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Saint Bride by John Duncan, 1913, National Gallery of Scotland.
Two angels transporting the Saint Bride to Bethlehem to witness the Nativity. Scenes of the life of Christ are sewn into the garments of the angels. John Duncan is often characterized as a Symbolist artist because of his style, but also because he had a strong desire to understand the mysteries of nature as they relate to the divine.
Beach Scene by Martha Walter
Another in my on-going series of artists I discover on Pinterest.
Martha Walter (1875-1976) was a student of William Merritt Chase at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and later became a teacher at the New York School of Art, run by Chase. She developed her own loose style and preferred work in the Plein-Air technique.
Drowning Girl by Roy Lichtenstein, 1963, MOMA, NYC
The controversy about Lichtenstein’s work stems from his "lifting" images from 1950's and 60's comic books, enlarging them, and rendering them in paint. This part of his career is only the tip of the iceberg, as his work went in many other directions through-out his long career.
Regionalist artist Thomas Hart Benton studied in New York but was always drawn back to the middle states of the US where he grew up. There is a lot of material about Benton and I would recommend the book by art historian Henry Adams.
St. Hedwig by Joseph Felix Męcina-Krzesz, 1914, Location of Original Unknown.
The Museum of Divine Statues in Lakewood, OH is housed in the old St. Hedwig Catholic Church and this lithograph image of the Saint for whom it is named was gifted to the museum. The museum features rescued and restored Catholic religious statuary from many of the churches in the area that have been closed in the last few years. It also has a fine collection of stained glass, as well as, furnishings, fixtures, and other artwork from many area churches.
These photos are from the Nick Cave exhibition in 2015 HereHear at the Cranbrook Art Museum
The show has featured interactive happenings throughout the metro Detroit area and there are still a couple of events coming up. You can check the Cranbrook museum website for more information.
Excavated Moai Photo: Easter Island Statue Project
This article on Artnet features the amazing excavations taking place on Easter Island as the mysterious Moai statues are much more then they appear.
Portrait of Journalist Sylvia von Harden by Otto Dix, 1926.
Otto Dix is known for his colorful and harsh images of life during and after Germany’s Weimar Republic. He was a gunner in World War I.
Under the Horse Chestnut Tree by Mary Cassatt, 1895, Moma
American Impressionist artist Mary Cassatt is well known for her paintings of women and children. Although she never had children herself, she captures the intimate moments between the mothers and children that were her family and friends, with care and feeling.
AK 47 Kalashnikov, multicolor original gun with applied Smarties by Kata Legrady from her Guns and Candies series.
Kata Legrady began a series of artworks in 2008 where she applied candies like Smarties to different weapons. She thought the candies evoked the Ben-Day technique used by Roy Lichtenstein in his comic book referencing art and by "covering" and in a sense hiding the firearm or other weapon, it loses its ferocity and power.
Alex Colville, Winter Sun, 2005
Canadian artist Alex Colville painted in highly detailed images in the pointillist style - unusual because of the slow exacting methods it requires - yet his subjects are so "usual" that his methods of achieving his look make you forget that they must have been created by a very meticulous and precise hand.
, 3rd - 2nd century BCE, The Metropolitan Museum, New York.
This small statuette is a remarkable representation of a dancer caught in the midst of a complicated move. It is expressive and mysterious at the same time.
As a result of the COVID-19 virus museums and galleries have shut their doors to the public in order to encourage social distancing, however, they also have very active and interesting websites full of images and information to explore and fill your time.
This is just a partial list of all of the museums and galleries all over the world available for a virtual visit:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City
The Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska
The American Museum of Natural History in New York City
John William Waterhouse, The Decameron , 1916, The Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight
The subjects for John William Waterhouse’s paintings The Decameron and The Enchanted Garden are drawn from a book by 14th century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio who tells the tales of seven young women and three young men secluded outside the city of Florence during the time of the Black Plague.
Both of these artworks are owned by the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight (an early “planned” community outside of Liverpool) a small and delightful museum to visit.
Thomas Moran, Grand Canyon, 1909, Seattle Art Museum
I went last year to see the Grand Canyon in person and it does live up to the hype. There were a lot of people in the park and lines of cars to enter but once you got down to the edge of it and looked out without being able to see where it ends, nature suddenly got very large and civilization sudden got very small. Manifest Destiny
Dali never knew his bother who died of a stomach aliment at three years old, nine months before Salvador was born. Dali’s parents told him he was the reincarnation of his brother and he always felt they were like Castor and Pollux. From the Dali Museum: Dalí wrote a brief, elusive description of this work when it was first exhibited. “The Vulture, according to the Egyptians and Freud, represents my mother’s portrait. The cherries represent the molecules, the dark cherries create the visage of my dead brother, the sun-lighted cherries create the image of Salvador living thus repeating the great myth of the Dioscures Castor and Pollux.”
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Yesterday I saw a Twitter post by @m_tisserand that said “we are all edward hopper paintings now” and it struck me as so true. We are isolated and unsure of what lies ahead but somehow not without hope. This painting is owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and is called Office in a Small City from 1953. There is also an extremely disheartening piece in the New York Times today about museums not being able to weather this situation and that many will close their doors for good as a result. If you can, a donation might help. They have to contend with ongoing costs like utilities and insurance, not to mention payroll, even if their doors are closed to the public.
