Art and Scholarship

I work in the art history department of my university, scanning and editing images for professors and other scholars who need them. Along the way, I learn a lot I want to share!

[artandscholarship]

From Basel Cathedral, "Apostle's Monstrance" with obverse detail

[artandscholarship]

Guzman, Enrique - "Miraculous Image," 1974

"Enrique Guzman (1952-1986), a controversial painter who developed a crisp figurative style unlike anything else being done in the Mexican art world at the time. His most startling works--"Miraculous Image," for example--recycle patriotic or religious icons, including Mexican flags and images of Jesus, in blasphemous, sometimes scatological compositions intended to scandalize a national audience made complacent by so many banal abstractions. . . .

The transparency of Jesus's body--a probable citation of paintings by Rene Magritte--underscores Guzman's critique of religious doctrine. Though he found some critical success, Guzman left Mexico City in 1979, and committed suicide a few years later."

-- James Oles, "Chapter 10: From the Olympics to Neo-Mexicanism (1968-94)." Art and Architecture in Mexico. 2013.

[artandscholarship]

Cranach, Lucas - "St. George and the Dragon," 1507

"This woodcut represents an important and well-documented stage in the history of color printing. . . . An impression of it was sent in 1507 from Friedrich the Wise to the counsellor and artistic advisor to the Emperor [Maximillian], Conrad Peutinger. . . . It had clearly so impressed Peutinger that he had commissioned a similar experiment in colour printing himself from Hans Burgkmair. . . . Peutinger asked Friedrich [the Wise] to give his opinion on 'whether they are well printed or not,' and then wrote on the following day to Duke Georg of Saxony asking for his opinion on the new technique and indicating his close involvement with the project: 'I have, together with my artists, discovered a method of printing in gold and silver on parchment paper.'

The impression in the British Museum is one of the only two early impressions of Cranach's "St. George" to have survived which correspond with Peutinger's description. . . . The paper has been prepared with an indigo wash. The manner in which the wash has been applied is suggestive of an atmospheric landscape, and serves as a clue to the original purpose of these prints, which was to emulate the highly finished drawings on a colored ground fashionable at that date. The line block which registered the heightened areas was printed first, inked with some kind of glue to which gold leaf was then applied and the outline block in black was printed second."

- from Bartrum, Giulia. "German Renaissance Prints: 1490-1550," 1995.

[artandscholarship]

Diaz, Enrique - "Interior of a curio shop, Mexico City," 1925

[artandscholarship]

Beudean, Dan - "Temptations of Sir R. F. Burton," 2011

"During the past half decade, Dan Beudean has shown a constant interest in interregnum behavior mutations and abnormalities, physiological deviations and aberrances, social and cultural exceptions that turn into commonly accepted transgressions. Dan Beudean surveys, analyses and scales human kind’s ambiguous nature, unveiling patterns of interaction and counter influences among different species, between themselves and each other."

- Artaward International: 2013 Winner About Page. <http://www.strabag-artaward.at/artaward-international-02-13-en-US/>

(Image from “Vitamin D2: New Perspectives in Drawing," 2013)

[artandscholarship]

"Arts & Architecture" magazine, August 1952 cover

"First and above all, however, Arts & Architecture acted like sunshine on West Coast architects who grew and flourished under its rays: Richard Neutra, R.M. Schindler, Harwell Harris, Gregory Ain, Charles Eames, Lloyd Wright, John Lautner, Ed Killingsworth, the carpenters in steel—Raphael Soriano, Craig Ellwood, Pierre Koenig—and in the north Campbell & Wong, William Wurster. The list must end but seems endless. The dowdy offices at 3305 Wilshire became the center for Southern California architects with a common cause, whose modest, lowcost, modern and remarkably efficient designs laid the groundwork for the Case Study House program and reinvented the single family dwelling. (...)

A&A's covers and layout were touched by Dada during the 1940s and 1950s—graphic designer Herbert Matter, had more in common with Kurt Schwitters than the double Ts in his name. But there was no Dada or Surrealism in its content. The avowed purpose was to present good, contemporary design to the magazine's largely lay audience and nudge its professional and architectural student subscribers into a truer path. The results were remarkable and A&A's readers, who held architecture and art close to their hearts, would curl up with a cup of coffee for an hour or so to read the latest issue of the magazine."

- Travers, David. "Arts & Architecture: About." <http://www.artsandarchitecture.com/about.html>

Arts & Architecture (1929–1967) was an American design, architecture, landscape, and arts magazine. It was published and edited by John Entenza from 1938–1962. [Entenza's] views and leadership "put California on the cultural map," creating a lasting impact on the cultural history of Los Angeles, Southern California, the West Coast, and the United States in the development of American modernism.

- "Arts & Architecture." Wikipedia.

[arthapsny]

SEPTEMBER IN PICTURES

Gina Beavers at Clifton Benevento. On view through October 25, 2014. See more images here.

