See Museum Links at bottom of page
Questions:
1. How does art interact with nature?
2. How do aesthetics manifest themselves: in culture, in philosophy, from the artist's perspective?
3. What is the modern and the post-modern?
(a) Do post-modern claims make sense, in particular in art and faith?
4. What constitutes the separation between the fine arts and artisanry? Domestic arts? Does this
separation have any merit, or is it a privileging of certain forms?
5. Is it the case that religious life, the arts, and healing have a higher order claim on us than business?
6. To what extent do exegetical methods and hermeneutical principles from biblical study apply to art?
My breakthrough came very late in life, really only starting
when I was fifty years old. But at that time I felt as though I had the strength
for new deeds and ideas. Edvard Munch
Travelers among Mountains and Streams, Fan K'uan
| April 25th, 2007 9:06PM 50 48%
31% 31dewpoint
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ENE Eastertide First Quarter Moon (Flower Moon) Dada and Surrealism. Marcel DuChamp and Andre Breton. Anarchy and a principled attempt to tap the unconscious. This stuff excites me, not so much in its aesthetics as in its brazen attack on the normal, the usual, and the mundane. We discussed Max Beckman's triptych today. A rich conversation. I want to use it on my modern tour. Long day. Got a surprise, too. I told Bill Bomash that I respected Tillich a lot. "You know, he's one of those guys you run across. You wonder, how did he ever have time to learn all that stuff." Bill turned to me and said, "Charlie, that's the way I feel about you." A nice, if unintended compliment, from a guy with a PhD in Danish Reformation studies and a long career as a computer guy. The stuff I do at the art institute falls into that category of activity that I'd do even if they didn't pay me. Oh, wait... They don't pay me. It is rich, exciting, and energizing. |
| April 23rd, 2007 3:12PM 66 38%
31% 38dewpoint
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NW Eastertide First Quarter Moon (Flower Moon) "Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory." - Albert Schweitzer Though there is a lot being said about the psychology of happiness these days, I imagine Schweitzer's formula is as good as any, even if said in jest, as I imagine it was. Back from my tour for senior docents. It was a hit! My group insisted I keep going. We did four objects in the first hour and whizzed through two more in another half hour. They enjoyed the interactive process of question and answer. As I had guessed, their in depth knowledge made them excellent tour participants. I detected no ill will or hesitancy about the method. Of course, Morry, David and Marilyn had parted the waters for us and all we (Emily, Bill, and I) had to do was walk across the bottom of the Red Sea. At some point I'll enter the tour into my art history file in Microsoft Word, then post it here. Look for that sometime in the next week or so if it interests you. My topic was A World of Change. |
| April 20th, 2007 10:04PM 61 43%
26% 38dewpoint
bar, steady 1mph windrose shows
S Eastertide Waxing Crescent Moon (Flower Moon) End of the day. When Kate's gone, my days slip into a bit more routine, bedtime wise. When she comes home around 10, I feel she deserves someone up with her, so I stay up. Now I can shut the TV off, take a shower, and hit the bed. Got 6.5 objects figured out. Only Fanatics and the Grand Salon to go. I finished the questions and key points for Fanatics, but I want to at least skim all my resources and I didn't have a chance to do that. After that, I'll work up the Grand Salon. Then, I need transitions and an introduction, plus a sketchy conclusion. The research for this tour did not go into as much depth as I'd like, but it's more than usual and I like that. Especially enjoyed the work on Hokusai. As an artist and a human being, he was a genius. He said he didn't get it until he was 70. Sure enough, in his 70's he did the Views of Mt. Fuji, Views of Rare Bridges, and Journey to Famous Waterfalls. These three replaced humans as the central focus of his art with landscape. One scholar I read said that he revolutionized art in the whole world through this turn. I like Hokusai and love his work, but I think the Song dynasty landscape painters, coming from the Taoist perspective had this revolution ahead of him by about a thousand years. Working with art history, grounded in the objects, yet swimming through a sea of interesting data, comes pretty close to heaven for me. |
| April 18th, 2007 4:18PM 62 27%
22% 28dewpoint
bar, falls 6mph windrose shows
NNE Eastertide New Moon (Flower Moon) Kate got off at Minneapolis City Hall to get the train for the airport. This was about 8AM. I went on to the Bad Waitress for breakfast. A calendar on the wall there had a woman in sort of 50's clothes saying, "I'm the bitch my mother wanted to be." The woman who took my money had a black and purple t-shirt that read Buddhist Punk. I just ate my eggs and hashbrowns. It was fun to watch the sidewalk and street at 26th and Nicollet. I spent many, many morning across the way, diagonally, at Butler Drugs. Their breakfast counter was the real old-fashioned kind. Butler Drug, however, has gone the way of the dinosaurs. Not much going on at 8:30 AM. This is more of an evening and nighttime part of town. Felt a bit like I was on the road since the Bad Waitress was new to me. I like that feeling. Today we had lecture from 9:30AM to 2:30PM with a 45 minute lunch break. This was analytical cubism, synthetic cubism, Orphism, Precisionism, Futurism, Camera Notes and Camera Work and the Photo Secession Movement, Harlem Renaissance, Structurism, Suprematism and a few odd folk out like Soutine and his carcass paintings. That means a morning of sharp angles, mixed points of view, "arbitrary colors," realistic and surrealistic painting, works of an African American community that came of age culturally in the 1920's and 1930's. It was a time of manifestos and rebellion, the 1913 Armory Show, the 8, 291 and Eurocentrism. So much information it was painful. They gotta get their pedagogy in line with their purpose. This ain't workin'. They haven't used small groups and they try to shut down discussion. It makes an exciting, even potentially transformational subject matter a chore, one you look forward to finishing and getting away from. Not how I want to experience either art or art history education. Then, I hurried home to let the dogs out. They were in their crates and had been since we left home at 7:15 AM. They needed out. Now some time on the treadmill, then either rewrite the last half of my sermon or work on objects for the docents tour on Monday. Boy, I wish I didn't have to rewrite this sermon, but it was too much of a downer, especially in light of the Virginia Tech massacre. Needs a lighter touch than I gave it last Sunday. "Civilizations in decline are consistently characterised by a tendency towards standardization and uniformity." - Arnold Toynbee I think we're still ok. At least politically. |
