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
The National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.
The National Gallery in London
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.
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.”
As we face a situation unprecedented in our time, I began to think about what I could do to help. I am a teacher having taught college level art history for almost thirty years (yikes). I understand that a lot of families are having to grapple with teaching students at home and are undoubtedly working with very skilled educators to make this happen. My thought was that I could resuscitate my blog and begin posting art history lessons for levels and while this in no way compares to what many people have done and will continue to do in this crisis, my contribution might be to provide a bit of a distraction on a daily basis. Please stay well and safe and please let me know if there are any particular pieces of art that are of interest to you or your family.
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.
Your Daily Art 