PERSIAN INFLUENCE ON CHINA

Female Polo Player

WHICH CAME FIRST? Persian Influence on China

by Lois Metcalf

The ongoing warfare in the Tigris and Euphrates valley has called our attention to the area often called the cradle of civilization. It is interesting to note that not only was this area (Iraq and Kuwait) a highly civilized land itself, but it also influenced Chinese culture and art.

During the T'ang Dynasty (618-907 AD), China enjoyed a truly golden age of exploration and expansion.  New palaces, new ideas, new cultures and new chattel were eagerly sought.  China looked west to India and further west to Persia for fresh influences.

Out of India, Buddhism was embraced and became an enduring political power, changing to meet Chinese needs and ideas.  Out of Persia came the working dog—used for hunting and carrying loads—and fine Arabian horse stock coupled with the "sport of kings," polo.  Whole strings of ponies were brought to China along with the sport of polo itself.  We know about the dog, the horse and polo because of the funerary art that has been and still is being uncovered in China.

During the T'ang Dynasty, important people were buried with clay figures—sometimes thousands of them—representing the good life they had led, and hoped to lead again, in the after-life.  Horse (73.22), MAG's polo player on her pony, is one of these figures.

Court Lady

In 667 AD an imperial edict restricting the riding of horses to the aristocracy was passed in China.  Riding became very popular at Court, and soon aristocratic women enjoyed it, too.  Over time, as women became more proficient at riding and began playing polo, they began to wear men's clothing.  That is why we are not positive that our polo player is either (1) playing  polo or (2) a woman.  We think so, though; and remember that nobody is ever 100 percent sure about anything in history.

Chinese hairstyles and clothing were also influenced by the Persian court.  The Court Lady (49.1) has an elaborate, spoked-wheel coiffure, the style of which was most likely excitedly brought home from a trip to Persia.  Her gracefully and artfully draped robes were probably Persian in their lines, and her turned-up toes are a puffier variation of the turned-up slippers of the Arabian nights.

BEARDEN'S GOSPEL SONG

BEARDEN’S GOSPEL SONG

by Libby Clay

It is appropriate to compare Romare Bearden's Gospel Song (70.18) and Jacob Lawrence's The Gamblers (74.1).  These two eminent American artists explored ways to celebrate the history, ceremonies, and lives of African-Americans in terms of modern art.  They also helped to force open the door that had been pretty much closed to black artists, a door closed not only for sociological notions of racial separatism but—even more humiliating—because of an indifference to their work.

Gospel Song

Both Bearden and Lawrence experienced the great Depression of the 1930s, especially as it was survived in Harlem.  Bearden's urban experiences and memories were mixed with memories of childhood visits to his southern grandparents.  There, life was changing but still rural.  Bearden determined to preserve these memories in his art, and so we find trains, musical instruments, donkeys, bits of sermons, strains of music—all things now gone, but things that had great beauty.  Gospel Song recalls such a memory.

Romare Bearden, "Romie" to his friends, died in March of 1988 at the age of 74.  He was a Renaissance man: artist, writer, poet, co-author of three books, philosopher, musician, mathematician, and social worker.  He had a degree in mathematics from New York University, and was, during the 1950s, a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the Sorbonne.  At one time he considered becoming a jazz musician, but painting won out.

In his painting career, Bearden was an avid explorer—he tried color field, abstract expressionism, figuration.  He experimented with photo enlargements and torn paper techniques.  All these, plus his memories, came together for him in the technique of  

collage, which he began to use in the 1960s.  This is the medium for which he is best known, to the eclipse of his earlier work.  Collage with its sharp breaks, distortions, paradoxes and surrealistic styles, seemed to him the perfect way to express the blending of styles, values, hopes and dreams of his people.

The Gamblers

Many of the early collages are of city scenes, colorful, vibrant, and full of restless energy.  Gospel Song seems to be more reminiscent of his southern country memories; the colors are more subdued. A woman is seated in a chair.  A guitar—a frequent Bearden motif—is cradled in her outsized, androgynous hands.  She is anchored to the canvas by the bowed legs of the chair and by her Egyptian-style feet.

It is her eyes that transfix us.  They seem to be looking at us and through us, forcing us to listen to her, to her song of the history of her people.  We think of gospel music as jubilant, but her song seems to have great sadness to it.  It is hard to turn away.

Gospel Song invites comparison with the Byzantine icon in the Fountain Court and also with the Roman head with its wise, sad eyes.  We see the same poignancy.  It might also be compared with the compassionate gaze of the Bodhisattva Guan-yin or even the meditative musing of Bouguereau's Young Priestess.

