artsmarttalk.com
Share ArtSmart
  • Home
  • ArtSmartTravel
    • ParisArts&Pleasures >
      • Details: Costs and Activities
    • ParisCathedralsTour >
      • Details: Costs and Activities
    • BurgundyWinesTreasures
    • SpainAndalusiaTour
    • What to expect from an AST tour
    • Travel Art Talks >
      • Paris: Art and History
      • Art and Spirit: The Cathedrals of Europe
      • The Loire: Wine and Chateaux
      • Burgundy: Wine, History, Elegance
      • Bordeaux: Wine, City, Villages
  • MacGregorArt
  • Blog/Contact/About
    • About Marilyn MacGregor
    • Contact Me

Grit and Revolution: The Ashcan School

6/14/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
George Bellows: Stag at Sharkey's 1909
Isn't it funny how so many art movements are named by snarky insults? The 'Impressionists', The 'Fauves', even the Gothic style - these were not terms of endearment but put-downs from critics who clearly thought they knew what was 'art' and what was not. 'The Ashcan School' is another example, this time from early 20th century America.

Picture
Artists and Friends in John Sloan's NY studio 1898
In the context of a time when so much artistic fur was flying in Europe (Cubism, Surrealism, Picasso, Matisse, etc.) the work of the Ashcan School can seem a bit tame and stodgy, but these artists, like their European contemporaries, were revolutionaries, rebelling against conservative American tastes - which were at least, if not more, conservative than traditional tastes in Europe.

Picture
Chicago Art Institute Students: Flyer 1913
In 1913 the famous Armory Show was mounted in New York, bringing the first taste of avant-garde art to the U.S. The Armory Show, an earthquake that shook expectations and assumptions to their foundations, was recognized as a colossal event but one that was shocking, even dangerous. The New York Tribune called it “A Remarkable Affair Despite Some Freakish Absurdities.” It is said that notices were posted warning pregnant women away for fear they would miscarry, and when the show moved to Chicago, Matisse was given a mock trial on charges of 'artistic murder, pictorial arson, artistic rapine, total degeneracy of color, criminal misuse of line,' found guilty, and sentenced to die.

Picture
George Luks: Nighttime Buying and Selling on Allen Street 1905
Organized by American painters eager to bring the excitement of Modern Art closer to home, the Armory show included a healthy number of forward-looking Americans, foremost among them the artists who would come to be known as The Ashcan School. A first American volley against the strict traditions of the National Academy was the 1908 show in New York by The Eight, a group of painters circled around the charismatic teacher/painter Robert Henri. It was their only group showing - the circle then expanded, with one result being the group that came to be known as The Ashcan School.

Picture
George Bellows: Cliff Dwellers 1913
As you might guess by the name, these painters, including Henri, George Bellows, John Sloan, George Luks and Everett Shinn, concerned themselves not with idealized beauty, but with a realistic perspective on the gritty life of New York's poorer neighborhoods and rich colorful streets.

Picture
John Sloan: McSorley's Bar 1912
Many of them had backgrounds as newspaper illustrators so there is an element of reportage in the work of the Ashcan School, along with an acceptance, even celebration of human nature in its most banal and ordinary forms. There's more than a bit of Bruegel in the Ashcan School, coupled with the lush expressive brushwork of Frans Hals and Velasquez - no accident. These painters were sophisticated and knowledgeable and most had spent time traveling and studying in Europe. Notable works include Bellow's mighty Stag at Sharkey's (1909) his marvelously detailed Cliff Dwellers (1913), George Luks's Nighttime Buying and Selling on Allen Street (1905), George Bellow's Washington Square South (1910) and John Sloan's McSorley's Bar (1912.)

Picture
William Glackens: Washington Square South 1910
Picture
John Sloan: Sunday, Women drying their Hair 1912
Picture
Robert Henri: Dutch Girl in White 1907
Robert Henri, for being such an inspiration to these painters of lively genre scenes, is better known for portraits - he's a marvelous painter whose brushwork and handling of paint is simply delicious. He did quite a few portraits of children, especially on his travels. This lovely example is from a stay in Holland in 1907.