| April 16th, 2007 4:19PM 75 26%
26% 27dewpoint
bar, steep fall 3mph windrose shows
SES Eastertide New Moon (Flower Moon) "Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing." - William James Another Docent book club at the Wolves Den on Franklin Avenue. I like going there because the native community which lives in Phillips shows up and hangs out. Today outdoor tables were up and folks were in the chairs, chatting and drinking coffee. We discussed art and craft. The Octavio Paz article circulated by Dale got nearest the heart of the matter for me. Reading it reminded me of Mexican domestic culture with its bright colors, use of ceramics, mariachi music, and festivals of all kinds at all points in the year. It's part Spanish and part indigenous, always vital. The Mexicans specialize in adorning daily life with crafts and art and music and celebration. Paz speaks about crafts from a vantage point within this rich material culture. Craft, he says, is made for the human hand by human hands. Craft makers do not make their wares for eternity, merely for use until wear or breakage consigns them to the trash. While in use, the craft object may have many different uses from its original intention, e.g. the pitcher becomes a flower vase, the Japanese tea bowl a depository for change, the ceramic food container a place for a cremated loved ones ashes. In this flexibility the craft object contributes to the act of imagination, a concrete stimulus for our domestic creation. Craft makers do not innovate, rather they mark their style by individual variations repeated over and over again until an object can be identified as singular within a tradition, yet familiar in a maker's work. All of these are points of contrast with art which Paz neatly clarifies as like a saint or an altar, objects taboo to our touch, too sacred or religious or full of mana for our everyday hands. Also, art is not made as one of a series or for use only until it wears out. Art is made to survive. Often, he says, it survives in the dustless eternity of a museum. |
| April 14th, 2007 4:23PM 55 36%
24% 29dewpoint
bar, falls 0mph windrose shows
WNW Eastertide Waning Crescent Wildcat* Moon "Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly." - Franz Kafka Kate and I went to the American Crafts show at Rivercentre in St. Paul. Got there a bit before 10 and found a parking spot on street level in the lot with no waiting in line. A coup. We joined the Council. This show, put on in six cities in the US each year, features crafts people from all over the United States plus some number of slots for locals, either that or we have an unusual number of folks in the show. The media includes cloth: mostly women's coats and skirts, but one vendor had soft shouldered silk men's coats. A number of wood turners have variations on the theme from globe lamps to one very interesting woman who turned bowls then added woven basketry to them. Jewelers and metal workers had many booths with one gentleman's work in bronze very close to the post-Edo Japanese vases we have at the Institute with small animals like lizards and turtles on them. The range in ceramics was wide. There were high concept Japanese vases and a woman whose work with ferns and leaves reminded me a good deal of Sung Dynasty ceramics. There were also potters whose work would go in the kitchen. Blown glass had several entries though most of them seemed pedestrian to me. A stained glass worker who had interesting pieces. Three quilt makers made very nice art quilts, but nothing Kate couldn't do. Fine furniture makers included one who made chairs to your dimensions and another who had chairs out of steel. It is such a pleasure to see these crafts people and their work. The creative spirit visits such a wide range of people and their ability to take the familiar and shape it into something unique always inspires me. I want to write more poetry, another novel. Draw. Assemble. Kafka above reminds me of my obligations when it comes to writing. Lay it out as it comes, pain and joy and anguish and bloodied bones. All of it. Don't hold anything back. Spend it as if it were the last you'd ever have. He would have made a great potter. |
| April 11th, 2007 10:07PM 29 93%
27% 24windchill
bar, rises 4mph cold, cloudy
windrose shows N Eastertide Last Quarter Wildcat* Moon Quiet evening here. Kate's on the next last night of her 10 day rotation. She's tired and sad about Kim, who died suddenly. A bad combination along with some minor family stuff and snow when there could be flowers. Allison was in Mexico City. She got around by subway, "$.27 and you can go anywhere." She also commented on the colors and the great art in the city. It's a great place, made me wanna go back. Other classmates were in the SW, Florence, and London. I made it to the Riverdale mall once. Got my new parking permit. Had a security tour today. Security in art museums is a special case in many ways. Fire departments wait for them to call if an alarm sounds. Don't want the art damaged without necessity. Routing of 911 calls is a problem because it's such a big building, especially now with the new wing. Art theft is something security is reluctant to talk about for obvious reasons. 95% of all theft in museums comes from staff or volunteers. Makes sense. It's uncommon, but certainly not rare though the instances at the MIA seem to be few. Though, if they are reluctant to talk about it, we may never know for sure. Museum security extends to some extent into the neighborhood around the museum. Like many museums built in what were turn of the century upscale areas, the MIA's community has changed over the years. Even with some gentrification it still carries a higher crime rate for property crimes than many other communities in the city. The Museum has a small bubble of better stats thanks to the security staff. |
| April 11th, 2007 6:16PM 32 92%
25% 26windchill
bar, steady 17mph cold, cloudy, spitting snow
windrose shows N Eastertide Last Quarter Wildcat* Moon Woke up to a slushy snow. As I moved it, it packed with the dense wetness late spring brings. Heart attack snow. Waited a bit to leave for the Art Institute and got there right on time. Go figure. We've entered the modern era, now careening far away from the woman of LaMouthe created 20,000 years ago. Or, have we? Artists like Matisse and Derain and Kandinsky have once again emphasized line and shape, which, surprise! is just what the Paleolithic artist who created the woman of LaMouthe did. In just a month we will take our art history education into our hands save for the Monday morning continuing education events. This two year program has been good in an overview and a how to think about art way, though the depth of either the historical or the art critical work has varied wildly. As with each degree program I've ever encountered, I will be very glad to move on to the realm of self-education, though grateful for the startup work in the class.
