|
8743. wonkers2 - 1/2/2009 5:40:23 PM The country would benefit if there were more "blended families." 8744. wabbit - 3/14/2009 6:17:12 PM Yesterday I saw the “Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice” at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. If you get the chance to see this show, do not miss it — Holland Cotter fears there may not be many more big art shows for a while. I don't have a lot to add to his review.
The show is hung by subject, not by date, and similar works are side-by-side or very close to each other, allowing the viewer to see the similarities and the differences. Many of the Tintorettos in particular stand out, because he used very heavy shadowing, almost outlining his subjects. However, not all his paintings are so obviously different from Titian and Veronese; some are similar in their technical execution, though his compositions are his own, full of diagonals and action. He seems to have been the wild man of the three.
Veronese was the quieter, gentler prodigy, taken under Titian's wing. Titian and Tintoretto had a true rivalry, but Veronese was more amenable and seemed less threatening to Titian, though Veronese's talent was unquestionably great.
Titians colors are luminous, especially his reds, and the visibility of brush strokes in his later works is so different from the invisible marks in the early work. In one painting, The Supper at Emmaus, the detail on the tablecloth is amazing — not the folds, but the actual pattern of the cloth. You need to be fairly close to even notice it. I'm not a fan of fussiness, but this doesn't seem fussy, it is part of the completeness and tranquility of the painting. The Tintoretto of the same title next to it seems harsh and violent by comparison.
An interesting part of the exhibit involves the restoration of Tintoretto’s Nativity. The painting is in a small, darkened room, along with x-ray images of the underpainting and speculation on what that painting was, why that particular canvas was reused, how the Nativity painting was made and changed, and more. A film crew was there, so something may show up on tv about this painting and what is being revealed by conservation science.
It's a wonderful show, made up almost exclusively of Titians, Tintorettos and Veroneses. The single Bellini at the start of the show is meant to illustrate the move from painting on wood panels to painting on canvas, which allowed painters to paint larger works and not have to paint on site. It's hard to pick a favorite room, but the portrait room is stunning. 8745. judithathome - 3/14/2009 7:46:25 PM Holland Cotter fears there may not be many more big art shows for a while.
I fear that, too.
Last weekend, we went to Dallas to see an exhibit of the Etruscans...wonderful event, astounding items. However, it was put on by the Meadows School of the Arts at SMU, which is a great museum but not like a publicly funded one...and it turns out, the Meadows Foundation had underwritten the excavation of the items! I was astounded.
Next up in Fort Worth...in fact, opening today with a patron preview which, regrettably, we had to miss, is Art And Love In Renaissance Italy and I'm suspecting it contains many cross-over artists from the exhibit you saw, Wabbit.
I'll report back after we attend... 8746. wabbit - 3/14/2009 8:20:37 PM I found the website for the Meadows exhibit. It looks fascinating, and how wonderful and odd that the school financed it: This exhibition has been organized by the Meadows Museum in association with the Florence Archaeological Museum, Italy, the Italian Ministry of Culture, the Soprintendenza of Archaeology for Tuscany, and Centro Promozioni e Servizidi Arezzo. This exhibition has been funded by a generous gift from The Meadows Foundation. I'm glad to see they were able to come up with the money, though you and Mr. Cotter are right, money is drying up quickly for the arts. I know the Met in NYC cut many jobs not long ago and is about to go through another round of layoffs.
I'm sorry that I missed Art and Love when it was at the Met, there are many pieces that I would love to have seen in person. One of the Titians in the Met show is now in Boston — I'll be interested to see what replaced it. I look forward to hearing what you think of the show. There is a Tintoretto that you'll spot straight away, Venus and Mars Surprised by Vulcan — heavy on the shadows and very dynamic!
This must be the season for Italian art!
btw, the Met has a YouTube page with video lectures that were done for the Art and Love show, you might want to check them out. 8747. judithathome - 3/14/2009 9:20:21 PM Venus and Mars Surprised by Vulcan — heavy on the shadows and very dynamic!
Actually, I've seen this one...in Italy.
Can't say when we'll get to the show but I will definitely report on it.
We hang out with a crowd of local artists and they are in despair over the "state of the arts"....ironic that my custom car tag is a "Texas: State Of The Arts"...I've had it for years now and think it's become an anomaly...there is very little funding for the state of art anywhere these days.
