Takashi Murakami, Oval Buddha exhibited at the Palace of Versailles, 2007-2010, Photo by Magic Ketchup via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License.
“We want to see the newest things. That is because we want to see the future, even if only momentarily. It is the moment in which, even if we don’t completely understand what we have glimpsed, we are nonetheless touched … Continue reading
Glass sculpture by Dale Chihuly set in the Dallas Arboretum, Photo by chrissam42 via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 2.0 Generic License.
The exhibition of Dale Chihuly’s gorgeous glass sculptures at the Dallas Arboretum that was slated to close next week now will be open through the end of the year. Brian Shivers, chairman of the board for the Dallas Arboretum, said the extension … Continue reading
Doryphoros, Roman copy after an original by Polykleitos from c. 450-440 BCE, 6'6" high, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
You won’t get out of Art History 101 alive without knowing who this guy is. This is the Doryphoros, which means “spear bearer,” a Roman copy of a sculpture from the High Classical period of Ancient Greece. At one time, this … Continue reading
Andy Goldsworthy, Stone Room, 2007, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Photo by Barkaw via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution License.
“Movement, change, light, growth, and decay are the life-blood of nature, the energies that I try to tap through my work.” Andy Goldsworthy
© 2012 Sally Whitman Coleman, PhD. All rights reserved.
We can learn a great deal by looking at the same subject in art as it is represented over time. The similarities and differences speak volumes as to the true intentions of the artist and his or her cultural reality. … Continue reading
Pablo Picasso, Head of a Woman (Fernande), 1909, bronze, 16 ¼” x 9 ¾” 10 ½”, Museum of Modern Art, New York, photo by opacity via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution License.
This is a sculpture of Picasso’s girlfriend from 1904 through 1911, Fernande Olivier, a complicated woman who entered into a tempestuous seven-year relationship with the womanizing Picasso. Picasso created dozens of portraits of Fernande during their time together. Their relationship … Continue reading
Richard Serra, Torqued Ellipses, 1998, steel, nearest sculpture: 11' 9
“I was in analysis and I told my analyst I wanted to be the best sculptor in the world and he said, ‘Richard, calm down.’” Richard Serra
© 2012 Sally Whitman Coleman, PhD. All rights reserved.
Did you ever wonder why male figures in ancient Greek art are almost always nude? You probably didn’t. It’s something that we all take for granted, but it really is a curious thing. This is a famous sculpture because it … Continue reading
Damien Hirst, For the Love of God, 2007, platinum, diamonds and human teeth, White Cube Gallery, London, Photo by Secretly Ironic, Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution License.
On March 19th, Blake Gopnik, a reporter for Newsweek Magazine, wrote an article about Damien Hirst, claiming that the artist is the most natural heir to Andy Warhol and “business art.” Indeed, the significance of Hirst’s work is lost if … Continue reading
Head of a Persian Guard from Persepolis, Iran, c. 486-465 CE, limestone, 21.26" x 24.41" x 4.72", Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Bas-relief (noun) A sculpture in which the figures project only slightly from the background. A Persian bas-relief dating from the first century CE, that looks very similar to the one shown above, is among the most recent art heists. The … Continue reading
Venus of Willendorf, c. 28,000 - 25,000 BCE, limestone, 4⅓” high, Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna, Photo by Matthias Kabel via Wikimedia Commons, GNU Free Documentation License.
The Venus of Willendorf is seriously old; someone carved her from limestone around 28,000 BCE. That’s 30,000 years ago! Needless to say, it’s very difficult to know why this Paleolithic artifact exists. Because we know so little about the circumstances … Continue reading
Constantin Brancusi, Bird in Space, 1928, bronze, 54” x 8½” x 6½”, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Photo by rocor -Flickr
Artists sometimes repeat motifs in their work over the course of their career. Constantin Brancusi, the Romanian sculptor working in the early twentieth century, reworked a bird motif many times from the 1920s through the 1940s in an effort to arrive … Continue reading