Romare Bearden once said, "I want to paint the life of my people as I know it—passionately and dispassionately, as Brueghel painted the life of the Flemish people of his day."  Gospel Song sings to us of those people. 

A biography of Romare Bearden, written by Myron Schwartzman, is due for publication in the fall of 1991.  And check the Charlotte Whitney Allen Library for a newly-released exhibition catalog of Bearden's work.

 

THE ASHANTE STOOL

THE ASHANTE STOOL

    by Marjorie Searl

One of the most interesting pieces of African sculpture in our collection is the Asante stool (62.24). A catalog from a 1988 exhibition at the Galerie Amrad African Arts in Montreal, gives new insight into the aesthetic and cultural context of the stool.

The Ashante Stool

The Asante people are often referred to as Ashanti.  They speak the Akan language and live in the east central area of southern Ghana.  The founder of the Asante kingdom was King Osei Tutu, who lived in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.  He enlarged and strengthened the kingdom, which flourished until a conflict with the British Empire in 1896 led to his exile and the decline of his people.

While carved stools are common in Africa, the veneration of the stool and its connection to ancestral spirits is a practice unique to the Asante, according to E.A. Dagan, writer of the catalog essay.  Following is information from the catalog.

An Asante saying goes, "The stool contains the soul of its owner.  A man with no stool is a man with no dignity."  The carving of a stool is highly ritualized. The commissioned sculptor must meet rigorous qualifications.  He must have technical skills, imagination, and be a devout practitioner of moral codes, since the stool will eventually house the spirit of its owner.  Sacrifices and offerings are made, tools are purified, and the tree spirit is supplicated if a tree must be cut down to obtain the wood.

Only three types of wood can be used for the stool.  Each stool is carved from a single piece of wood and composed of three areas:  the base is a rectangular flat shape, the seat—larger than the base—is rectangular and curves upward, and the pedestal is carved with a variety of symbolic motifs.  The stool is cleaned at least once a year by being taken to the river, scrubbed with sand, and blanched with lemon juice.

The curvature of the seat is called “the mother's embrace.” A “good fortune stool” would be givenby a friend for good luck.  A crocodile symbolizes holiness.  The larger and more elaborate the stool, the greater the respect and higher the status of the purchaser.  For example, there are a number of designs available only to the king.  The Gallery's stool appears to most closely resemble a woman's stool.

"The Golden Stool" forms the basis of an Asante legend.  Following a battle between Osei Tutu and a neighboring king, the Asante were victorious but tribal unity was uncertain.  To celebrate, Osei Tutu invited his chiefs to a festivity on a Friday.  A storm broke out, and through the thunder and lightening, the Asante saw a white stool covered with gold descend from the sky and settle on Osei Tutu's knee.  The miracle of its appearance forged a new unity among the leaders, who believed that the nation's soul lived within the stool and they must remain united to protect it.  The stool is named Sika Dwa Kof—the Golden Stool Created on Friday.  From then on, the stool was hidden and used only on most important occasions.  If it appeared to be endangered, sacred offerings were made for its protection.

A blackened stool is one that has been ritually sanctified following its owner's death.  Sacrifices and libations are poured over the stool, which then receives the soul of the deceased, who becomes one of the ancestors who is worshipped.  The blackened stool resides in the stool temple.  Only people of high rank who have died by natural causes or bravery in battle, qualify for this honor.  Many rituals, such as the naming of a newborn or the seeking of forgiveness, include prayers directed toward the blackened stool.

Contemporary uses of the stool include festivals of worship as well as communication of symbolic messages, but to a less traditional degree than in the past.  Ghana has been independent since 1957, and contemporary furniture is mixed in with traditional stools in homes.  Rigid codes restricting use of motifs have been relaxed.  New symbols and themes are used in commissions.  There is great demand for these stools in local and tourist markets.

LOVE'S MIRROR

LOVE’S MIRROR

lLove's Mirror

A newspaper article from the Rochester Union and Advertiser, dated December 12, 1878, announced that "a rare acquisition" was coming to the city.  D. W. Powers had bought one of the finest pieces in the 1879 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition for his art gallery.  The piece referred to was Love's Mirror, the marble sculpture by Nicola Cantalamessa-Papotti, now in MAG's 19th-century European gallery.

An influential Rochester banker with an avid interest in art, Daniel W. Powers owned the impressive Powers Building with its cast iron facade, and in 1875 opened an art gallery on its top floor.  At first he displayed copies of European art; then he gradually added his own purchases to the collection.