The National Gallery in Washington has just opened a show of the work of George Bellows - I hear it's wonderful and can't wait to see it! http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/bellowsinfo.shtm

The newly re-opened Barnes Collection in Philadelphia includes many works of William Glackens and examples from some of the other Ashcan painters.
http://www.barnesfoundation.org/collections/art-collection/collection-search



0 Comments

Modern Spirit: Henry Ossawa Tanner

2/17/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
Henry Ossawa Turner by Thomas Eakins
Sometimes it takes a while to catch up with the obvious. When there are obstacles like race and gender it usually takes even longer. Henry Ossawa Tanner, (African) American artist, is having one of those catch-up moments at his alma mater, The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, with the retrospective Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit. PAFA, founded in 1802 and located in the heart of Tanner's home town of Philadelphia, is this country's first art school. The school is still going strong, with a vigorous program much abetted by the Academy's important collection, housed in a landmark building by visionary architect Frank Furness. (PAFA made the news recently when the latest of Claes Oldenbug's public sculptures, Paint Torch, was installed there.)

Picture
The Thankful Poor 1894
There's a lot to say about Tanner's back story - born to a former slave, forced to spend his productive mature years abroad to escape the toxic racism that plagued - still plagues - this country - but out of respect to an artist who deserves to be seen for his work alone, I want to concentrate on the art. A little background: Tanner entered PAFA in 1879 and quickly distinguished himself. A precocious, diligent student with a gift for drawing, he enjoyed the special patronage of Thomas Eakins, the legendary teacher/artist and director during Tanner's years there.

Picture
Daniel in the Lion's Den 1916
Once out in the world he tried to make a living as an artist, with some success, but as for so many other African-American intellectuals and artists other countries offered better opportunities; Tanner moved to Paris in 1891. He made a successful, clearly satisfying life in France, establishing himself as a 'modern' painter known for religious subjects. Religion must have been a natural direction for him - his father was a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church. In fact, his best work, whether intentionally religious or not, glows with an ethereal light that conveys a transcendent spiritual aura.

Picture
The Banjo Lesson 1893
The Thankful Poor and The Banjo Lesson, two of Tanner's best known works (neither of them in the PAFA show) have that quicksilver kind of light that transforms the ordinary into something holy. I was surprised - but then not surprised - to realize on seeing the show that Tanner was in many respects a Symbolist. The late 19th century movement is a further explanation for his unearthly approach, but Tanner's work demonstrates a more grounded, sincere reason for his visions. (Picasso had a brief flirtation with Symbolism - a better known proponent was Edward Munch.)

Picture
The Arch 1914
The Arch is a beautiful example of his transforming of solid reality, through light and color, into a metaphoric journey - another is But The Boat Was Now in The Middle of The Sea, a particularly fine sample of Tanner's accomplished brushwork and composition.

Picture
But the Boat Was Now In the Middle of the Sea 1920
Picture
Young Sabot Maker 1895
Picture
Annuciation 1898
His personal retellings of Bible stories can explain the 'modern' to contemporary audiences who might not recognize such an academic style as revolutionary in any way, but works like Annunciation and Young Sabot Maker put a whole new spin on old subjects. Young Sabot Maker, in fact, may or may not be seen as religious, but a son working with his father in a wood-worker's shop.....? It seems too obvious not to be meant as a young Christ with St. Joseph.

Picture
Gateway 1912
Financed by one of the Philadelphia Wanamakers, Tanner took a very important trip to Palestine, to the source of much of his inspiration. The paintings from there are supreme illustrations of an artist at the top of his form. His long experience and consummate skill with light make him an immediate master of the strong, hot sunlight on the ancient walls, and the ensuing paintings of Bible subjects seem even richer and more evocative.

Picture
The Good Shepherd 1902
Picture
Angels Appearing Before the Shepherds 1910
Picture
Back at home - in France - Tanner survived WWI, leaving some sketches and small paintings from that clearly painful time. One in the PAFA exhibit shows soldiers lined up in a mess tent; it's quickly drawn but still has an aura of something at once real and out of time. Tanner is certainly one of PAFA's most distinguished alumni - it's odd that they include David Lynch on their roster of 'famous graduates' but not Henry Ossawa Tanner. I hope they correct that.

Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit is at PAFA through April 15, 2012
http://www.pafa.org/tanner/

0 Comments

America the Beautiful on Display

1/19/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
In the new galleries of the American Wing
_ American Art is in the news right now. The Metropolitan Museum in New York has just completed a complete overhaul of the American Wing, one of the brightest jewels in the Museum's ever-fascinating profusion of courts, corners, and dedicated spaces. The official announcement describes 'expanded, reconceived, and dramatic new galleries' - I can't wait to see it and promise a full report when I do.

Picture
Thomas Cole 'The Oxbow' 1836
_ In the meantime, American Art is also on display in Paris at the Louvre, in the exhibit 'New Frontier: l'art americain entre au Louvre' (American Art Enters the Louvre.) As you can tell by the title, there is nothing reconceived here; this is the first time American Art has ever been shown in the Louvre. The show is a collaboration with three American Museums, and the focus is on the art of the 19th century, particularly that of Thomas Cole. Thus the apt title 'New Frontier'; Thomas Cole is considered the founder of the Hudson River School, the group of landscape painters including Frederick Church and Asher Durand, who painted the expansive (and fast disappearing) wide open 'new' world of the Americas.

Picture
Frederic Edwin Church 'The Heart of the Andes' 1859
_ Phenomenal artists with a jaw-dropping legacy of enormous, magnificent canvases, their brushes often seem to have been dipped as much in Romantic longing as in paint - luminescent lighting effects in many of the works evoke an intentionally moral and spiritual aura. The Met owns several prime examples of the Hudson River School, including Cole's The Oxbow: View from Mt. Holyoke, Massachusetts after a Thunderstorm (1836) and Heart of the Andes by Church. (Parisians will have to travel to New York to see these 19th c. American icons.)

Picture
CW Peale 'George Washington at the Battle of Princeton' 1781
_ The Met is not limited like the Louvre, which allows no art in the collection more recent than the 19th century, but most of what you'll see in the American Wing is of the Colonial period to the end of the 1800's,  including decorative arts as well as painting and sculpture. Among the prize works are favorite portraits by homegrown artists, most of whom made their names by starting with study in Europe - Benjamin West (born in Pennsylvania, who stayed on in London to become Painter to King George III and to train other American artists), John Singleton Copley, Thomas Sully, Charles Wilson Peale, and others. We owe many of our ideas of our Founding Fathers and the beginnings of this country to the portraits by these painters.

Picture
Robert Fulton 'Susan Hayne Simmons' 1813
_ One of the most interesting discoveries in the Met's on-line American Collection for me was portraits by men who we know much better as scientists and inventors. Robert Fulton, before he gave himself over to the subject of steam power, was known for his delicate miniatures of fashionable ladies (as in this watercolor and ivory portrait of Susan Hayne Simmons) and especially for his fine attention to hair and jewelry.

Picture
Samuel F. B. Morse 'The Muse' 1836-37
_ Samuel F. B. Morse, who, like Fulton, trained in Europe, tried his best to make it as an artist, but finally gave it up - and invented the telegraph! This beautiful painting from 1836-37 is an allegorical portrait of his eldest daughter, Susan, as a muse of drawing.

Picture
engraving by one of CW Peale's 17 children, many of whom were artists
_ Charles Wilson Peale, another of America's pioneering artists, was as well known in his time for his museum of natural history, which included a mastodon skeleton that he 'obtained' in 1801. His 'cabinet of curiosities' occupied the second floor of the State House (now Independence Hall) in Philadelphia.

Picture
Charles Wilson Peale Self Portrait 'The Artist in his Museum' 1822
Picture
Thomas Cole 'Clove in the Catskills' 1827
_ There is something very right about this championing of both arts and science in one individual - it fits the American creation story of idealists with big ideas but with their feet on the ground, ready to roll up their sleeves and do what had to be done. American art on view in both New York and Paris attests, in many intriguing ways, to the beauty and magnitude of that founding philosophy.