Today I wrote in my notebook three kinds of experiences I wish to enter more often: dream interpretation in an active imagination, meditation from any discipline perhaps beginning with lectio, and the interpretation/analysis of art in a relaxed but serious manner. In all of these I wish to begin again the inward journey, I want to add them to the work of this website and the other writing projects I have going on that serve this interior work, too. |
| April 9th, 2007 10:33AM 36 21%
19% 34windchill
bar, steady 3mph cold, clear, sunny
windrose shows ENE Eastertide Last Quarter Wildcat* Moon
Evolution of a tour. Highlights of World Art 1600-1850 The task is a tour that meets most of the above criteria. Yesterday a look at world history for this time period and a brief look at its art history in a general sense, too, got the work started. Two sources for the survey of world history were especially useful: The Outline of World History and Chronologies. A couple of websites also had summary information that proved useful. The Met's great timelines also have essays on each movement and the history of art from 1600-1800 in each of the general areas in which we have objects. Printed out these make a great resource for future tour building. These very general resources provided a sense of the big historical trends in the 1600 to 1850 time period. It is a time of big and global change. The enlightenment and scientific revolutions spurred on the industrial revolution which ushered in an age of commercialization and increased global trade. Colonization and the slave trade developed in response to the increased demand for new markets and cheaper goods. The nation state developed, ushering in an era of European dominance in world affairs not challenged until WWI by the still insular United States of America. The US and French revolutions increased pressure on monarchies. Another important historical theme in this time period is Reformation in Catholicism, Protestantism, and Islam. Next: find 6-8 objects that will meet the formal criteria for the tour while reflecting and reinforcing a unifying theme. Proposed Theme: A World of Change Join us on a continent hopping tour where we will investigate global change reflected through works of art in the Institute's collection. Possible objects and their tour related purpose: Jade Mountain - Shows the traditional and centralized nature of the Q'ing dynasty. The theme shows a culture that looks into its long ago past for inspiration. Hokusai - Suspension Bridge The Ukiyo-e prints in and of themselves reveal the tension in a feudal society with a growing, but disenfranchised middle class. The Floating world. This print shows a traditional scene, but Hokusai created it for a middle class audience unable to buy traditional Japanese arts due to sumptuary laws. Haida Pipe (if out): shows contact between whaling captains from New England and the North West Coast Haida tribe. A slave trade object? Sully's portrait of GW: Illustrates the European roots of American portraiture and also represents the American Revolution The Denial of St. Peter by Honthorst: Baroque work of the Catholic Reformation, the Catholic response to the Protestant Reformation. The Grand Salon: It's mixed rococo and neo-classical decor illustrates two important artistic movements while its use as a salon for an up and coming tax collector who bought his way into nobility underscores the commercialization of European economies and the tensions within them between the ancien regime and the new, enlightenment driven politics of liberte, equalite, and fraternite. The Fanatics of Tangiers: Romanticism. Shows the ongoing interaction between Europe and Africa. |
| April 9th, 2007 7:31AM 18 82%
22% 18windchill
bar, steady 0mph cold, clear, sunny
windrose shows NE Eastertide Last Quarter Wildcat* Moon
Went to sleep thinking about objects for my tour on the 23rd. Thought about objects that illustrate the historical changes over the 1600 to 1850 time period. The Jade Mountain shows the centralization of the Q'ing dynasty and the topic shows the traditional orientation. Ukiyo-e prints by Hokusai or Utamoro or Hiroshige show the strains the Shogunate was under during the rise of the middle class. Not sure about other objects yet, but that's for today. It was 14 when I got up at 7AM. |
| April 8th, 2007 8:36PM 29 32%
21% 29windchill
bar, steady 0mph cold, clear
windrose shows WNW Waning Gibbous* Moon Easter Joseph called. He had the best Easter ever. Face shots. Say what? Face shots, you know, where the snow hits you in the face at every turn. Oh, yeah. It snowed 12 inches today, snowing all day. A perfect powder day. He also had a weird e-mail. Bridget, former girl friend from hell, wrote to say she had a role model day in her class. One of the boys brought in a list of USAF officer recruits and Joseph's name was on it. He's excited about being a role model. The Science News has a story on the Moon base project NASA has underway. Joseph has a career trajectory plotted that would put him up there. He says he's willing to get a mechanical engineering degree. Why? Because they'll need somebody to build it. He wants to go into space. Finished, at last, with organizing docent information. 6 big binders with tours, class notes, and readings. Two file drawers with object files and collateral files. After I finished that I began reviewing history from 1600 to 1850, the time period I have to cover in my tour for senior docents. A big time historically, one I've studied a good bit, at least from the history of ideas perspective. It is the birth time of the modern era. The scientific revolution, the enlightenment, the industrial revolution and the subsequent commercialization of economies in the west. It is also the time of religious reformation and not only the Protestant reformation. It is also the time of reformation in Islam, too. The rise of the Shi'a dominated Safavid empire in present day Iran. The emergence of Wahhab's strict brand of Islamic practice in Arabia and ()? more moderate Islam in India and south east asia. It was also the rise of colonization and European empire. The American and French revolutions. The year 1848, the year of revolution. An exciting time. In the arts it went from Baroque to Rococo, then to the Neoclassical reaction against them, and Romanticism. It was the period of the Tokugawa shogunate in Japan, and the end of the Ming and the rise of the Qing dynasties in China. Still have to create a theme and a tour out of the objects we have, so we'll see what I can make. |