The newspaper article goes on to describe the sculpture as that of a "full size female figure very scantily draped, reclining in a graceful sitting posture and gazing into a mirror held by Cupid, who is crouched at her feet.  The human form is perfect and every feature of the work full of interest...It must be seen to be understood."  It further states that the piece took three years to complete and, with its pedestal, weighs about 5,700 pounds.

The description is a good one.  Love's Mirror (66.20) depicts Cupid, the god of love, smiling mischievously at a maiden of classical beauty to whom he has presented a mirror.  He seems to be enjoying her first realization of her own beauty.

The work is remarkable in that, rather than making the figures as unified and as compact as possible, the sculptor has carved graceful shapes and forms that flow outside the central mass of the piece, jutting into the space around it.  Cupid's wing curls away from his shoulder; the mirror is held away from the figure; the curve of the lady's arm is outlined by the space between it and her body.  Such spaces and slender protrusions make the sculpting process both difficult and dangerous.

Cantalamessa-Papotti (1833-1910) was an Italian artist who studied in Ascoli and Rome.  His work was well known in his time, and his achievements included commissions from King Ferdinand II and Pope Pius IX.

He paid his first visit to the United States in 1857.  His works were displayed at the Philadelphia, Chicago, and St. Louis Expositions, all to great acclaim.  He received many commissions here, including, in 1881, the memorial to assassinated president James Garfield.

Cantalamessa-Papotti returned to Italy in 1882 where he sculpted the memorial to Victor Emmanuel II at Ascoli.  He entered the competition for the large equestrian statue of Victor Emmanuel to be set up in the Piazza Venezia in Rome, but his entry was not chosen.  He did, however, execute two lesser statues there:  Politicsand Victory. He died in Rome in 1910.

At least three other sculptures by Cantalamessa-Papotti can be seen in Rochester.  Two are in Mt. Hope Cemetery:  the George Ellwanger monument, with its statue of St. John (the patron saint of writers, shown working on a manuscript, with his symbol, the eagle, at his left side) and The Weary Pilgrim.  Another work by the artist marks the Barry plot in Holy Sepulcher Cemetery.

Both Love's Mirror and Thomas Ridgeway Gould's West Wind had been exhibited at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.  Both had been purchased by Daniel Powers and displayed in his Gallery.  Though the Powers Gallery closed in 1897, some of the art remained in the building, almost forgotten, for over six decades.  (Isabel Herdle remembered and rediscovered West Wind—but that's another story. (See April 2007.)  In 1966 both sculptures were donated to the Memorial Art Gallery through the Isaac Gordon estate.  West Wind was put on display, but Love's Mirror had to wait in storage for its turn.

Source: Curatorial files

GASTON LACHAISE

Fountain Figure

GASTON LACHAISE

by Joan K. Yanni

The acquisition of Gaston Lachaise's statuette of  Mrs.James Sibley Watson, Jr. marks a valuable addition to MAG's collection of works by Lachaise and focuses on the Rochester connection of the artist. 

Gaston Lachaise (1882-1935) was born in Paris, the son of a woodworker/cabinet maker.  A classically educated artist, he attended the Ecole des Beaux Arts, worked with Rene Lalique, and exhibited regularly at the Salon.  A meeting with American Isabel Nagle changed the direction—or at least the location—of is life. He fell in love with her and, though she was married, he followed her to Boston in 1906.  She did not become his wife until 1917, but she was forever his muse and often the model for his flamboyant female figures.

In the United States, Lachaise worked first with Henry Hudson Kitson on Civil War monuments, then moved to New York to collaborate with Paul Manship.  Though he worked as a traditional apprentice for many years, the works which Lachaise produced in his free time were unorthodox.  Except for his decorative animal figures, his art never caught the public's eye.  He was acclaimed by critics, however.  The Dial, a literary magazine which published the works of contemporary writers and artists, praised his work, and many Dial writers gave him commissions.  Among his portraits, in addition to our bust of Sibley Watson, are heads of O'Keefe, Steiglitz, John Marin, e.e. cummings (now in the Fogg Art Museum), and Marianne Moore (now in the Metropolitan Museum).

The standing woman theme was Lachaise's particular contribution to his art.  The sculptures of his wife—large, voluptuous, easily identifiable figures with a curiously light, tranquil step—serve as examples of his ideal woman.

In 1935, eight months before his death, he had the honor to become the second living American to have a retrospective at MOMA.  He died of leukemia in 1935.

