New Techniques Reveal Greek Statues' Original Appearance

Amazing.

A technique called ‘raking light' has been used to analyze art for a long time.

A lamp is positioned carefully enough that the path of the light is almost parallel to the surface of the object. When used on paintings, this makes brushstrokes, grit, and dust obvious. On statues, the effect is more subtle. Brush-strokes are impossible to see, but because different paints wear off at different rates, the stone is raised in some places – protected from erosion by its cap of paint – and lowered in others. Elaborate patterns become visible.

Ultraviolet is also used to discern patterns. ...

Our image of Ancient Greece is inescapably colored, pardon the pun, by having grown up with the austere appearance of its white marble buildings and statues. The technique reveals just how colorful their culture truly was.

Read the rest.

Vintage Advertising

I'm a big fan of advertising from years gone by and I ran across this one recently. I haven't smoked for years, but she's almost enough to make me want to start again. That, or start a revolution. I'm not exactly sure what she's selling, but who cares?

Howard Pyle, Illustrator

The work of Howard Pyle (1853-1911) is a reminder of a time when even such 'lowly' art as book illustration was fine.

The Mermaid, 1910.

[Hat tip to novelist Edward Cline, who mentions Pyle in his recently released novel, We Three Kings.]

Harriet Frishmuth Saved My Life

The might Peter Cresswell has been good enough to (re)publish my short essay on the life and work of sculptress Harriet Frishmuth. An excerpt,

Harriet Whitney Frishmuth (1880-1980) is relatively unknown today, yet during her active period she was one of the most widely known and highly admired artists of the time. Her joyous depiction of the female nude, usually in dynamic poses drawn from dance movements, is the epitome of romantic realism in sculpture.

Read the rest, here.

I'll just add a little personal anecdote here. I first became acquainted with Frishmuth's work by seeing The Vine in the sculpture garden at UCLA as an undergraduate. It wasn't in the best shape, but it was manna from heaven to me, especially under the circumstances.



Then, as now, the university was dominated by postmodern Leftists — at the time mostly explicit communists. (It was still fashionable then, at least on campus, to tell the plain truth about one's political philosophy.) Not surprisingly, the sculpture garden was filled with the most revolting 'modern' dreck, mostly either inchoate lumps of metal or chaotic piles of metal pipes posing as art.

Frishmuth's piece stood out like a healthy body amid a lot of diseased sore thumbs.

Later, I learned The Metropolitan Museum in New York had a version in their American Wing. When I lived in Manhattan I'd spend entire Saturdays strolling through the collection, and I always took considerable time drinking in The Vine. (A big chunk of the rest was reserved for the Sargents (especially Mr. And Mrs. Phelps Stokes) and Vermeer's Girl With a Pearl Earring, along with Gerome's Pygmalion and Galatea and a few others.)

This story is apropos nothing in particular, except to say that art helped saved my soul as a young man. It still does today. Whenever the insanity of the world we live in becomes overbearing, a few minutes or hours with some of the treasures of the past (and a precious few in the present) helps me recover my deep sense that life is good.

Take a long look through the works at the Metropolitan and it may do the same for you.



Mr. and Mrs. Phelps Stokes, 1897

Pygmalion and Galatea, 1890

Art Break: Lady Agnew

After another week of bad news from Washington — and to celebrate some really good news at my house — now is a great time for a little art break. So, without further ado, one of my all-time favorites. The Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, by John Singer Sargent.

A Lovely Respite: Liotard's Portrait of Maria

One of the most delightful attributes of great art is its ability to make us forget the world we live in, and live - however temporarily - in a much better one.

To my eyes, there are few better examples of that than Jean Etienne Liotard's Portrait of Maria Frederike von Reede-Athlone, painted in 1756.

Much of Liotard's work is very dry, the output of a court painter who was simply making a living from the patronage of the day. But here he has really achieved something unusual. There's a life in her, a gentility, a reality that is rare in his work or any portraits of the genre.

Having visited the original J. Paul Getty museum in Malibu a dozen times, I was privileged to see it in person. It's one of the few portraits the Getty possessed I could stare at for hours and never get bored.

I hope you'll have the same reaction.

The Alcántara Bridge

Modern bridges are often things of beauty and awe. The Milau Bridge in southern France is a wonder. The Erasmus Bridge in Rotterdam is rightly nicknamed "the Swan," while the Ling Tie is just stunning.

But ancient bridges started it all and many Roman ones taught the world first how to build them. The Alcántara Bridge near the border of Portugal and Spain is an excellent example.



This elegant wonder arching over the Tagus River was completed in 106 AD and — amazingly — is still in use. It has several times been damaged by wars (particularly during the Napoleonic Era), but never completely destroyed. Made of granite, it spans over 190 meters (640 feet) and rises more than 70 meters high.

It's something of a pity that Julius Caesar is better known than Caius Julius Lacer, the bridge's designer, but it has always been thus. Conquerors invariably get more attention from historians than creators. Maybe someday that will change. In the meantime, enjoy the view.