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March 23rd, 2007 3:13PM 62 39%H 26I 36dewpoint bar, falls 0mph
windrose shows from a lotta directions
Waxing
Crescent Moon
The Christian liturgical season of Lent Back from a two-tour day. These kids weren't quite as much fun as the second graders, but impressed me in a different way. Some of the kids had a reflective approach to the art, a "Hmmm... Let me see, it looks like..." Others noticed detail, made connections. Enjoyable, but more workmanlike today. Dale Swenson, Allison, and Emily were there today, too. Feels like we're slipping in to our new role already, one of the strong points of this docent experience. They have done a good job of exposing us to the realities of touring. We're ready. The day today and tomorrow will be gorgeous, worth some outside time, setting mulch aside to let the ground warm up. |
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March 21st, 2007 8:12PM 46 95%H
30I 45dewpoint bar, rises 1mph
windrose WNW winds
Waxing
Crescent Moon
The Christian liturgical season of Lent
This
is for Allison. Accessorized and bouncy. She lightens the day
and the mood in the class.
Today
we studied the
The
Asmat have an interesting story. They believed no one died unless
they were killed by a person from another village or by sorcery. (?)
Can't recall. Upshot was that they had to exact vengeance for each
adult death (kids & old people just died). So, they raided
nearby villages, killed someone in retaliation for each death, took a
head, and, sometimes, ate a bit of the victim. Here's the
interesting part to me. They no longer do this. So, I wonder,
how do they explain deaths? How do they achieve balance now that
they are no longer head hunters?
Morry
has had his fifth treatment and looked a bit rough today. I'm sure
he'll be glad when they finish. Hard to imagine harboring traitorous
cells, a part of you bent on getting the rest of you. Seems
unnatural.
We
have entered a slow slide toward the end of docent training. Already
we meet in the docent lounge on our way to give tours. We know each
other now, have two years of shared experiences. I like the
camaraderie. Just today I saw Manju and she wanted to stay and talk,
but she had to leave for a faculty meeting at St. Benedicts. The
connections I've made here all have an authenticity to them I appreciate.
It's much less a social status deal than I imagined and I'm glad for that.
post:art
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| March 16th, 2007 3:43PM 31 50%H 25I
29windchill
bar, steep fall 3mph
windrose shows NNE winds
Waning Crescent Moon of Winds The Christian liturgical season of Lent "The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking." - Albert Einstein Just back from a day at the museum touring 2nd graders. What a great age. Enthusiastic, friendly, perceptive. Willing. A great time. Emily, who told me I could call her M.E., tore the name of her school, Sunset Hill, off her nametag and gave it to me so I would know where they were. The parents along told me I did a wonderful job. Warm fuzzys. post:art |
| February 28th, 2007 10:11PM 31 95%H 24I
24windchill
bar, steep fall 7mph
windrose shows NEE winds
Waxing Gibbous Moon of Winds The Christian liturgical season of Lent Another snow storm. Snowing now and big snow tomorrow. I'm glad this one's coming, but I don't have the little boy expectation this time. Africa today at the docent program. African art requires
adjustments both culturally and aesthetically. This stuff doesn't
look like art I know well. It feels the most removed from my own
aesthetic of all the departments except Oceania. I do find it
fascinating. It does take me longer to appreciate it. I've had
to step back into my Anthropology days and studies I did of pre-contact
Africa. Sheila is so honest in her lectures, so passionate about the art. Her process of appreciation inspires me. Exhausted. Kate. Me. The remodeling, even though it goes smoothly, if exceeding slow, adds a layer of stress to everything. Both of us feel that our stamina is not what it was when we were in our forties. Well, duh. Yeah, I know. Still. Life does not normally push us up against these barriers in quite so obvious a way. Tomorrow morning I'll write Where Everybody Knows My Name. I love the writing of sermons and the research. The delivering of them, sometimes. Sometimes not. I imagine this one will fall in the like category. After that I'll pick up the Tillich thread again. Fewer pages this time. Should be easier to handle. post:art |
Akua'ba, Asante
| February 21st, 2007 10:29PM 28 70%H
24I 24windchill
bar, steep rise 9mph