James Sibley Watson, Jr. was the son of James and Emily Sibley Watson, founder of the Memorial Art Gallery.  Though Sibley Watson held a medical degree from New York University, he was always interested in the arts—sponsoring artists, making innovative films, and co-editing The Dial.  His marriage to Hildegarde Lasell of Boston deepened his interest in the artistic, for she sang, acted in his films, wrote, and painted.

Portraid Statuette of Mrs. J Sibley Watson Jr.

Sibley Watson and Lachaise probably met through The Dial.  The bronze head of Sibley Watson, which captures his quality of silent perception, was depicted in the magazine in 1927.  Through the relationship, Lachaise met other members of the family and crafted the painted alabaster head of Urling Sibley Iselin (1927), granddaughter of Hiram Sibley and niece of Emily Sibley Watson, and the bronze head of Samuel A. Torrens (1924), Hildegarde's music teacher.

Lachaise also executed MAG's remarkable, full-length portrait of Hildegarde, Portrait Statuette of Mrs. J. Sibley Watson Jr. (68.11).  A small sculpture (15 1/2 inches tall), its right leg steps forward confidently, its left is hidden in a billowing skirt.  Awareness, refinement and intelligence are depicted in the figure, cast in bronze with the bodice and skirt nickel-plated.  Rochester again figured in Lachaise's work when landscape architect Fletcher Steele asked him to do a sculpture for the garden of Charlotte Whitney Allen.  Our limestone Fountain Figure (1927) now in the Gallery Cafe, was the result.  Other lachaise sculptures owned by the Gallery include the bronze Standing Woman (1928) which overlooks the Sculpture Pavilion from her niche against the back wall (She was a gift of Peter Islen and his sister Emilie Wiggin); the small Standing Woman (1919) gift of Charlotte Whitney Allen; Standing Nude (1927); and Ogunquit Torso (1925)—one of his first fragment sculptures, a powerful piece that was formed in bronze and plated in nickel.  The Gallery is fortunate to have such a variety of first-rate works by the artist.

Source: Curatorial files

AMMI PHILLIPS; OLD WOMAN WITH A BIBLE

Old Woman with a Bible

AMMI PHILLIPS: OLD

WOMAN WITH A BIBLE

by Joan K. Yanni

The discovery and purchase of Old Woman with a Bible (84.22) was a coup for the curatorial department.  The painting was found in nearby Caledonia during the summer of 1984, and officially acquired by the Gallery in the fall.

The subject of the portrait is unidentified, but the portrait was probably painted in the early 1830s when the artist was working in the New York-Connecticut area. For more information, see Memorial Art Gallery: An Introduction to the Collection, page 179.

 (from Antiques Magazine, November, 1989)

Ammi Phillips' work was known long before his name.  In 1924 a group of unsigned portraits of Connecticut residents, all dating from about the mid-1830s, was displayed in Kent, Connecticut.  The artist was named the Kent Limner.  By the mid 1950s, another group of paintings, dating from about 1812 to 1819, had been isolated and called the work of the Border Limner because they were of subjects who lived in a narrow area on either side of the New York-Massachusetts border.

In 1958, after collectors Barbara and Lawrence Holdridge bought a portrait dated 1840 and signed Ammi Phillips, they began to study the painter.  Years later the Holdridges organized a major exhibition of more than seventy Phillips portraits at the Museum of American Folk Art in New York City.  Through their study of iconography, style, and subject, they established that Phillips was both the Kent and the Border Limner.  The list of paintings by or attributable to him in their catalog ran to 309 entries.  Today a register of the artist's work would include more than 500 canvasses—all portraits.

THOSE MOVING EYES

THOSE MOVING EYES...  

(Editor's Note:  All of us at one time or another, have called attention to portraits whose eyes appear to move. An anonymous docent tells us the reason for this phenomenon.)

THE EYES DO NOT FOLLOW YOU;

THE FOOT DOES NOT FOLLOW YOU;

NOT EVEN THE CHAIR!!!!!

Why do eyes or other parts of some paintings seem to move, following the viewer?  There are as many reasons given for this optical illusion as there are docents.

Too often, explanations rather than the art seem to become the primary focus of docents discussing Hyacinthe Rigaud's Portrait of Charles Gaspard Guillaume de Vintimille du Luc, Archbishop of Paris, and/or Henry Raeburn's Portrait of General Hay MacDowell.  Explanations range from "I don't know" to "because it's near the frontal plane."  Whatever reason is given, the result is that the viewer is often blocked from REALLY SEEING THE PAINTING.