You'd have loved the Etruscan exhibit...I'd never been to the Meadows before and it is an excellent venue...not crammed at all. My favorite pieces were little alabaster jars in the shapes of locusts...the stoppers were the insects' faces and looked almost like something from Pixar!
The people went with...the bronze sculptor and his wife (spoken of them before) had attended another exhibit there...the Pre-Raphelites. They said the paintings were enormous and breathtaking...I was sorry to have missed it as it is one of my favorite (semi) modern genres.
8748. wabbit - 3/14/2009 10:32:09 PM It's nice to have people to visit museums with — I go by myself most of the time. I prefer to move at my own pace and sometimes take notes. If people would just go their own way and agree to meet me at the end of the day, that would be fine, but I end up being rushed along by persons who really shouldn't have "offered to keep me company" to begin with. It's my own damn fault, though. I no longer tell anyone when I'm going to an exhibit. Much easier that way.
I love the colors of the Pre-Raphaelites. I'm always bothered by the way the models in some paintings don't quite feel like they are in the painting, but I like the medievalism. I also appreciate the influence they had on so many other movements, such as Symbolism and the Arts and Crafts Movement, which I like a lot.
Those small jars sound right up my street. I suppose I should consider myself a collector of containers, since I have so many boxes, bottles, jars and bowls, and most are useless for holding much more than dead cicadas or cat whiskers. One day I'm going to have to buckle down and make some kind of record of the bits and pieces I have. I just got myself a hacked :CueCat so I can catalog my books. 8749. judithathome - 3/15/2009 2:21:33 AM If people would just go their own way and agree to meet me at the end of the day, that would be fine,
This is what's so great about our friends...we enter the museums and agree to meet up later in the lobby. If one of us comes upon something we think the others will like, we go looking for them but also depend on them seeing it eventually.
We have super friends in that regard...we all know each others' habits and preferences. 8750. judithathome - 3/15/2009 2:25:14 AM Wabbit, you and I would get along so well...I collect antique tins and put oddities into them. I had warned my son not to sell them willy-nilly at a garage sale after mine and Keoni's demise...some of the stuff I have in those tins is priceless...but I guess now, I'll have to log it all and put the valies in a will of some sort. 8751. judithathome - 3/15/2009 2:26:14 AM valies=values 8752. arkymalarky - 3/15/2009 7:01:03 AM We love you Judith.
When Mose's friend died in a plane crash in junior high her parents took all her personal things and laid them out on a table at the funeral for people to each take one. Mose still has her Eiffel Tower keychain.
8753. wabbit - 3/15/2009 5:39:49 PM JaH, I have no doubt! But my little collection isn't worth much to anyone but me. Seriously. I do have some books and art pieces that might be worth something, but the containers? I think my small collection of skulls is worth more. It's just my stuff, and that's fine with me. The only thing my family members want is my jewelry, lol.
Arky, what a lovely idea. 8754. judithathome - 3/15/2009 7:30:49 PM Leslie had a HUGE collection of skulls...the exterior of his house was like a museum with antique tools, various animal skulls, antiquw signs...in his den, which was very Western in theme, he had cow skulls hung all around the room...with western artwork and decorator touches like bridles, bits, spurs...on one skull, he stuck a red silk rose in one of the eye sockets in homage to Georgia O'Keefe.
Very interesting guy, my son.
He and I had similar quirks when it comes to decorating...I use antique ice tongs from a local 19th century ice house as my paper towel holder in my kitchen.
One thing that made me proud was that my son framed a photograph I'd taken of a delapidated barn up in Maine...he used weathered barn wood on the frame and hung it in his den between two steer skulls. 8755. wabbit - 3/15/2009 9:47:44 PM omg, antique tools, I have a few of those as well. I have only one steer skull, but I knew the animal personally. Most of my skull collection is what I've found walking around in the woods — I have one I haven't identified yet. Nothing Western about my collection; more goth, I suppose, although I like skulls because I think they are interesting and I like drawing and painting them. Not as much fun as live models, but much cheaper and they can stay still for weeks on end… ;)
Years ago I lived in a small house in PA (I think I've mentioned this house before, we had a lovely outhouse with beautiful leaded windows). There were no closets, so no storage space, and I had maybe 30 baskets of different shapes and sizes hanging from the wooden beams, holding all my bits and baubles. It was a fine house.