windrose shows W/NW winds Waxing Crescent of the Moon of Winds The Christian liturgical season of Lent Ash Wednesday We had an AM session on SW basketry, ceramics and jewelry. Molly Hennen. Then, an hour or so in the gallery with Joe presenting the Lakota men's case, the Appsalooka cases with their spotted stitch and white outlined centerpieces. Also blue and pink beads. I learned what a martingale is. A horse necklace. Literally. Over lunch I made an unintentional joke. To whit: I said, my wife gave me a plaque with a senility prayer. Pause. Then, I actually said, But, I can't remember how it goes. Bill Bomash, Jane McKenzie, and Mary Grau all broke into laughter. Here it is: God grant me the ability to forget the people I don't like. The good fortune to run into the people I do like. And the eyesight to know the difference. Exhausted at the end of the day today. My back, which seems to be improving, has given me fits for two and a half weeks. Tiring. Plus, I've had real mental exercise with reading Tillich and preparing for the docent classes. And considering my new sermon on congregational life. All good. Still tired. Take a moment and re-read Kubla Khan. It's still one of my favs. Demon lover. Caverns measureless to man. Ancestral voices prophesying war. For he on honey-dew hath fed, and drunk the milk of paradise. Wow. Post:art |
| February 19th, 2007 9:01AM 22 89%H
19I 22windchill
bar, steady 0mph
windrose shows W winds New Moon The Christian liturgical season of Epiphany (ends 2/21/07 on Ash Wednesday) Collop or Shrove Monday (see 2/17 below) President's Day "We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that
we begin to see the present only when it is disappearing." - R.D.
Laing
Reading about art of the Pacific Islands. Head-hunting and vitality transfer. Patriarchal. A violent and often difficult life in paradise. Imagine what it was like when the Europeans came through with iron and beads, pots and pans, guns. The Pacific Islanders must have felt that "...change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is disappearing" post:art |
| February 16th, 2007 4:57PM 20 58%H
18I 20windchill
bar, rises 2mph
windrose shows W/SW winds
New Moon The Christian liturgical season of Epiphany Tour with Monroe Elementary, St. Paul, art class. Wonderful. These kids had a genuine excitement about the art, inquisitiveness, and thoughtfulness. What more could a docent ask? We saw the Transformation Mask by Kwa'ulth sculptor, Richard Hunt, the Ife Shrine Head, Doryphorus, Jade Mountain, Van Gogh's Olive Field, Gauguin's Under the Pandanus, the Tatra, and Matisse's Boy with Butterfly Net. One quiet boy, Lionel, asked about dark spirits. He knew a girl who had asked to see the spirits. "She wanted to see God, but the person who was her guide said no." he said in a very soft voice, "So, she saw the devil instead. Is that head (the Ife shrine head) a dark spirit?" At the Gauguin I asked them to imagine a painting of a safe, secure place. Lionel wanted a garden filled with butterflies and people shaking hands and saying hello. Also got my drivers license renewed. This happens every four years. I've known about it for two months and I did it two days late. Geez. The nice lady did not smack my hand with a ruler. post:art |
| February 7th, 2007 3:40PM 4 47%H
15I 0windchill 2mph bar, falls clear and sunny
Waning Gibbous Storm Moon The Christian liturgical season of Epiphany Sheila gave another of her fact and idea filled lectures. This time her focus was post-impressionists. The big four: Cézanne and Seurat on the one hand, van Gogh and Gaugin on the other. Seurat had a passion for color science, which he massaged into his movement, divisionism. Cézanne wanted to paint both his experience and his feelings, he tended to reduce scenes to their essence. Van Gogh and Gaugin, on the other hand, wanted to express their feelings with van Gogh sticking to naturalism and Gaugin moving further away from realism and into Symbolism. Vuillard and Bonnard a group called the Nabi, the seers. Critics also called these two the Intimiste since they focused on domestica, intimate scenes. post:art |
| January 18th 2007 4:10PM 28 74%H
21%I 28windchill 1mph bar, steady
overcast
New Moon The Christian liturgical season of Epiphany Then, a really good thing happens. The group from Bryn Mawr, Larry Disher's fifth grade class, came to the MIA. Ajianne, Maliya, Tanisha, Linda, Mao, Lee, Anthony, Preston, Isaac, Najma, Petshamy and a couple of others whose names I cannot recall. Ginny Wheeler took the other half and we set off on a VTS tour. I had a lot of objects planned, but we made it through 5: the Jade Mountain, the Elephant and the Tiger, Raja Bikram and the Angels, the Boating Party, and the Japanese Battle Screen. At each stop the kids looked with care, offered their observations eagerly, and engaged in some astute thinking. They had fun, I had fun. At the end they kept looking as we wound our way back toward the coats. "Wow. This is a lot Chinese stuff." "I'm going to be an artist someday." "We need to come back." Ginny taught me a couple of very good things. One, take the time to read and say each kids name. Two, go get the coat bags out of the closet. Good thing I was the lead. post:art |
| January 18th 2007 7:56AM 14 86%H
20%I 14windchill 0mph bar, steady
clouds
New Moon The Christian liturgical season of Epiphany My first full Visual Thinking Strategies tour today. I'm prepared with a run of 8 objects: Jade Mountain, Elephant and Tiger mosaic, Raja Bakram and the Angels miniature, Elk Hide, a Japanese battle screen, a tapestry, Rainy Evening on Hennepin Avenue, and Theseus fighting the Lapith. We'll see how it goes. post:art |
| January 17th 2007 6:14PM 22 65%H
23%I 21windchill 1mph bar, steady
night
