This is another sculpture where you can feel the emotions that are meant to be communicated without any kind of extraneous filler nonsense. Rodin knew his shit.
Tag: European Art
Thursday
The textures of this sculpture are really something else. There is a richness and a feel to it that is lacking in many other similar works. The overall feeling of pained resignation and a determination to carry personal dignity right to the very end is literally leaping out of the bronze.
Wednesday
This is like the precursor still life to all of those random still lives we saw in the 1980s that ended up in washrooms all over the USA. It’s like the Golden Girls of still lives: and I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s just a very specific style that’s been reused so many times over the years.
Tuesday
My artistic relationship with Max Beckmann is complicated. Some of his work is good, some of it makes me crazy. This is one of the pieces I don’t mind at all. In fact, I do rather like it. There’s a boldness about it that is refreshing and it’s not taken too seriously.
Sunday
So, this particular piece speaks to me not of jazz and boogie-woogie, so much as the days of Art Deco and of the smooth lines of the Empire State building, the Chrysler Building, and so on – those paragons of delicious modernity from the late 20s and mid 30s that still loom high in the skies and make us think of better times.
Tuesday
While SLAM’s edition of Monet’s Waterlilies is out on loan to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, this is the piece that is hanging in its place on loan from Kimbell. It is an important piece in its own right and is very beautiful on its own merits; the singular nature of the subject as well as the angles from which it is approached is unusual and may be unique. It is not quite impressionism, not quite realism, not quite photorealism, yet has qualities of all of those movements.
Saturday
I know I talked about Rococo yesterday about being the naughty little sister of Baroque, and, really, it was. But it’s easy to dismiss it as frivolous and pink and ruffles and giggles and all poufs and fluff and shit. It was anything but. It was the forerunner to our modern views on sexuality and how it is portrayed in the media and film. Take, for instance, this series of paintings/etchings/prints about the woman on a swing: it is an erotically charged story about a woman and her lover(s), and matters of the heart, told through the allegorical reference of, well, knowing that she’s got no underwear on under her frilly underskirts. So, there’s that. I guess I’ll leave you with that image burning into the back of your brain.
Friday
Textile art is a special kind of art: it’s rare that it survives intact for very long because fiber pigments degrade much more quickly than, say, paint pigments or fritware glazes do. For textiles to survive in this condition and age is nothing short of a miracle. Not to mention, holy shit. It’s Rococo on goddamn steroids. It took the elegance of the Baroque, turned it upside down, molested it, put a pink bow and a petticoat on it, gave it a flirtatious spank and a naughty wink, and then turned it loose on an unsuspecting public. It looks like it’s supposed to be prim and proper, but it’s not really. Look closer: there are allegorical allusions to sex and naughtiness throughout the symbols. *fans self* Okay, enough about the naughty. It really is a gorgeous piece of cloth.
Thursday
This shit is pure wizardry.
Bow before the wooden spiral.
Wednesday
Weaponry is beautiful, mmmkay? Look how pretty it is; it’s sturdy and functional, but still displays a stunning amount of detail for something that could be something much more basic.