Sunday, May 22, 2011
Blogging Note
This post is for blogging and software geeks, and not necessarily for art-oriented readers.
Regular readers probably notice that I've had to suggest double-clicking on images to both enlarge and improve quality. The quality factor puzzled me because, at 2Blowhards, I always got clear images, provided the source image was fine. I also knew that other blogs on Blogspot had nice, clear large images. What was I doing wrong?
It turns out that it was my my error: I was adjusting the Blogger software produced HTML code without adjusting everything necessary to preserve quality.
Default Blogger takes images and sizes them to a set maximum. Because this blog focuses on images, I want them larger than what Blogger was providing. So I go into the HTML code and resize images to suit my needs. Often, the result was a bubbly appearance. Finally I shrugged off my habitual torpor and discovered that the Blogger-generated code included, buried in four or five lines of image-specific code, this: "s320" -- which seems to be a secondary size specification. And by changing s320 to s640 I could get clear images.
So from here on, s640 it is. I also went back and modified the HTML for some of the most popular older posts and I'll do others as time and inclination permit.
Apologies for not dealing with this problem sooner.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Alma-Tadema's New Springtime
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912) is shaping up to be the new Andy Warhol.
That's so if you consider recent auction results. Last November his "The Finding of Moses" sold for $35,922,500 and more recently "The Meeting of Antony and Cleopatra: 41 B.C." went for $29,22,500. Not bad for a once-forgotten artist whose paintings were selling for hundreds 50 or 60 years ago.
The link above is to a lengthy Wikipedia entry. Plus there are books about Tadema, so I won't dwell on his career other than to mention that he combined great talent, research skills and a not-dour personality to reach great popularity in his lifetime -- a popularity that has been re-emerging since the 1960s.
One popular painting that's accessible to many Americans is "Spring" -- a star of the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. It's large (80 x 179.1 cm / 31.5 in. x 5 ft. 10.5 in.) containing a jumble of figures whose faces (if memory serves) are only about two or three cm. high.
To celebrate Tadema's newfound stature, below is Spring along with a few detail photos I took a while ago. You can try clicking to enlarge them, but the results will be somewhat fuzzy because those enlargements are much bigger than the original art. All the images pictured here can be enlarged.
Gallery
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Raymond Hood: America's Most Competent Architect?
Many observers claim Frank Lloyd Wright to be America's greatest architect. Maybe. I think he was the most creative, but creativity doesn't have to be synonymous with greatness.
So if Wright is iffy greatest-wise in my book, then who might be another contender? I nominate Raymond Hood (1881-1934). And as the title of this post suggests, he has claim as America's most competent architect, even if the matter of greatness can be disputed.
I base my contention on Hood's ability to do outstanding work in several styles: traditional, Deco and modernist. Besides his skyscrapers, Hood also designed a resort and houses -- including his own traditionally-designed place in Stamford, Connecticut. Unfortunately, decently detailed biographical material is hard to find on the Internet; for instance, consider his puny Wikipedia entry here. Fortunately, some books dealing with Hood can be found, though no significant ones are recent.
Hood's career was short but brilliant, lasting about a dozen years up to his early death at age 53 when he was associated with the Rockefeller Center project. It's difficult to predict how he might have evolved had he lived another 20 or so years. Certainly the Depression would have curtailed his output, yet he would have been around in time for the start of the post- World War 2 building boom. My best guess, given the flexibility he exhibited in the 1920s and early 30s, is that he might well have out-Miesed Mies van der Rohe in the 50s.
Below are examples of Hood's work.
Gallery
The Howells & Hood firm won the famous Tribune Tower competition, launching Hood's fame. Modernists sneered at it, preferring the entry by Finland's great Eliel Saarinen, father of noted architect Eero Saarinen.
The Tribune win quickly led to a commission for the American Radiator Building on the south side of Bryant Park. Georgia O'Keeffe made a notable painting of this building.
Hood designed a few showrooms for appliance dealer Rex Code. The one shown was located in the southwest Brooklyn neighborhood of Bay Ridge. That's a model of a General Electric refrigerator atop the building.
Hood's Daily News Building was the first tall Modernist building in New York, though purists thought the vertical emphasis was slightly "dishonest" (in terms of their rigid ideology). That's the Third Avenue Elevated station at 42nd Street in the foreground.
So Hood flipped the emphasis to horizontal for the McGraw-Hill publishing firm headquarters. This was more "honest" for the purists, who then complained the the Deco top decoration was (ugh!) decoration and therefore "dishonest." One just can't win when trying to please the hardcore, it seems. Actually, I never warmed to the McGraw-Hill -- that horizontal windowing motif made it seem stubbier than it really was. Like the Daily News, the McGraw-Hill was on 42nd Street, but towards the west side of town; the station seen here is for the 9th Avenue Elevated.
Even though I clearly like Raymond Hood a lot, there are other architects I find as appealing in different ways. I'll feature them from time to time in future posts.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Sir James Guthrie, Glasgow Boy
Sir James Guthrie (1859-1930) was one of the Glasgow Boys, a group of late-19th century Scottish painters influenced by French realist Jules Bastien-Lepage.
Like some other artists of middle-class origin in those days, his family sent him to university with the idea that he would practice law. And like the others he abandoned that line of education to take up art, though his art training came largely by self-education.
Regardless of how he mastered his skills, Guthrie became one of the most prominent Scottish artists of his time. By 1902 he was president of the Royal Scottish Academy and in 1903 was knighted.
The best place to find Guthrie's painting is Glasgow, of all places. Unfortunately for me, the last time I was in Glasgow I hadn't yet launched into serious study of art history and skated through Kelvingrove faster than I really should have.