New Moon The Christian liturgical season of Epiphany Some of you who read this have told me tales of your remodeling experiences. I appreciate it since it helps me give the process perspective. When I got home tonight, the washer and dryer had migrated downstairs, most of the drywall was smooth, and the workers were gone. The lecture on photography today was a good one. Diana took us from 1839 through the US depression. 1839 is the consensus date when photography arrived as a new medium. It is, for art, a watershed date because the use of photography, artist's reaction for and against it, and its practitioners claiming artistic status for their work reverberates throughout the fine arts form 1839 right down to today. Presented the Thomas Sully portrait of George Washington this afternoon. I took an offhand remark by Sheila and used it as a theme--White Male Authorities: How you know one when you see one. The group responded with a lot of interaction and I felt good about it. Sheila and I had a nice chat about the presentation and art history. She obsesses about more and more information, just like I do. She also recommended I tell Jennifer and Paula, the tour schedulers, that I enjoy research and they will give me tours that require prep work. I did that. file:art |
| January 16th 2007 10:52PM 1 66%H
21%I 1windchill 0mph bar, steep fall
cold, night
Waning Crescent Wolf Moon The Christian liturgical season of Epiphany Today was an art history day. The readings on photography revealed a strong connection between the development of photography and the history of the United States. We came of age as the technology began to develop. There are photographs of John Adams. He thought they looked "too much like the original." Photographers out west influenced the development of national preserves (Yosemite) and national parks (Yellowstone). They also sent images of the west back east and encouraged pioneers. This connection between photography and the development of the country leads, I'm guessing, to the film industry. Also spent time selecting objects for my VTS, visual thinking strategies, tour on Thursday with kids from Bryn Mawr school, fifth graders. Tomorrow we present objects again and I picked Thomas Sully's portrait of George Washington. Found the original print that Gilbert Stuart as a model for his Lansdowne portrait; the one Sully copied. Also, picked up a lot of detail about objects in the picture and its location in the history of portraiture. Both Stuart and Sully follow the prevailing European conventions for state portraits. Each topic we touch I want to stop, dig in, and not come back up for a semester or so, and we move on in a week. post:art |
Samain
| December 20th, 2006 3:46PM 37
49%H 26I 0mph 37windchill bar,
rises New Moon 6th night
of Hanukah
Spent a long time this morning trying to get started organizing my docent materials. This is one hell of a lot of paper, most of it at least potentially useful. Stopped me dead in my tracks until I realized a nice 4-drawer file cabinet would help a hell of a lot. I plan to have object files and collateral files with notebooks for country/continent material and for completed tours. That means I have several 2" inch folders, six, that will require a different purpose in life. Haven't figured that one out. |
| December 14th, 2006 10:07AM
43 74%H 30%I 42windchill 1mph bar,
steady Last Quarter Oak Moon
Docent class finished for the holidays. Half a year to go. Not long enough, or deep enough. It does, however, present an ongoing self-education process that sounds good to me. Yesterday we discussed furniture and period rooms, the decorative arts. Neither the decorative arts nor clothing ring my bell, but, as with most things, the more I learn about them the more interested I get. Also yesterday, a docent led tour of the Holiday traditions rooms. This woman, dressed in a hoop skirt, gave a non-stop lecture, some of it interesting, much of it wrong (especially about the source of the Christmas tree tradition), but in the end too much. Inquiry would have taken me on a different journey and one I would have found more interesting. Every time I get home from these sessions, I flop on the bed, exhausted. Not sure why the whole process drains me so much, but it does. I imagine it has to do with the attention and intellectual processing. Art history is still a relatively new field for me, one I have to not only learn, but learn how to learn. Each new medium brings its own challenges: ceramics, silversmithing, various painting styles and periods, furniture making, glass blowing, sculpture, architecture. At least for me, I have to learn the how, then the artistic why, then the context and the reception of the piece in its own day, then the hermeneutics of it, bringing all that into the present day. It is very similar to higher criticism of the bible: exegesis, then hermeneutics. |
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December 6th, 2006 Wednesday 10:46PM 5 62%H 27I 0windchill 1mph bar, steep rise The Full Oak Moon Mark writes from Bangkok that the coup continues and is peaceful. As the docent year nears its half way mark, I think most of us have realized that the class is only a once over very lightly. No other way it could be with an encyclopedic museum and a need to learn specific information about our objects and then to place them in context. Still, it leaves so much, especially depth, wanting. One way I want with my own learning about art history is to devote research and writing to objects that interest me either aesthetically or intellectually. |
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December 6th, 2006 Wednesday 6:08PM 12 49%H 26I 9windchill 0mph bar, steep rise The Full Oak Moon "To be yourself in a world that is doing its best, day and night
to make you like everybody else - is to fight the hardest battle any human
being can fight; and never stop fighting." - E.E.
