concerns. The lady depicted as Danae was a customer who had rejected his portrait of her -- so he painted her as a goldigger -- her husband as the turkey -- and somewhere in all the detail, a portrait of her lover. The lady was scandalized by society and the painter had his revenge -- but what a cheap use of his great talents.

This is a detail of a very large (and early) painting (which follows) -- showing among all those leaves, I hope, his powerful sense of space -- as well as a hommage to the great master of large-scale dramatic painting: Tintoretto.

There were many more great paintings which I couldn't find on the internet -- but they really have to be seen full-size to get the effect.
Given his abilities - and his frivolous nature -- my greated regret is that he didn't make explicit pornography. I think he could have rivaled the Japanese.

................Second Visit.............
Here's the self-portrait mentioned above -- something about how the facial features line up with how the space is proportioned -- something about the red lips -- and there you have it -- the integrity, the courage, the passion, the drama of a young man.

The first paintings I noticed this time around were the classical historical tableaux -- spinning off from David's "Death of Socrates" or "Oath of the Horatii" -- but almost immediately, it's apparent that the timeless, heroic, serious Classical detachment is gone -- and instead, we're getting some kind of elaborate cartoon -- with grimacing faces that forget they're actors on a Classical stage. (detail of "Joseph and his Brothers" shown above -- and doesn't look like a scene from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical ?)

Girodet may be the greatest French painter between David and Gericault/Delacroix -- but in comparison with them -- well --- let's just say he feels like a lightweight.

The next painting I noticed this time was the Ossian fantasy he painted for Napoleon (detail shown above) - and with the pretense of classicism gone -- the silliness is actually more enjoyable -- demonic British ghosts battling heroic French ghosts -- surrounded by beautiful ghostly young women, glowing with a supernatural light. It's like the best cover art that trashy pulp fiction has ever had. Napoleon, apparently, didn't like it -- but I think he lacked a sense of humor.

The last paintings that I saw on this visit were the portraits that he did of an older physician, Dr. Trioson, who cared for Girodet when he was a young orphan, and formally adopted him as an adult. I don't know the story behind their relationship -- but the physician is presented as a very kind, caring, rational, and level-headed man -- perhaps a foil to the artist's own whimsical, poetic nature. Actually -- on this visit -- this portrait was the painting that moved me the most. Girodet knows nothing about half-measures --and the character of that father figure jumps out of the frame.

The following is a link to an essay based on the 1911 entry in the Encyclopedia Brittanica:
click here
You'll notice that the painter is taken to task for trying to express Romantic sentiments within a Classical style -- but I don't know that I want to follow this progression-of-styles approach that is the foundation of academic art history. As I read the character of Girodet the orphan -- I think cherished a fantasy life that semed much more attractive than the cruel world -- and that's where he took his painting. If he were directing films today -- I'd see him as a Steven Spielberg -- and if making movies were an option back in 1800, I think he would have preferred that to painting.

A few American Luminists

2006-05-23T04:29:00.000-07:00

I was on my mission to complete the tour of 19th C. American sculpture at the A.I.C.-- but I couldn't help noticing some of the paintings in the gallery that day -- and -- well -- maybe -- these appealed to me more.

John Kensett (1816-1872) Almy Pond, Newport , 1857

I don't remember any of this genre from Cincinnati -- but I do remember being stopped by Kensett at the Met -- and stopping viewers at the Met is the most that any painter can aspire for. There's the glowing -- there's the minimalism --there's, let's face it -- Puritan art -- a bit more geometric and a bit less sensual than its Dutch counterparts. And lack of sensuality provokes sensuality -- at least in me.

Sanford Robinson Gifford (1823-1880) Morning in the Hudson, Haverstraw Bay, 1866

I don't remember ever seeing Gifford before -- but I like him just as much - maybe more -- because the severe geometry begins to feel mystical: i.e. that big boat in the middle of all those triangles should be boring, but it's not. It turns out that late in their careers, Kensett and Gifford traveled together to view the wild west. Ahh --those were the days. I wonder if they ever made it into an episode of "Maverick" or "Gunsmoke". In Cincinnati, I grew up with the French landscape painters of that day (Daubigny, Rousseau, Corot etc)-- but now I guess I like their American peers as much if not more. These painters are the worthy compatriots of Hawthorne and Melville.