Installation view of Gina Beavers: ‘Re-Animator’ at Clifton Benevento, 2014. Courtesy of Clifton Benevento

Installation view of Gina Beavers: ‘Re-Animator’ at Clifton Benevento, 2014. Courtesy of Clifton Benevento

Gina Beavers, Dice nail love, 2014, Acrylic on canvas, artist frame, 30 x 30 inches. Courtesy of Clifton Benevento

Gina Beavers, Nice shot, 2014, Acrylic and rocks on canvas, artist frame, 30 x 30 inches. Courtesy of Clifton Benevento

Gina Beavers, Who has braces, 2014, Acrylic and wood on canvas, artist frame, 30 x 30 inches. Courtesy of Clifton Benevento

[artandscholarship]

McHorse, Christine Nofchissey - "Nautilus" with detail, 2006

"[With] 'Nautilus,' the curlicue is a tube, albeit a blind one, and the sturdy, pregnant volume that is its base can be seen as a reservoir of space that uncurls itself as the eye moves upwards. It is as though when McHorse encounters these volumes, pressure begins to force the shape upwards, sometimes remaining trapped in a tube as with 'Linkage,' and at other times, forcing clay to balloon outwards as it makes its journey. Of course, this is done with pace, not water, but the feeling of a welling power is still the same. What the artist channels is volume, pushing it through her form. But because her wells are most often blind, without an opening to release and flow, there is a strong sculptural tension of pressure contained in the work. This makes it sound as though McHorse is a primordial plumber, and in a sense she is, moving through the earth's core, reaching for the surface."

- Clark, Garth and Del Vecchio, Mark. "Dark Light." From "Dark Light: The Ceramics of Christine Nofchissey McHorse," 2013.

[artandscholarship]

Haeckel, Ernst - "Nepenthaceae. Kannenpflanzen." (Pitcher plant)

from the 2008 reprinting of "Art Forms in Nature."

[artandscholarship]

 Suciu, Mircea - "Death is a German Master," 2012

"Taking his cue from Goya, who quipped, 'Give me a charcoal and I'll paint your portrait,' Suciu has implemented a technique uniquely his own. Fascinated by what he describes as 'the absurd actions of man,' and repeatedly drawn to the mid-twentieth century for inspiration, he sought a medium that would enable him to capture one of the darkest times in history. (…) [Suciu] describes this strangely heightened world as 'psychological realism.'"

- Neal, Jane. “Vitamin D2: New Perspectives in Drawing,” p. 272

[artandscholarship]

(Tumblr turned the thumbnails of the images into something ugly, so please click on the images to see them in their true splendor!)

Xun, Sun - "Beyond-ism" (Drawings used in the animation 'Beyond-ism'), 2010

"Knowledge only counts if it enlivened through the process of becoming someone's feelings and experiences." - Xun, Sun

The following video contains an interview with the artist as well as clips of his animations.

[artandscholarship]

The origin of the blog's icon (in the bottom left corner): Haeckel, Ernst - "Discomedusae. Scheibenquallen."

"For Haeckel, the illustration is not a depiction of existing knowledge, but is itself the acquisition of knowledge of nature. The truths of nature are seen. Accordingly, Haeckel's "Art Forms in Nature" is not merely a set of examples, which with each detail reveals part of the whole. It demonstrates naturalness itself. (…) Knowledge of nature is "natural aesthetics." Accordingly, aesthetics are nothing more than reflections of nature itself. Nature, which develops out of and into itself, is "beautiful." (…)

Consequently, the pages of "Art Forms in Nature" took on a further dimension for Haeckel. The fact that the illustrations are "aesthetic," beautiful, and that this beauty is found in the smallest facets of nature--such as unicellular organisms or in the medusae of the deep sea--demonstrated to Haeckel that one finds in the smallest living things what distinguishes, or what at least should distinguish, humans in their judgements: "spirit." The beauty of these minuscule creatures revealed to him the natural quality of one of the largest forms of life--human beings. Hacekel maintained that to be part of nature is to be an element in and the result of the evolutionary process. Accordingly, the phylogeny of forms is simultaneously the phylogeny of the spirit."

- Breidbach, Olaf. "Brief Instructions to Viewing Haeckel's Pictures." From the 2008 reprinting and compiling of Haeckel's "Art Forms in Nature," originally published between 1899 and 1904.

[artandscholarship]

Akunyili, Njideka - "Cradle Your Conquest," 2012

"The blending of media adumbrated in this oil and fabric canvas is taken further in Akunyili's latest efforts, which add charcoal, acrylic, colored pencil and even crushed marble and lace to the mix. Charged but not cluttered, these new works reveal figures haunted by further figures. (…) The yellow abstract motif incorporated into the room competes with these figurative apparitions, as does "Cradle Your Conquest" with floor tiles. Striking geometries vie for pictorial attention with the figures they frame. 

Just as the works' titles hint at complex, even fraught, narratives, the politics of color and space are unstable in Akunyili's work in ways that exceed mere form. The interracial couples appear absorbed in silent congress, linked by knowing glances. Whatever the origins or intentions of these scenes' racial politics--whether strictly personal or vaguely allegorical--"Cradle Your Conquest" exceeds the passivity suggested by its title; its prone female figure stares back at the viewer with a gaze that is anything but submissive."

-- Merjian, Ara H. "Vitamin D2: New Perspectives in Drawing," p. 16