Cummings
Today we studied American expatriates during the gilded age: Sargent, Whistler, Cassat. We also looked at Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, and other realists. We had a disagreement with Debbie over the nature of genre paintings. I thought Homer and Eakins were; she thought they weren't. The Ashcan school got a brief look. |
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November 29th, 2006 9:38PM 10 61%H 35I 0mph 8windchill bar, steep rise Waxing Gibbous Oak Moon We discussed American Art today. There is here, as there is the Asian art, something that catches my breath. The Hudson River Schools subordination of humans to the environment shares common ground with the Taoist influences on Chinese landscapes. Got a cold in Breckenridge, feeling better today, but not back yet. When I'm sick, the world gets hazy, my motivation recedes. So, see you in a bit. |
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November 12th, 2006 7:44PM 37 72%H 37%I 0mph 37windchill bar, steady Last Quarter Snow Moon Spent the last hour copying from a Durer woodcut. The only I will learn to draw is to practice, practice, and practice some more. By following a master like Durer, I can see how he solves problems, created compositions. Sometimes, my hand and eye come together and something comes out, something I love. This physical act, drawing, helps me see the world God has made, or, better the world that shows God to me. Is God more than the world? Is the sum of the whole only the sum of the parts? I don't believe so. What is beyond it like? Don't know. Trying to draw my way there right now. |
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November 9th, 2006 39 61%H 37% 3mph 36windchill bar rises, straight up Waning Gibbous Snow Moon The Neoclassical/Romantic era into which we now move in the docent class is, along with the Asian collection, a subject of long time interest and study. They are, along with the Enlightenment which spawned them both, the intellectual/political/aesthetic climate from which we post-moderns come. Modernism, which also interests me, comes next, but in spirit my place is in the neoclassic and romantic movements. The Romantic fits well with the Taoist and Shinto influence in China and Japan, and the Hindu faith in India. The Neoclassical fits well with the Renaissance and my general interest in the ancient civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean/Middle East, especially Greece, Rome, and Persia. Fun to be home in that regard. Told Sheila yesterday I had interest in the writing approach presented at the Walker symposium. She's not quite so interested, but seemed to perk up at the knowledge some docents had expressed interest. Me, anyway. We'll see. Gonna read Stokstadt about the Neoclassical and Romantic movements now, then do my homework. After that. Workout. |
| November 8th, 2006 9:51PM 62
35%H 39%I 62windchill bar rises, gently Waning
Gibbous Snow Moon 2mph
Today we did 18th C. Italy, England, and Colonial America with an additional presentation by an intern on Fuseli and William Blake. More tomorrow. |
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Elements Of Art |
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Principles
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Proportion Rhythm & Movement Emphasis & Variety Harmony & Unity |
| November 2nd, 2006 6:00PM 28 53%H
35%I 26 windchill 2mph steady bar Waxing Gibbous Snow Moon
Yesterday group 1, which included Peace Concluded, gave its tour. It went well. Many jitters, but few dropped balls. It was a vast improvement for me over my Sung Dynasty ceramics presentation where I got over enthusiastic and wanted to show it all...in 5 minutes. Peace Concluded has its own container and has much of visual interest, plus some straightforward symbolism that reads easily enough that visitors can get at least some of it without trouble. Lisa Berg told me her husband has an unusual slant on politics and I want to follow up on that next week. Vicky Sperry told me about JAMA which has a work of art on each cover. Worked out, ran errands, got gas. That sort of day. Still more errands tomorrow. More workout, too. Started watching Gun Crazy, a film noir, one of five in a set. I plan to watch them all in a row, immerse myself in 40's, early 50's angst. See what happens. |
| Ner Tamid
November 2nd. 2006 3:36PM 30 47% 33%I windchill 29 1mph steady bar Waxing Gibbous Snow Moon
To fill out the object files in the Judaica collection some of us volunteered to find information on objects with little info. I chose the Ner Tamid, the eternal light. Here is a good summary of the information I located. Daniel Chinns' Drasha - Ner HatamidDaniel’s Dvar Torah Parashat Tezaveh starts with the introduction of the Ner Tamid. “And you shall command the children of Israel to bring to you pure olive oil beaten for the light so that the light shall burn “always”. Aaron and his sons shall set them up in the tent of meeting, outside the curtain which is over the Pact [to burn] from evening to morning before the Lord. It shall be a due from the children of Israel for all time, throughout the ages.” While many of the objects and symbols mentioned in the parasha are either obsolete or seem of little or no relevance to modern life, the Ner Tamid has not only retained its relevance but has become a central feature in every synagogue around the world, Reform, Conservative or Orthodox. In my search on the web, I found no community named "Mishkan Adonai", "Choshen Aharon" or "Mizbeach" but there were a number called "Ner Tamid". At first glance, the concept behind the Ner Tamid is simple. It is an everlasting light which is lit continuously, never extinguished, always present. It is a fixed point, always the same, never wavering. Indeed, the Ner Tamid has been referenced frequently as the symbol of Jewish continuity and resilience – just as the Ner Tamid is always lit and constant, so has been the Jewish people's faith and connection to its religious beliefs and practice. In addition, the Ner Tamid is also one of the central symbols of the synagogue. While in Temple times, it was also known as the “Western light” since it was placed on the western wall of the temple, it did not take too long before it was moved to above the Ark, where it became the focal point of the congregation and often the cause of much communal pride. Our Ner Tamid which you can see above the Aron HaKodesh even bears the name of the community, thus embodying literally as well as spiritually the community. For both Suzanne and