Gallery
Friday, May 13, 2011
Molti Ritratti: Dame Edith Sitwell
Edith Sitwell (1887-1964), poet, critic, female component of a trio of artsy siblings well connected to the English upper crust, did not escape the portrait painter's brush as can be seen below. Her Wikipedia entry is here.
Sitwell's depictions are of interest because several of the artists were her friends -- especially Pavel Tchelitchev (transliterations of his name from the Russian vary). Of more interest is that these artists were modernists of one stripe or another in a period where all artists were trying to figure what to do with modernism in the wake of that decade or so of all those "isms" cascading down from (mostly) Paris. Adding to the complexity of the situation, they were painting portraits -- meaning that the results had to relate in a least some small manner to their purported subject.
Gallery
As best I can tell from citations, both the portraits by Fry were painted 1918 or thereabouts. Fry was an art critic and theoretician (popularizing the term "Post-Impressionism") who also did portraits and some other works.
Tchelitchev is best known as a Surrealist, but that movement was still more literary and political than painting-oriented when Sitwell sat for this work.
Lewis was England's best-known modernist portrait artist when this was painted (begin in 1923 but not "completed" -- her hands were never added -- until 1935).
According to the link above, Sitwell was quite taken with Tchelitchev even though their approaches to sex probably destined the relationship to be on the Platonic side. Neither Tchelitchev portrait shown here (as well as others) depicts Sitwell in a remotely flattering light. But she apparently didn't mind. The image above seems to be a scan from a book.
This portrait is an exception in that it was made decades later than the others and when Abstract Expressionism was the flavor of the day.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Goutte d'Eau Style: Late-30s French Streamlining
I recently posted about the teardrop design motif favored by Norman Bel Geddes in the early 1930s. The linkage of the teardrop shape to aerodynamic streamlining resulted in an industrial design fashion during the 30s that eventually reached cliché proportions. Nevertheless, that shape is pleasing and its use in car bodies usually resulted in improved aerodynamic efficiency when compared to similar cars build prior to, say, 1935.
Although the teardrop motif was applied to large, often bulky sedans, it achieved its aesthetic zenith with sports cars. French sports cars, to be more specific. America didn't do sports cars in those days and the English apparently were too conservative style-wise to abandon traditional fenders for the teardrop kind. Same for the Germans, though a few examples of teardrop sports sedans can be found. And some late-1930s Alfa Romeos sported the teardrop motif.
But it was the French who dominated that style scene, with the coachbuilding firm Figoni & Falaschi leading the pack. If this interests you, try to locate a copy of Richard Adatto's book (French edition shown above, but the English version has a similar cover). It seems to be out of print, but it's worth tracking down if you love that kind of styling.
Here are some examples.
Gallery
A sports sedan rather than a sports car, but I include it because it illustrates what was in the air of France when the cars show below were being conceived.
This car was sent to the USA for inclusion as part of the French exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair.
The ultimate French teardrop sports car.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Art News from The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal has been evolving its Saturday/Sunday edition. A few months ago some morphing yielded two new sections. One is titled "Off Duty" and it deals with fashion and lifestyle matters. The other is "Revue," dealing with everything from longer pieces related to recent news events, to science developments, the arts and books.
I noticed a lot of good stuff in the 7/8 May edition. Off Duty had a cover piece devoted to fashion magnate Ralph Lauren's car collection, part of which is on show at the Louvre in Paris. Well, not the Louvre Louvre, but instead the Musée des Arts Décoratifs part -- you know, way out there at the western end of the north wing along the rue de Rivoli.
Anyway, Dan Neil, the WJS's pit bull automobile reviewer interviewed Lauren in Paris, trying to make him confess there might be a tennsy bit of synergy in play between the exhibit and Lauren's commercial empire. Lauren pretty much sidestepped the issue, but Neill did allow in conclusion that Lauren was indeed an actual "car guy."
Gee, I could have told him that. I've been to two Pebble Beach Concours d'Élegance and saw Lauren up close both times. One year he was standing by his Bugatti Atlantique, the other he was helping a bunch of guys pushing his 1939 Alfa Romeo around the 18th Hole site; rolls up his sleeves when need be, he does.
Over in Reviews it was reported that Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema's "The Meeting of Antony and Cleopatra: 41 B.C." was auctioned at Sotheby's for $29.2 million. Forty years ago one could hardly give his paintings away. We're making progress, realism fans!
Art writer Karen Wilkin reviewed the book "Joan Mitchell: Lady Painter" by Patricia Albers. It seems that Mitchell was a piece of work, whatever her Abstract Expressionist abilities might have been. But the part of the review that caught my attention was this paragraph:
Ms. Albert's book is not the place to turn for an understanding of art. It is punctuated with extended, over-written and yet imprecise descriptions of paintings that fail to evoke particular images despite the self-consciously "vivid" prose and lists of colors. A discussion of "the gorgeous Canadian paintings" made in 1974 is typical. "The diptych Canada V beguiles with the bosky masses, its incantatory lights and darks, its use of white around the cut between the two panels, and its oddly right colors (pale mint, white claret, and the color of night)."
Agreed, that is pretty turgid. My personal problem is that I have an aversion to just about any written description of a painting. Ditto descriptions of music. Music must be heard and paintings (or their reproductions) viewed if they are to be comprehended at all. A few apt remarks and a decent amount of background information are usually okay, but otherwise my eyes glaze even if there's a reproduction right above all that text.
As a final note, the section also had a short piece about Modernist collector Peter Brant. Among other quotes from him is this: "The thing is, when you look at a great work of art, it has to evoke in you something that's troublesome. If you hate it, it's probably a better indicator than if you just think it's OK. An artist is supposed to be telling you something that's not obvious or something you've not thought about in that way before."
Shh. Please don't mention this to Monet, Renoir, the Hudson River School or even poor, ignored Alma-Tadema.
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