the degas bowl

Today's the Super Bowl here in the United States, but for those not inclined toward things football-related, we have the Degas Bowl.  I would venture to guess that even if Edgar Degas were transported to modern times, you would never find him at any major sports event -- though he did go to New Orleans, where the Super Bowl has oft been held, to visit some Creole relatives in 1872.  Degas was a bit of a prickly pear, rather set in his ways with decided opinions and not exactly fond of loud crowd scenes.  Yet anyone who has studied ballet knows that it requires strength and grace, and can be grueling on the body.  And Degas' many depictions of dancers very much show that fact -- their athleticism and flexibility are parallel to the beauty and illusion of their performance.  So tune in to the Degas Bowl, and enjoy the half-time commercial as well!

painting of the month

Large Blue Horses -- Franz Marc, 1911

(Happy Chinese New Year -- Year of the Horse!!)

all about the benjamins

Benjamin Franklin -- politician, diplomat, author, inventor, sage, kite flyer and musician -- was born on January 17th, 1706 and lived a most impressive 84 years.  His best known and eagerly desired portrait is on the American $100 bill, but it should be of no surprise that many other artistic representations of Franklin were made throughout his lifetime (click on any of the paintings for a larger view).  Pictured here are Franklin's first portrait by Robert Feke in 1748, with young Ben seeming a bit dandified in his hand pose and sporting ruffly cuffs -- this in contrast to Benjamin Wilson's 1759 likeness of a more confident and assured Franklin, and if you look closely you can see a flicker of lightning in the background.  (The wild bolt is about to hit a church steeple, but the church is likely grounded by a Franklin lightning rod.)  The subtlety of Franklin's electrical experiment in Wilson's painting is the complete opposite of Benjamin West's 1816 Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky, with our departed forefather in the midst of cherubs and divine guidance like a conduit between the heavens and earth. 


British artist David Martin's 1767 portrait of Franklin places America's wise man in a setting of lush knowledge, amid tones of red and gold and blue along with books and papers and a bust of Sir Isaac Newton looking on with further inspiration and approval.  Perhaps Franklin was pondering his 13 Virtues in Martin's painting, though Franklin was human enough to admit that even he had trouble putting all of the ideals into action simultaneously.  And finally, the elderly Franklin appears in Charles Wilson Peale's 1785 portrait, around the time that various health problems began to take their toll on Frankin's otherwise hearty being. 


I wish the Bald  Eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country; he is a bird of bad moral character; like those among men who live by sharping and robbing, he is generally poor, and often very lousy. The turkey is a much more respectable bird.  (Benjamin Franklin,  1784)

art and appetites

The Art Institute of Chicago's Art and Appetite exhibit is reaching its final weeks and closing up the visual kitchen on January 27th.  This is a sumptuous showing of American food-related art from colonial times to the late 20th century, with occasional social or satiric commentary -- but for the most part a fine spread that confirms the fact that Americans like their food and drink, and plenty of it.  Some of my favorite works are featured, like Willard Metcalf's The Ten Cent Breakfast, John Sloan's Reganeschi's Saturday Night and Richard Estes' Food City.  And the pictured Vegetable Dinner by Peter Blume, which I like even more because Blume was apparently a fellow vegetarian.  All in all an enjoyable show that includes some beautiful servingware as well, and a book of postcards available for sale in the gift shop with vintage recipes on the back.  (The corn "oysters" from Jennie June's American Cookery Book of 1870 fry up nicely and are especially tasty with a splash of green Tabasco.)  My only negative commentary on American appetite in general was in the Members' Lounge at the Art Institute, when the poor guy who works there was trying to bring out a fresh pot of hot chocolate and was descended upon by some rather aggressive persons.  Hot chocolate is free for members, but I've seen stock footage of Depression-era folks waiting in breadlines with more courtesy and patience than these supposed patrons of the arts.  Clearly paying for a membership to the museum entitles a body to shove ahead and cut in line and crab at student workers, all in pursuit of a the privilege of a cup of cocoa worth about $1.50. 


Pictured:  Vegetable Dinner (Peter Blume, 1927) Smithsonian American Art Museum

painting of the month

Autumn -- Mary Cassatt (1880)

george and georgia

GEORGIA O'KEEFFE, whose latest paintings are being exhibited at the Anderson Galleries, is our only woman painter whose art is a natural flower of life. The tart axiom of George Moore, that woman always paints in evening dress, has been shattered forever by the burning intensity of this Texas woman's art.  (The New York Times -- January 16, 1927)

The actual essay being referred to here is George Augustus Moore's Sex in Art, taken from this decisively damning paragraph:

In her art woman is always in evening dress: there are flowers in her hair, and her fan waves to and fro, and she wishes to sigh in the ear of him who sits beside her. Her mental nudeness is parallel with her low bodice, it is that and nothing more. She will make no sacrifice for her art; she will not tell the truth about herself as frankly as Jean-Jacques, nor will she observe life from the outside with the grave impersonal vision of Flaubert. In music women have done nothing, and in painting their achievement has been almost as slight. It is only in the inferior art--the art of acting--that women approach men. In that art it is not certain that they do not stand even higher.

George Augustus Moore (1852-1933) was born in Ireland and spent much of his life in London and Paris; he originally hoped to be a painter but turned to writing instead.  Some of his novels were considered to be realistically progressive but his thoughts on ladies in the arts seem rather reactionary.  I don't think he ever met Georgia O'Keeffe or acknowledged her work but I sense that her opinion of him would have been just about as dismissive.

(Pictured:  Portrait of George Moore (1879) by Edouard Manet; Georgia O'Keeffe in Hawaii, 1939 -- Wikimedia Commons)

blue splendor

Ferris Bueller aside, sometimes you really do just have to step off of the treadmill of life and contemplate something amazing.  This 1977 six-panel stained glass series -- the "America Windows" -- was presented to Chicago's Art Institute by Marc Chagall to commemorate the American Bicentennial and in memory of Mayor Richard J. Daley.  (And yes, they were featured in Mr. Bueller's big day off movie.)  They were removed for a few years during the construction of the Art Institute's Modern Wing; they have been back since 2010 and are beautiful, bright and liberating -- and this is only a camera phone photo so imagine their true glory.

If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.  -- Marc Chagall (quote courtesy of www.brainyquote.com).