(Note: these two paintings are on loan from the Terra Foundation -- and a sad reminder of what the Terra Museum was -- and could have been if it's board of directors had not pulled the plug.)

Lachaise : another long time favorite

2006-04-17T05:13:00.000-07:00

Here's an unconventional view of this figure. It's usually seen with a full top-to-bottom shot that shows the balance coming down to those strong and delicate ankles --and that view can easily be found with google (or on my website).

But this photo presents the view taken by a supplicant.

There's so much to like here -- made with the loving care of Shaker furniture -- so elegant-- so finished -- so balanced -- but also sexy -- though in a formidable way. This is some kind of goddess -- and not especially a benign one. What's that gesture all about ? "Look at me and grovel, little man"

I am groveling, oh great and mysterious one. Please cast your sightless eyes upon me. (and don't eat me for lunch)

Here's a more gentle divinity -- something of a mermaid. It's always the same figure for Lachaise -- his zoftic American wife -- but playfully turned upside down, she's less threatening.

Another Sanford Gifford

2006-01-21T20:25:00.000-08:00

Done in 1866 -- the same year as the "Morning in the Hudson" shown in the last post -- "Hunter Mountain" looks more like a reclining woman than a mountain -- at least to me. The pink breasts -- the full belly -- the pubic bush -- peacefully sleeping with a warm little cabin at her heart -- and a skinny young man driving the cows home as the sun sets behind her head and the moon and planets (Venus ?) rise in the sky. This was a disappointing week for the
Chinese gallery -- as mediocre paintings took over the display cases -- but this is the best Chinese painting I can imagine -- Heaven/mountain/valley --- it's like a trigram from the I Ching.

Early 19th C. American Sculpture

2006-01-17T18:15:00.000-08:00

Ship's figure-head -- I know a badly near-sighted, very intelligent woman who looks just like this -- eyes half blind but they don't miss a thing -- just like the eyes of a ship should be -- on dark, misty, moonless nights in treacherous waters half way around the world. And you'll notice that since she's now in a museum, she brought her crew home safely with her.

Preacher, c 1830 -- a medieval old-testament prophet --
re-imagined by some back-woods dreamer -- severe but gentle,his mind far, far away in the words of scripture - bound to the service of the lord - I wish the sculptor had carved an entire cathedral - or - maybe he didn't need to.

Hiram Powers (1805-1873) is an Ohio boy who ended up carving
marble in Italy. He's classical -- but you'd never mistake him for Greek, Roman,or Renaissance Italian. - the sensuality is only on the surface -- underneath, he's hard as iron. He's a tough but vulnerable American - and I don't really like him - but he has the determination and the skill to do anything.

Horatio Greenough (1805-1852) is another American who moved to Italy -- and he's got that dreamy, airy idealism that feels more British than American to me. This figure is not human, it's a mathematical formula, ornate, complete, and fully proven -- and it seems to be made out of sugar.

Harriet Hosmer (1830-1908) I first heard about Harriet while vacationing in the Mississippi river town of Lansing, Iowa -- where a local bluff was given her name after she won a footrace to the top back in good old steamboat days. A tough little woman, she moved to Italy, where there's a cute photograph of her diminutive self surrounded by a dozen, brawny Italian stone cutters. Then later, I heard about this piece when it was discovered in a dump in my current home town of Forest Park Illinois. A hundred years ago, my town
had a race track where this monumental bust of Queen Zenobia was on display -- but when the race track was demolished (and replaced by a WWII torpedo factory (!)) , Queen Zenobia went into a stone dump in the adjacent cemetary. Ten years ago she got fished out -- cleaned up -- and put on display at the Art Institute. So the old girl has quite a colorful history -- but I still think she belongs in some kind of amusement park -- maybe a casino in Vegas ? or a museum of contemporary art ? Harriet Hosmer was an early conceptualist.

Daniel Chester French (1850-1931) The "dean of American sculptors" - and I suppose the most fluid practitioner of the beaux arts style in America -- buoyant, dramatic,important -- but not quite profound -- again, just a little too much like mannekins on a stage instead of sculpture in a temple -- witness his "Lincoln" (1916), which just comes off to me as puppetry for a parade -- rather than the dignity that a sculptor like Houdon could give to George Washington. The center of this piece is emptiness -- which would not be a problem if it were only intended as a float for Mardi Gras.