Think about the fact that sculptures don't seem to "follow."  Why?  The nose is in the way!  In paintings, the artist has painted the image(s) on a flat surface which is always on view.  The image does not change from a frontal view to a 3/4 view to a side view as it would if you walked in front of a real person, foot, or chair which remained stationary.

It is a marvelous optical illusion, and probably artists have known about it from early times.  People who have not been told about the phenomenon have often noticed it on their own.  It heightens the "realistic" quality of certain paintings.

Real-life people will often follow you with their eyes or turn their head if you move when you are talking to them.  Paintings, however, do not move.  It is rather YOU who are following the eyes, feet, or chair.

(Further information on this subject can be found in Art and Illusion, by E. H. Gombrich)

GROPPER’S THE OPPOSITION

by Joan K. Yanni

Both William Gropper's The Opposition (51.5) and MAG's new print of the same name were executed by the artist in response to what he considered government censorship.  The works are current enough to appear on editorial pages today, when committees are discussing censorship of web sites and Congress has proposed legislation that would restrict the content of federally funded art programs.

During the early 1940s Gropper, always a crusader for freedom of speech, stated, "the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives have had such an influence on American life, good and bad, that it has even affected the arts and the cultural development of our country.  Only recently one blazing speech of a reactionary representative resulted...dismissing the Graphic Division of the OWI (Office of War Information) and nullifying art reportage for the War Department.  In my painting of the Senate, called Opposition, I have portrayed the type of representative that is opposed to progress and culture."

A staunch member of the social realism movement in American painters, Gropper (1897-1977) was born in New York City's Lower East Side.  His grandparents were immigrants.  His father, a scholarly man with wide interests, could speak eight languages but had trouble holding down a job.  His mother, a seamstress who took piece work home to do at night, supported the family.  Gropper dropped out of high school to take a job working 12 hours a day, six days a week, for $5.  Work in a sweatshop made him an advocate of liberal causes for the rest of his life.

Gropper began to take art courses at night in the Ferrer School under George Bellows and Robert Henri.  He was awarded a scholarship to the National Academy of Design, but failed to compete his course there.  The school was too rigid after the fellowship and freedom of criticism he had found with Bellows and Henri.

 His first job as a political cartoonist came with the New York Herald Tribune.  He continued as cartoonist and illustrated for various magazines through the twenties.

In 1936 he had his first exhibit as a painter, though he had been painting quietly for fifteen years.  His canvasses had many of the same qualities as his prints:  the same distortion, the same exaggeration of figures with iron-hard contours.  He combined a muted palette with stippled textures and a dramatic use of white pigment.  He had a marvelous sense of movement and action.

The Opposition, with its distorted forms and its placement of rude, inattentive, gossipy figures among empty chairs, reveals Gropper's contempt for what he considered to be an ineffective and indifferent bureaucratic system.

Gropper editorialized in paint the social maladies of the 30s and 40s.  Along with many other artists, he was blacklisted by the McCarthy UnAmerican Activities Committee.  Throughout his life he continued to encourage social consciousness and reform. 

The Opposition was among fourteen paintings purchased by the Gallery in 1950 from the Encyclopedia Brittanica collection with the help of former Senator William Benton and the Marion Stratton Gould Fund.  Other paintings in the purchase, which became the core of our early 20th century collection, include Thomas Hart Benton's Boomtown, John Sloan's Chinese Restaurant, George Luks's London Cabby, Stuart Davis's Landscape with Garage Lights, Arthur Dove's Cars in a Sleetstorm, Ralston Crawford's Whitestone Bridge, Georgia O'Keeffe's Jawbone and Fungus, George Grosz' The Wanderer, John Marin's Marin Island - Small Point, Maine, Max Weber's Discover, Walt Kuhn's Clown, Robert Gwathmey's Non-Fiction, and Karl Zerbe's Troupers.

The Opposition

April 1990

BUTTERSWORTH: FLYING CLOUD & FLEETWING

Flying Cloud

BUTTERSWORTH: FLYING CLOUD & FLEETWING 

Two paintings have been acquired to augment the American collection.

James E. Buttersworth's The Clipper Ship "Flying Cloud" off the Needles, Isle of Night (89.71) has been hung in the 18th century American gallery.  Beside it is a smaller painting by the same artist, Fleetwing Loses Six Men Overboard (17.79).  The subject of both is the clipper ship, the artist's specialty.

"Flying Cloud" was the most famous clipper ship in maritime history.  She was made in Boston, the masterpiece of shipmaker Donald McKay; and her design was unsurpassed in speed, weatherliness, and beauty.  In 1854 she set a record of 89 days for a trip around Cape Horn—a record which stood until 1989, when broken by "Thursday's Child," which made the passage in 80 days!