Barrias' Nature Unveiling Before Science

Amid the daily waves of pointless and unnecessary insanity that characterize life in America today, it's good to remind oneself there are still enormous values in existence. This sculpture by Barrias, Nature Unveiling Herself Before Science (in the Musee d'Orsay), is one such.


[Image from Musee d'Orsay]

As the museum's website describes it:

The statue was commissioned in 1889 decorate the new medical school in Bordeaux. A young woman, the allegory of nature, is slowly lifting the veils she is wrapped in. When he had finished the first version in white marble for the school, Barrias designed a second statue in polychrome, for the ceremonial staircase of the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, in Paris. He used marble and onyx from the newly reopened quarries in Algeria.

Carefully carved to enhance the decorative qualities of the materials, the various parts of the statue play on the veins in the ribboned onyx for the veil, the mottled effect of the red marble for the robe, the preciousness of lapis lazuli for the eyes and malachite for the scarab and coral for the mouth and lips.

Refresh your soul and remember, living well and being happy is the best way to drive Progressives insane. Better them than you.

The New American Wing of the Metropolitan

The Metropolitan art museum in New York, long one of the world's finest showcases for the finest art, has performed a makeover on its American Wing. While I miss the vegetation - and the Frishmuth that was among the finest sculptures they own appears missing - the re-design is stunning.



I plan to visit soon.

[Hat Tip to Daniel Wahl, of the nearby pen.]

Joaquin Sorolla, Painter of Joy

The Spanish painter Joaquin Sorolla (Born February 27, 1863 Valencia, died August 10, 1923) produced a very diverse output. Bright beach scenes, warm portraits, and more that vary in subject matter and style. Yet all are suffused with a spirit that says "Life is joy!"

Here are a few samples:

The White Boat



Bacchante



And They Still Say Fish are Expensive!



The Actress, María Guerrero



Boy with a Ball


Before Bathing




and, a Self-Portrait


For a complete catalog, and to view the images at a larger size, go to: Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida.org

Maravilloso!

New Blog Featuring New Art

A new blog - Art, Love, and Philosophy with an anonymous author - has begun very well indeed. Featuring Frank Lloyd Wright homes and many little known sculptures, there's already much to feast on. Here are two works in particular that struck my eye.

Elena Study II by Richard MacDonald:


and the same artist's The Three Graces:


It's always a deep joy to discover a great artist previously not known. When it turns out to be a contemporary, the pleasure is multiplied manyfold. There may yet be hope for humanity, after all.

[Hat Tip to Peter Cresswell of Not PC who is one of the best "flame spotters" around.]

Romantic Painting - The Dahesh Museum

A gem case filled with diamonds, rubies, and pearls beyond price.

From the great little (relatively new) Dahesh Museum in New York. Highly recommended for anyone fond of the Musee D'Orsay in Paris, or of 19th century Academic art in general.

Here are some samples [Note: Because of the image technology, otherwise worthwhile, it's not possible to show the images directly with the usual img tag. Sorry.]

Breton - Study for The Snack, 1885

Bazzani - A Pompeian Interior, 1882 and,

Alma Tadema - Joseph, Overseer of Pharoah's Granaries, 1874

Hans Gude, Oban Bay (1889)

Landscapes aren't for everyone, but for those who enjoy them this one is an outstanding example.

In this 1889 work the artist depicts an area not far from the island of Staffa, holding Fingal's Cave, the inspiration for Mendelssohn's The Hebrides, Op 26.

The artist has an extraordinary skill with all the necessary elements. His colors are a lovely contrast between attention getting bright (the orange and yellows of the boats to the left) and the more subdued greens and blues of the grass and sky. There's another delightful contrast between the sharpness of the boats and stone wall in the foreground and the mist on the mountains in the upper right. Not least of its delights is the superb composition.

But all that is talk. Just look, and enter this painter's peaceful world for a moment.

Rare Hellenistic Sculpture on Public View

A rare look at a hidden masterpiece...

[T]he 16th Palazzo Giustiniani, which houses the offices of the President of the Italian Senate, and was the site of the signing of the Italian constitution in 1947, is a government building and is normally off limits. But until May 16 the palazzo is open daily from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. to showcase a Hellenistic Greek bronze statue of a boxer that is usually housed in the Palazzo Massimo near the train station. The Palazzo Massimo is one of several buildings that together constitute Italy’s national collection of Roman art.


[Archivio fotografico Ufficio Stampa / Senato della Repubblica, reprinted by the New York Times]

The boxer was discovered on the Quirinale hill in 1885, during a vast building campaign undertaken whilst Rome was in full transformation as the capital of the relatively new Italian state. Originally, the statue, which various archeologists have dated to around the end of the fourth and the second century B.C., probably decorated the Thermal Baths of Costantine.

He’s depicted naked, in repose after a fight, his face bruised and battered, his nose squashed, his right eye bloody, his ears swollen by repeated blows. Drops of blood, or sweat, have dripped onto an arm and his right leg. The wounds and drops were originally inlaid in copper. it’s an uncommonly realistic statue.

Magnifico.