Look at the detail of Lincoln's head -- if ever nature made a head for dramatic sculpture, ugly old Lincoln had one. But French has normalized and aestheticized it -- I suppose so as not to frighten school children and their matronly teachers.

Frederick MacMonnies ( 1863-1937) -- After 1860, American sculptors adopted the naturalism and dramatic surface of the Beaux Arts program, but Nathan Hale (1890) is less like mythology and more like an editorial cartoon found on an op-ed page of a newspaper. Compare this bound-victim with Rodin's "Burghers of Calais" . Whatever else might be said, this one is certainly more sexy : The cute face, pouting lips, bare chest, dischevelled frillery, innocent look, and the arms helplessly tied to his side.

Laredo Taft (1860-1936) - I'm sweet on Laredo Taft because legend has it that his students are responsible for beginning my art club, the Palette and Chisel. He's down-home kind of guy -- Illinois native born to free-thinking parents with a penchant for colorful names. He went to Paris and became
a beaux-arts sculptor. But what's wrong with that school is what's wrong with him: he makes tableaux, not sculpture -- so all the dramatic elements are there and the actors are well made and dramatically posed --- but the inner life of form has eluded him. Maybe formal resolution is innappropriate to the subject here --"Solitude of the Soul" - where each actor -- and each form -- should be lonely and apart. Maybe this makes him another early conceptualist -- but compare this piece with George Gray Bernard's contemporary monumental marble at the Met -- and I'm afraid we see why Taft's reputation has not traveled far from the 'second city'.

18th C. Decorative arts

2006-01-17T18:13:00.000-08:00

Why are these things called decorative arts instead of art arts ? Who knows. These rooms at the Art Institute are mostly a desert for me -- but these are the exceptions:

My retouched backgrounds make these resemble soft porn -- and maybe that's a good description for them anyway. Clodion takes me into the kind of erotic Classical world where I could live forever -- at least, until I fall asleep.

Why is Houdon in a room of "decorative arts"? Why is
Houdon's George Washington the periodic ojbect of conceptual abuse (now incorporated into someone's postmodern masterpiece) Maybe it's because his portraits embody civilized rationalism like no one else before or since. Maybe the sitter was a dolt - but here he looks like he could serve as chancellor to the Sun king.

O.K., I have no idea why I picked this piece -- it's
off the chart goofy --- guess that's why I picked it --- but I can't tell who
was more responsible for that celestial conditon; the modeler or the glazer at the
Meissen factory ? I see this piece and I feel like putting on the silver suit of the Rosenkavalier.

Here's my favorite detail of the above -- something about those colors --- I feel like I want to take a spoon and start eating it.

Chinese sculpture

2006-01-17T18:08:00.000-08:00

Here's a compilation of my favorite items from the genres on permanent display at the Art Institute. Some of these things are in the place where I saw them on my first visit -- about 40 years ago -- but some are more recent - and I've painfully learned that nothing is on permanent display. So I thought I'd take a moment to document what I like the most.

This Tang Boddisatva is my favorite piece in the museum -- and given it's prominent location -- I don't think I'm alone in my admiration for it.

Front view of the same sculpture (taken with my new "image stabilized" camera)

Cute little doggie, isn't he ? Found in a Han tomb - but it seems like it would also work as a roof-top decoration.

This jovial fellow was found in a 6th C. AD tomb -- thought to be an entertainer.

A Han dynasty tomb figure - with an especially thoughtful expression, don't you think ?

I'm not a big fan of jade -- I think it's so hard to work, the issue of design is
made secondary. But this Ming era chalice with dragons is one of the nicer pieces. Can you imagine actually sipping from it ?

This is my favorite Tang vase in the collection -- those white splotches are more than just splotches -- they're alive -- like an airborn flock of geese.

These delightful, rainbow-colored girls have always pulled me into their private little boudoirs. They're about the right age for the pavillions in "Dream of Red Chamber", but they lived 1,000 years earlier.

For whatever reason, China doesn't seem to have portrait sculpture of ancestors --
I'm guessing that's because the power of the head-of-family is so absolute, everyone is relieved when he's finally gone. But monastaries are the exception - where maybe those lonely guys really did miss those who have died. This is an 11th Century
piece -- hollow with a lacquer surface.