Are we somehow distantly related?? 8756. judithathome - 3/15/2009 10:49:22 PM I think so!! ;-)
Leslie collected these skulls from a friend's ranch south of here...cattle that had wandered off and met bad fates. He was so excited to "harvest" mother and calf skeletons that were "curing" in the pasture at this guy's place...he was supposed to go retrieve them the week he passed away. What he had planned for them, display-wise, remains a mystery but he was REALLY excited about getting them.
Keoni and I have collected some fine pieces of antique luggage peices over the years...we use them as end tables or coffee tables or just to fill in corners in a room. We suddenly realized we can use them for storage! Ha!
I plan to use a few to hold the photos and material I have culled out of boxes and boxes of stuff left over from my parents' lives...and my son's. Found a picture of him from high school riding a bull at a rodeo...too bad that snapshot doesn't have sound! I remember the night it was taken...I was across the areana leaping up and yelling "HOLY SHIIIIIIT!" at the tops of my lungs, embarassing the hell out of him, I'm sure. Somehow, I had it in my mind that "bull riding" equated to "little cows".
8757. wabbit - 3/15/2009 11:17:41 PM Nothing like a good container. Maybe you could post some of the photos if you ever get the chance to scan them?
That sounds like it would have been a great video! There are so many events I remember and wish I had on video. Especially now that my brain is melting…
what was I saying?
I guess that's a discussion for the health thread! 8758. judithathome - 3/15/2009 11:57:06 PM It's just a snap shot...video cameras weighed about 7,000 pounds back then...ha! But you're right...would have made a great video...me screaming, him cringing, the bull charging.
He told me afterward that I broke his concentration and embarrassed him in front of his friends. Ha! 8759. wabbit - 3/16/2009 12:22:09 AM But what are parents for? LOL! 8760. wabbit - 4/3/2009 2:16:58 AM Trust me … if you have any kind of beverage in your hand, put it down before you watch this video.
Safe to watch at work, so long as your coworkers like Joe Cocker. 8761. alistairconnor - 4/4/2009 3:26:21 PM Oooh very clever
I wept copiously. It's true that at the time, I used to wonder why the lyrics were so different to the Beatles version, and what language they were in. 8762. wabbit - 4/5/2009 6:28:05 PM Yesterday afternoon, my mother and I went to see Two Men of Florence. It was great!
Playwright Richard N. Goodwin developed his play, produced in England as The Hinge of the World, into the Huntington Theatre Company production of Two Men of Florence. The play is about Galileo Galilei and Pope Urban VIII and their adversarial positions on Galileo's Copernicanism and heliocentrism vs. the church's Aristotelian geocentrism. Galileo had no problem reconciling his science with his Catholocism, but the Vatican did, and Galileo was eventually forced to recant heliocentrism and live his last years under house arrest on orders of the Roman Inquisition.
Galileo is played by Jay O. Sanders, and he spends the better part of two hours on stage. The play is a ton of dialog and Sanders makes you believe in and sympathize with Galileo. Edward Herrmann brings humanity to the "bad guy" role. You expect not to like his Pope, but you can't help but see the predicament in which he finds himself. You may not agree with him or his opposition to Galileo, but you understand his position.
The play isn't historically accurate (his daughter was a nun, but she was cloistered, not his assistant), but it hits the main points of Galileo's passion and problems. The Boston Globe says, "…Goodwin reveals both men as fascinating and complicated human beings, full of intellectual curiosity and spiritual passion." You can read the Boston Globe review and listen to theater critic Louise Kennedy discuss the play while seeing some slides. The set itself is spectacular, simple but very effective. The center part of the stage rotates at various points throughout the play, and stagehands dressed in dark shrouds silently move the set pieces around. I disagree that the staging was 'heavy-handed', but she's right about the dialog. You really need to pay attention and doing a bit of pre-play re-reading of your high school Galileo wouldn't hurt. I didn't have any problem at all relaxing into the play and am very happy to see at least some people don't want everything dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. If the play had been just the two men arguing, I suspect Kennedy would have had problems with that as well.
A few people around us, mom included, thought the first half was too long. I thought it was fine, but that's me. The play closes today.
|