Buttersworth (1817-1894) was born in England and came to the United States around 1850.  He was well known to his contemporaries because many of his paintings were reproduced in lithographs done by the popular Currier and Ives.

ILYA BOLOTOWSKY

Untitled (Relational Painting)

ILYA BOLOTOWSKY

The second new work, Untitled (Relational Painting), by Ilya Bolotowsky, is a non-objective painting which shows the artist's skill in using primary colors and the grid motif.

Born in Russia, Bolotowsky (1907-1983) was influenced by the Russian constructivists, by Mondrian, and by the Dutch de Stijl school.  When he came to the United States in the 1930s, he took Mondrian's color and space and developed them further in rhymes and complicated patterns.  Our painting is pure design, typical of experiments into what came to be known as "neo-plasticism," an attempt to reduce art to its purest essentials and to show that formal elements can create movement and vitality.  To quote curator Patti Junker, "Color and tone project space and spatial relationships, lines suggest direction and rhythm, the shape of the canvas suggests a design motif in and of itself."

MONDINI'S HARPSICHORD

MONDINI’S HARPSICHORD

by Joan K. Yanni

Docents who have had to coax their tours away from the harpsichord in the Baroque room in order to look at other art have asked about the history of the eye-catching instrument.

The harpsichord was built in the studio of Joseph Mondini, a native of Imola, Italy, and was signed and dated 1696.  Where it went immediately after its completion is unclear, but it is known that Mondini worked for Pope Alexander VIII, Ferdinand de Medici, and other notable patrons.  Our provenance dates from the late 19th century, when the instrument was owned by American actress Ada Rehan and used by impresario David Belasco in Broadway productions such as The School forScandal and The Taming of the Shrew. After Rehan's death, it passed into a Rochester private collection.  It was presented to the Gallery in 1977 by a "Friend of the Gallery."

Harpsichord experts who examined the instrument for the Gallery found it to be of outstanding quality and said that it could be restored to its original condition.  The instrument was sent, therefore, to the studio of Lynette Tsiang in Summerville, Massachusetts, to be restored.  The case was restored in Oberlin, Ohio, at the Intermuseum Conservation Laboratory.  Because harpsichords such as ours were often kept in decorative cases and taken out and placed on tables to be played, it is not certain that the painted case is contemporary with the instrument. It would not date from much later, however, since the heavy floral decoration and putti are painted in a style dating from either the late 17th or early 18th century.

The landscape scene, showing Apollo and the Muses in a wooded setting, is very much in the style of Gaspard Poussin, a brother-in-law of the French history painter Nicholas Poussin.  The scene, with its classical temple and waterfall, is probably meant to represent the Roman ruins at Tivoli, a site popular in the 18th century.  Have you noticed that the painter created two scenes in one?  The main landscape is painted from left to right across the lid, with the horizon parallel to the back hinges.  A second scene emerges if only the front part of the lid is turned back: the ground is then seen from left to right parallel to the keyboard.  The legs and frame may not be original, and could have been made later to support the case.

One thing is certain: the range of the keyboard was altered to increase the span from 54 to 58 keys, presumably during the 18th century.  The original had walnut keys with ivory keytops; those added are fruitwood with bone.  At that time the base strings were shortened and the tail of the case was cut down to adapt to the new shape.  Since neither the decorative paintings on the top and sides nor the landscape on the inside of the lid seem interrupted by this change, they were probably executed after the case was cut down.

The harpsichord was played only once at the Gallery after restoration:  at a  patrons' dinner on June 6, 1993, when Ross Wood, a harpsichord expert with the Eastman School of Music's Sibley Music Library, gave a lecture and concert using the instrument.  After the concert a crack was found on the right side of the cypress soundboard.  Two trips back to Massachusetts for repairs and further restoration followed, until both the Gallery and Tsiang decided that it could not be permanently repaired without complete rebuilding--a procedure which would erase the authenticity of the piece.

The harpsichord now stands as a beautiful museum piece attracting the attention of all visitors and perhaps recalling more glamorous times.

Sources:  Curatorial files and October, 1981, Gallery Notes.