Take a tour of the American Wing as it opens with the Director and Curator
http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/20012492?vid=f43563f3-25d4-4793-b356-37656fa87504


0 Comments

    Share ArtSmartTalk

    Follow @MarilynArtsmart

      ArtSmartTalk by email

    Submit
    Picture


    MacGregor-Art.com
    Cards and art gifts with a Fine Sense of Fun
    Also at http://www.etsy.com/shop/MacGregorArt

    ArtSmart Consulting
    BETTER CONTENT for your art site
    http://www.artsmarttalk.com/artcontent.html _

    TRY A FREE SAMPLE!
    Postcard Art History
    Easy, fun way to learn about ART - a great gift! http://www.postcardarthistory.com/

    NetworkedBlogs
    Blog:
    ArtSmartTalk
    Topics:
    Art History, Design, Art
     
    Follow my blog

    Accredited Online Colleges

    Categories

    All
    19th C Art4a3f8ec7db
    20th C59300e1f29
    African Art
    Almutanabbi Streetbb1c3786e2
    American Art
    Ann Hamilton
    Apple
    Apple Computers
    Arabic Poetry
    Architecture
    Art
    Art And Nature
    Art And Technology
    Art As Collective Memory
    Art Auctions
    Art Books
    Art Forgery
    Art Galleries
    Art History
    Art In Gardens
    Art Installation
    Art Installations
    Art Licensing
    Art Of Spain
    Art Prints
    Art Technology
    Baghdad Books
    Barnes Collection
    Biennial
    Book Project
    Books
    Brooklyn Museum
    California Design
    Chelsea Galleries
    Chess
    Color
    Constable
    Contemporary Architecture
    Contemporary Art
    Contemporary Design
    Design
    Detroit Institute Of Arts
    Drawing
    E H Shepard
    El Anatsui
    Etching
    European Art
    Expressionism
    Fabric Design
    Flags
    Folk Art
    French Art
    French History
    French Portraits
    Galleries
    George Bellows
    Goya
    Goya Black Paintings
    Goya Portrait
    Hand-made Books
    Historical Art
    Hokusai
    Ho Tanner
    Illustration
    Installation Art
    Iraq
    Jean Clouet
    Lacma
    Lewis Chessmen
    London
    Los Angeles
    Mac Computers
    Mary Cassatt
    Matisse
    Met Museum
    Metropolitan Museum
    Metropolitan Museum Of Art
    Modern Art
    Modern British Painting
    Moma
    Moma Ps1
    Moons
    Museums
    Napoleon
    National Gallery
    Nature
    New Architecture
    New Art
    New Design
    New Goya Painting
    New York
    New York Art
    Norse Art
    Novels About Art
    Old City Philadelphia
    Online Art Sites
    Outdoor Art
    Outsider Art
    Painting
    Paris
    Pat Steir
    Performance Art
    Philadelphia
    Philadelphia Art
    Philadelphia Museum
    Photography
    Plein Air
    Portraits
    Product Design
    Red
    Religious Art
    Rembrandt
    Rome
    Rothko
    Royal Portraits
    Sarah Sze
    Scottish Art
    Self-portraits
    Significance Of Art
    Sketching
    Southern California
    Soutine
    Spanish Art
    Spanish History
    Steve Jobs
    Technology
    Thanksgiving
    The Importance Of Art
    Turner
    Van Gogh
    Velasquez
    Venice Biennale
    Whitney Museum
    Words And Art
    Young Artists

    Archives

    August 2013
    May 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011

    Full Archives at
    http://artsmarttalk.blogspot.com

    RSS Feed

    BLOG ROLL
    http://www.donartnews.com/
    http://joanmikkelsenphotography.blogspot.com/
    http://newcityart.blogspot.com/
    http://experimentstation.wordpress.com/
    http://www.dailyartfixx.com/
    http://venetianred.net/
    http://blog.art21.org/
    http://ahuskofmeaning.com/
    http://eye-likey.blogspot.com/
    http://underthegables.blogspot.com/
    http://www.imaginarymuseum.net/
    _http://www.midcenturyfolio.com/