Smile of the Buddha in Art
The look on the Buddha’s face of serenity is probably what some of us acquired after having a three-day weekend for Labor Day. But, this image intrigued me because—as is the case with ever ...
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Curator's Corner
Photo Phear: George Barnard and Gertrude Käsebier
I am Totally not into getting my photograph taken, especially while on vacation, so I am the last person on Earth who should criticize the way other people come out in photographic portraits. I don&rs ...
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Curator's Corner
Vacation Blog: Provincetown Modernism
I’m off on a week’s vacation in Provincetown, which, as you may know, has been the home of a thriving art colony since the late 1800s. The Provincetown Art Association was founded in 1914, ...
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Curator's Corner
A Realism Backlash? Modern Art Heads
After the horrors experienced by Europeans in World War I (1914–1918), the brakes were more or less put on to the prevailing trend towards modernism and abstraction, although certainly many arti ...
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Curator's Corner
Painting or Print? Albert Bierstadt
Yes, Sunset (California Scenery) is a print. But, what a print! I will admit, before I learned a little bit about art when in college, I would have seen such a chromolithograph in an antique shop and ...
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Curator's Corner
The Essence of Essence
I’ve been reading manifestos by several early modernist artists from Europe recently (Kandinsky, Boccioni, Doesburg), and a recurring thought comes out in all of their writings. It is the idea t ...
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Curator's Corner
A Neglected Japanese Printmaker: Gosōtei Hirosada
I’m pretty sure there’s generally a misconception about the ukiyo-e phenomenon in Japanese art. It is certainly one I had until I recently came across hundreds of gorgeous woodblock prints ...
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Curator's Corner
Horse Worship
I recently became reacquainted with the British painting mania for horse portraits and hunting scenes that flowered between the late 1600s (in both Holland and Britain) and early 1800s. In the 1700s, ...
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Curator's Corner
Happy Fourth of July Week
I would really have liked to have been around when George Washington was our first president! That must have been such an exciting (and challenging, to be sure) period in which to live. Everything abo ...
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Curator's Corner
Too Nice to Put on the Floor: Nasrid Kingdom
Every so often I learn about a period in history in a certain place that seemed to have everything going for it—relative peace, flourishing economy and vibrant artistic culture, and a government ...
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