HAPRSICHORD

SIR LAWRENCE ALMA-TADEMA

A Sculpture Garden

SIR LAWRENCE ALMA-TADEMA

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema's A Sculpture Garden or The Sculpture Gallery (89.45) was acquired this year through the Strasenburgh Fund and has been installed in the 19th-century European Gallery.  Laurens Alma-Tadema was born in Holland in 1836.  Alma, a family name, was inserted at the request of his godfather.  He was trained in art in Antwerp, and was fascinated by anthropology—a fact apparent in most of his work.  His early training was in history painting, done with accuracy and realism.

In 1863 he visited Italy where he saw the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum.  From that time on he strove to recreate the daily life of Rome and Pompeii, using exact archaeological settings washed in golden Mediterranean sun.

He found a market for his pictures through Ernest Gambart, one of the most influential of all Victorian art dealers, and became internationally known.  In 1870 he went to England to live, married an English woman (his first wife had died), and adopted the English spelling of his name.

Alma-Tadema made extensive use of the new art of photography, using photographs as references for ancient architecture and classical ornamental design.  Every detail in his paintings is done with painstaking care— he was known to offer visitors a magnifying glass with which to examine his work.  Each flower is a replica of a real specimen; all of his materials, whether diaphanous draperies or animal skins or cold, lustrous marble, were made real through his skill with paint.

Tad, as he was known to his friends, was an extrovert, a lover of parties and jokes.  He once appeared at a ball dressed as a Roman emperor; one of his houses resembled a Pompeiian palace.  Knighted in 1899, he was one of the richest and most successful of all Victorian artists.  He died in 1912.

The Strasenburgh fund was established in honor of Clara and Edwin Strasenburgh.  Francesco Guardi's San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, is among the MAG works acquired through the Fund.

DURAND'S GENESEE OAKS

                                                               DURAND'S GENESEE OAKS
                                                                        By Joan K Yanni

Genesee Oaks

During adult tours docents are often asked about the setting for Asher B. Durand's Genesee Oaks (74.5).  The painting was commissioned by James Samuel Wadsworth, whose family had settled in Geneseo.   Durand sketched in the area during June and July of 1859 and completed the painting in his New York studio in 1860.  The oaks still stand today in and around Geneseo, and the Wadsworth family still lives in the mansion on the estate.

COLE'S ITALIAN SCENERY

Landscape Composition: Italian Scenery

COLE’S ITALIAN SCENERY

By Joan K Yanni

Don't laugh at ads for "sofa-size paintings."  Our Thomas Cole, Landscape Composition: Italian Scenery (71.37) was commissioned in Florence in June, 1881, by American Rufus Lord who wanted a painting with dimensions to suit the space above his parlor mantel.  For the work Cole used images seen in Italy during his residence there: castles, towers, trees, and hills, a bucolic fantasy set among classical, overgrown ruins. Later Cole painted a companion piece for Lord's second mantel: The Notch of the White Mountains, now in the National Gallery in Washington.

MANUSCRIPTS

MANUSCRIPTS

The paintings in illuminated manuscripts were called miniatures, not because they were small, but because red paint, "minium" in Latin, was often used in their decoration.  When parchment replaced papyrus in manuscripts, illustrations became elaborate and the manuscripts became more expensive.  (This was because of materials, not man-hours— monks' time was not chargeable!)  Parchment and vellum were made from goat, sheep and calf skin; the color and quality depended upon the age, texture, and country of origin of the skin.

 Two different artists did the illustrations and the text.  Pens for the finest work were made from the quills of a crow, with very long slits.  Writing was done with goose or weed quills that had a shorter slit.  Colors came from natural materials: black from twig or candle soot; white from white lead; blue from lapis lazuli and indigo; red from sulfur, quick silver (mercury) or red lead; green rather than brittle.  Gold and silver were natural and usually used in leaf form.

An expert monk could do fifteen pages of script a day.   Artists and scribes rarely signed their work, but did add dedication or warnings of a curse should anyone destroy the work.  Despite the enforced silence in the scriptorium, monks found a way to communicate: in the margins of some books are notes from one monk to another.

Research on manuscripts by docent Bonnie Nolen. (1989)

OUTDOOR SCULPTURE (August 1989}

OUTDOOR SCULPTURE (August 1989)

by Joan K. Yanni

Just outside the main doors, a pair of sculptures by Scottsville artist Nancy Jurs flanks the entrance. Called Emergence (96.9.1, 2), the sculptures are made of clay, and are hollow.

Emergence

In the circle in front of the Gallery is the kinetic sculpture by George Rickey, Two Lines Up Excentric—Twelve Feet (94.44). Always “awesome,” it moves with the wind—and the blades never touch!

