Don’t Mess With Grant Wood

Grant Wood, Daughters of Revolution, 1932, oil on Masonite, 20” x 39.9”, Cincinati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Photo by Wmpearl, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Grant Wood clearly did not like the ladies he painted in his Daughters of Revolution, a satirical portrait of representatives of the Daughters the American Revolution (DAR) service organization for women who are descended from someone associated with the American … Continue reading →

In Their Own Words: Josef Albers

Josef Albers, On Tideland, 1947-1955, oil on fiberboard, 27 1/4

“In visual perception a color is almost never seen as it really is – as it physically is.  This fact makes color the most relative medium in art.” Josef Albers

Freake Show

Anonymous Artist, Elizabeth Clarke Freake and Baby Mary, c. 1674, oil on canvas, 42.5” x 36.8”, The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Mrs. John Freake, of the Boston Freakes, was a real show-off.  Colonial Americans were suspicious of art, judging it too aristocratic, but they did commission portraits because they were an excellent way to demonstrate wealth, especially if you were Elizabeth … Continue reading →

Make the Time: James Turrell at the Guggenheim

James Turrell, Skyspace, Air Apparent, ASU Campus, Tempe, AZ, Photo by pweil via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribition Non-Commercial 2.0 Generic License.

From June 21st through September 25th 2013, James Turrell will sheath Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic rotunda inside the Guggenheim Museum in New York City with a massive work of art.  Turrell, who explores visual perceptions of light and color in … Continue reading →

Winging it with Joan Miró

Joan Miró, Personages with Star, 1933, oil on canvas, 78” x 97”, Art Institute of Chicago, Photo by Xevi V via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial -Share Alike 2.0 Generic License.

Surrealist artists wanted to incorporate chance into their artwork because they thought it would be a powerful means of self-revelation and catharsis.  They believed they could set free certain aspects of their subconscious this way. Spanish artist Joan Miró, a … Continue reading →

In Their Own Words: King Henry VIII

Hans Holbein the Younger, Anne of Cleaves, c. 1539, oil on parchment mounted on canvas, 25.6" x 18.9", Louvre Museum, Photo in the Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

English King Henry VIII to Thomas Cromwell, regarding the reason he ended his fourth marriage to Anne of Cleaves from Flanders with an annulment: “You have sent me a Flanders mare!”

Islamic Plate: Food For Thought

Plate with Kufic Border, Samarkand, Uzbekistan, 9th-10th cen., 14.75

Calligraphy is prevalent in Islamic Art because the Muslim religion is revealed though sacred scriptures, the Quran, which is believed to be the word of God brought to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel. Kufic script, named for Kufa, a city … Continue reading →