I, the synagogue as kehila (community), which the Ner Tamid symbolizes, has been a key element in our lives. In London, our respective synagogues were true communities which represented not only our religious and spiritual homes but also our communal and social milieu. Much of our support network today derives from those communities. When we made aliyah, these communities were replaced by Kol Haneshama and the wider community around it which encompasses kindergartens and schools. Kehilat Kol Haneshama has provided and continues to provide to us and our children a religious and spiritual home, a social framework and the natural centre of our communal work. It would be fair to say that, since we moved to Jerusalem, the Kehila has been our family’s Ner Tamid, our constant light. So it was with some surprise that, when I started learning more about this subject, I discovered that the Ner Tamid is not an "everlasting" light in the way portrayed. The first clue to this is in the words of the Parasha itself – M'erev Ad Boker (“[to burn] from evening until morning”). Rashi is in fact quite clear on this point – he explains "tamid" to mean "every night" or "regularly" rather than "continuously". While some sources seems to disagree, the majority of authorities explain that the Ner Tamid was lit by Aharon every night with enough olive oil to last until the morning when it was extinguished and the incense (mentioned at the end of Parashat Tezaveh) was burnt, a parallel to the pillar of cloud in the day and the pillar of fire at night. So this Ner Tamid, this metaphor for religious continuity throughout the ages, in fact went out every morning. Even more disturbing, I remembered the time when our Ner Tamid in Kol Haneshama smashed and we were months without a Ner Tamid at all in the synagogue. Now when I look at the Ner Tamid, I see something quite fragile, a piece of glass which could indeed break at any time. In Mishle, it says "the soul of man is the candle (Ner) of the Lord". The Ner here is fragile and amorphous representing the soul, the spiritual centre of each person. How do we reconcile what seem quite contrasting attributes of the Ner Tamid. On the one hand, it is a symbol of continuity and immutability. On the other hand it is fragile and prone to being extinguished regularly. I think that perhaps part of the answer lies with Rashi's explanation. According to Rashi, "tamid" means "every night" or regularly. The light may be extinguished in the morning but it must be lit again in the evening. It is not the same light that was extinguished in the morning, it is a different and new light but a light there must be. In our community, we do hold Jewish continuity very dear to us, but we recognize that in each generation and in each community, the texture of Jewish life is different and has to be created anew in each community and in each generation. It is not the fact that the light is extinguished every morning that is important, rather that it is rekindled every evening. The "Ner Tamid" which was Suzanne's part in her community in Edgware, and which was my family's part in our community in Alyth Gardens was, perhaps, extinguished, but it has been rekindled in Kol Haneshama, in Tali Bayit VaGan, and in Tali Beit Hinuch. One of the sources I found explains that the job of Aharon was to light the Ner Tamid, which meant in fact to tend to it until such time as it could burn independently until the morning. I found this concept, together with the daily rekindling of the light every night, not only very powerful but also highly relevant to today. Ariel, despite the fact that you may have certain character traits which are not completely divorced from various members of your family, you are not and cannot be a simple continuation or extension of your family. Remember that the Ner Tamid in your parasha is not static and immutable but rekindled every night. I know that kehila means a lot to you, but your experience of it is different to ours. You have a wonderful group of friends that form part of this kehila and your school community. All of you are reaching the age of mitzvot when you will need to burn independently and rebuild the kehila. When I look at you, at your sisters, at your friends, and at the children of this kehila, I know that our fragile Ner Tamid, made of glass and representing "Ner Adonai Nishmat Adam" is in safe hands. Shabbat Shalom |
Congregation
Shir Tikvah's Ner Tamid in Minneapolis, Minnesota| November 1st, 2006 9:14PM 28 54%H
34I windchill 25 2mph steady bar Waxing
Gibbous Moon
Today Debbie gave a lecture on the naughty, sensuous, pastel, curvilinear rococo. Sort of Baroque lite. Art without all the heavy lifting of historical subjects, classical references, counter-reformation propaganda. This got me to thinking. If artists can shift content, both in tune with the times and as their own sensibilities insist on something new, just how important is the content to a work of art? This question reminds me of something left over from years of philosophy. It goes something like this: form w/o content is empty, content w/o form is unintelligible. A painting created by an artist who could easily paint Baroque subject matter, but chooses, instead, Rococo, has given the world... No, that's not it. Let's see. The artist can use the form of painting: brushstrokes, color, perspective, composition, balance to offer up any content. Is technique prior to content or does content determine technique? Since it seems like technique must be prior, that is, a painter, for instance, must know how to paint, first, before tackling any subject matter (content), then is art only a combination of techniques at the service of any content determined by cultural contexts? Or, is painting, say, the real art while the subject matter is ephemeral, that is, the thing that changes, while the craft of painting remains constant? Of course, the craft of painting changes as ways to bond color in paints develops, or brush types change, or the artist moves from wood to copper to canvas, of course technique changes, but, the technique, at any point, can be put to the service of kings or commoners, landscapes or battle scenes. So, in the end, it seems to me, the content reflects the culture, the Geist, while art lives underneath those changes, changing on its terms, yes, but a something more, a thing sui generis, almost a form without content. But, since form without content is empty, art require particularity, always given by the Geist, to show itself to the world. |
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