Two Lines Up Excentric--Twelve Feed

On the grounds at Goodman and toward Prince Street (east to west), the first sculpture we meet is Go (75.19) by Duayne Hatchett.  It is made of aluminum plate and plexiglass. (Look for the plexiglass—it's there! It looks yellow-green from the front, clear in back.)  Go is next to the walkway between the parking lot and the front of Cutler Union.  Does it look like a sail?  A boat?  Does it move?

Go

Just west of the front entrance to Cutler is Meridian (69.35), by Ettore Colla.  Constructivist Colla has created an intersected circle resting on a small circle—all made of iron.

Meridian

Near University, next to the sidewalk leading to Cutler is Ell II (77.89) by Larry Mohr; medium:  aluminum beams.  And on the lawn at University near the main entrance drive is Beverly Pepper's shining Vertical Ventaglio (78.195), constructed of stainless and carbon steel and painted with black automotive paint. Is it a fan?  Falling boxes?  You can see your image in it as well as the reflection of traffic and the lovely Victorian houses across University Avenue.

Ventaglio

(70.57) by Tony Smith—medium: painted mild steel.  Kids used to love to climb on it, but insurance concerns now forbid it.

Playgroun

Just west of University Avenue entrance drive is Converging Cubes (68.3), by William F. Sellers; medium:  painted Corten steel.  The sculpture is ever-changing as you walk around it.

Converging Cubes

Mountain Piece

In the court area in the alcove to the right of the front steps of the 1913 building—and visible through the windows in the Gill Education Center—are the cast bronze Mountain Piece (75.114), by Hilda Morris, and Six Cubes (67.21), another piece by William F. Sellers—this one of stainless steel. If you look carefully, the Morris piece becomes three folk dancers...or merely mountain peaks?  The most recent addition to that space is (or are?) Penguins (89.56.1-3) by Blanca Will. The charming sculptures were completed in and the Wills’ family had them cast in 1989.

Six Cubes

Penguins

Suggestions for looking at these sculptures on a tour:  (Adapted from a 1986 outline by former curator/educator Penny Knowles)

Movement

Are any of these pieces kinetic (incorporate actual movement) or is the movement implied?  What kind of movement do they suggest?  Why?

Texture

How many different textures do you see?  Are some of them opposites?  (rough-smooth, matte-shiny, etc.)

Size

Is the size of the piece important?  Is it measured with the eye, the body, or its surroundings?

Color

Does its color change with the light?  Does color enhance its effect?  Is it harmonious with the surroundings or contrasting?

Mass and Volume

Sculpture has height, width and depth.  It also has mass and volume, and can be referred to as having positive and negative space.

Which works have more mass, which more volume?  What happens if you walk around them or look through them?  If you took Bill Sellers' Converging Cubes and flattened it out, what would it look like?

Placement

Why do you think the pieces were placed where they are?  Where else might they be?  How do they add to the Museum grounds?

Content

What would you name any single sculpture?

HICKS: THE PEACEABLE KINGDOM

Pierrepont Lacey and Gun

HICKS: THE PEACEABLE KINGDOM

by Joan K Yanni

LOOK AGAIN, Docents, at the wondrous painting The Peaceable Kingdom, on loan until December from Cooperstown.  Though we miss Pierrepont Lacey and Gun, curator Patti Junker could not have made a better trade—even for a short time—than Edward Hicks's work

Perhaps the best known of American folk painters, Edward Hicks (1780-1849) was a Quaker born in the farming country of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, north of Philadelphia.  A sign and carriage painter by trade, he learned the technique of careful lettering, painting with flat, decorative colors, and the use of gold leaf.

Hicks devoted much of his art to expressing his faith in the peaceful coexistence of man and nature. His popularity today rests largely on his many representations of The Peaceable Kingdom, illustrating the prophecy in the book of Isaiah, Chapter 11.  More than 100 of these exist, for he painted them to give to his friends as expressions of his Quaker faith in God and hope for peace on earth.  He devised stock patterns of all the animals mentioned by Isaiah, but arranged them differently in each picture.

Some of his pictures have scriptural texts carefully lettered across the bottom or around all four sides, as in our loan.  Peaceful beasts with a child in their midst are seen in combination with a river landscape and the scene of William Penn making a treaty with the Indians.  The text reads:

"The leopard with the harmless kid laid down,

            And not one savage beast was seen to

            frown.

            The lion with the fatling on did move,

            A little child was leading them in love.

            The wolf did with the lambkin dwell in

            peace,

            His grim carniv'rous nature there did

            cease.

When the great PENN his famous treaty made

            With Indian chiefs beneath the elm-trees

            shade."