Another one of my 40-year favorites - see how even an unusual vantage point offers a delightful view. So soft -- so gentle -- so stately -- the happy, idyllic world
of Tang. Why couldn't it last forever ?

I've never been able to imagine myself in a social event that would use these architectural wine jars from the Zhou dynasty (1050 - 770 BC )

They have whimsy and power, don't they ? As if they contained something more important than wine. They seem to belong in a room into which no one is allowed to enter.

Keith Achepohl collection of African pottery

2006-01-17T18:06:00.000-08:00

Born in 1934, Keith Achepohl is currently the head of the printmaking Dept. at the University of Iowa -- and somewhere along the way he collected a lot of African pottery.

As he tells it, he began his collection while traveling through Africa.
Dealers would pull up their trucks at the markets and he would go through their stuff -- looking for the unusual, the extraordinary. That's the kind of collection it is -- based less on historical authenticity and more on what looks interesting. So the museum's official title of this exhibit, "For Hearth and Altar", is somewhat misleading. It should be called "For fun viewing".

There's a good-natured, swinging goofiness about many of these things -- like those
neighborhood brass bands that proliferate in some not-yet-industrialized countries around the world -- and I can understand why Mr. Archepohl says he sold his collection of contemporary American pottery when he discovered these engaging objects, most (but not all) of which also contemporary, i.e. mid to late 20th Century.

I'd like to put some of the large jars side-by-side with the 16th Century Japanese jars (also in the Art Institute) that are so similar in size/shape/color -- but feel so different -- as they reflect an intellectual choice to be simple/natural that goes back to the Taoist philosphers of the 4th century BCE.

It's also interesting to see Mr. Achepohl's own graphics -- as they reflect the disastrous consequence of academic modernism on the European pictorial tradition: - failing as both design, picture, and engaging expression -- even if pleasant enough for a dentist's waiting room.

I'd also like to note that although the musuem's brochure tells us that these "often surprising ceramic vessels have been created for domestic and ritual uses" -- there's
no documentation to that effect -- and it's quite likely that since most of them are less than 50 years old, many of them were made for the collector's market -- which would, of course, in the twisted art-philosophy of the art museum, disqualify them as art objects worthy of their collection. One may also note that not a single potter is identified by name -- although if it really counted - i.e. -- if name were important to value like it is in the post Renaissance European tradition, inquiries could have been made -- the artists, or at least their children/grandchildren are still living -- and some artists could have been identified. But that would have removed them from their mythic state of anonymity - and probably revealed that the artist did, occasionally, make things for sale to dealers. (who wouldn't jump at the chance of making some money?)

So the contemporary tribal artist is honored as such only as long as he remains
anonymous. Once known -- he's no longer an artist at all -- he's just a manufacturer of trinkets for tourists and street fairs in places like Chicago or Atlanta.

Bamboo leaves in the Rain

2006-01-17T18:04:00.000-08:00

Xia Chang (1388-1470)Bamboo Bordered Stream in Spring Rain --1441

This is a 12" section (about 2 feet from the left edge) of a 50 foot scroll.

What's suckering me here is the delicious sense of space that depends on the varying darkness/lightness of the brush strokes. Xia was apparently a scholar/official who was in charge of scholar/officials --- so I'm guessing that his ability was well recognized by his peers. This painting apparently was made a year after his retirement -- accompanied by a poem dedicated to a friend whose estate offered a similar spot for retreat -- the sense of the poem being "isn't it nice to get away from everything and look at the bamboo in the rain.

This shows the last of the 8 feet of the 50 foot scroll that is currently on display --- and you can see how the delicacy of the leaves is giving way to the heavier volumes of a tree trunk -- and a very different kind of space develops.

This is near the left-most edge -- the trip to the garden beginning with the flat space of crackling silhouettes of leaves against the page , set off, just occasionally, by lighter brush strokes that indicate a deeper space. I can stare at this part over-and-over again. It's so refreshing - envigorating.

Here's a detail -- shot with my new Panasonic FX8 camera with
"optical image stabilizer" to compensate for my shaky hand.

Two Luminist painters

2006-01-17T10:40:00.000-08:00