Previous: The Two English Friends (8)
Next: Angelo del Maino - Massacre of the Innocents (10)
Truncated travel roundup
Post #942 • January 19, 2007, 9:24 AM • 15 Comments
Artblog.net returns Tuesday with images from this rather promising looking thing. Just a few items:
Artblog.net congratulates Modern Art Notes on its "new, 2002 21st-century look." Seriously, congrats. What's crazy is that the first time I loaded this up yesterday, comments were enabled. I thought, Whoa. Two minutes later they were gone. It was just one of those What Does This Button Do moments. I've had a few myself. ArtsJournal has quite a few juicy visual art items this morning.
A show of Monet drawings, soon to open at the Royal Academy, will come to the Clark this summer. Hurrah!
Department of Skills: Drawing a circle freehand. (Kottke)
2.
January 20, 2007, 3:30 PM
I'm not sure if this article was linked here before but it is very interesting. We can disagree with the Saatchi's choices but we can't deny his influance on contemporary art scene.
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/yourgallery/story/0,,1865902,00.html#article_continue
3.
January 20, 2007, 4:36 PM
ahab is yearning to book a flight to Boston to look at all that sculpture!
4.
January 20, 2007, 7:39 PM
Tell Ahab to keep visualizing some Serra thing or other. That should fix him.
5.
January 21, 2007, 1:04 AM
Serra's canted plates can't placate, sorry.
Here's a pretty good Italian sculpture archive with dozens of sculptures by hundreds of artists - from my favourite Donatello I've never seen to my favourite Giambologna I've never seen.
6.
January 21, 2007, 9:50 PM
Now you've got me visualizing what I could make out of one of those Serras, Jack.
7.
January 21, 2007, 9:59 PM
I'm with ahab (in spirit, at least)... getting a look at either this Giambologna or this Donatello in the flesh would help a few works-in-progress in my own studio, no doubt (although I'd be suprised if either were at the BMFA).
Please post pictures, Phranklin.
8.
January 21, 2007, 10:17 PM
Ooh. That's the Giambologna money picture that I was looking for.
9.
January 22, 2007, 2:58 PM
That Giambologna is in Florence. I'm not familiar with that Donatello bust. There's a great place in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, which is usually missed by tourists, called the Plaster Courts. It's like an Aladdin's Cave crammed with full-size, remarkably good plaster casts of all sorts of famous statues, particularly Italian Renaissance masterpieces. They were probably made in the 18th and 19th centuries, when that sort of thing was still allowed (it certainly wouldn't be now), and used as study tools for art students as well as (presumably) viewing by the public that couldn't go to Italy to see them. I think a sculptor would have a field day in there, like a kid in a candy store. Among other things, Ahab's Donatello piece is there. There's also a Michelangelo marble tondo (not a copy) in the Royal Academy. Plus the regular sculpture galleries in the V&A and, of course, the British Museum. Great stuff.
10.
January 22, 2007, 3:03 PM
Saw it this morning. Wow. More tomorrow.
11.
January 22, 2007, 8:32 PM
I've visited the V&A room of which you write, Jack, and it is great. If I recall correctly, the plinth of the Michelangesque "David" has mounted, on the backside, a small case which holds a fig leaf, for Dave to wear when Queenie came for a visit...
12.
January 22, 2007, 8:42 PM
Well, of course, Marc. One can't have the Queen, well, unduly distracted by nasty male bits. It's enough she had to do her duty to produce enough offspring to marry off to every royal house in Europe. After all that, uh, work, I'm sure the poor woman hardly needed to be reminded of the source of her labors (no pun intended). The term Victorian wasn't based on her name for nothing.
13.
January 22, 2007, 8:55 PM
There's also an out-of-the-way area in the British Museum (maybe in the basement) that's full of sculptures (real ones, not casts), mostly marbles. It's very cool. The tourists tend to stick with the big flashy things in the main display areas, but museum geeks like me know it pays to pore over the master plan and look everywhere.
14.
January 22, 2007, 9:23 PM
I know Jack's onto something really great when he gets so carried away that he says it's "cool".
15.
January 22, 2007, 11:17 PM
I have a great weakness for photographing interesting sculptures, especially marbles, from different angles and focusing on different details. They're beautiful, still and and perfectly cooperative. I never quite know how the photos will turn out, but the surprise element is part of the appeal. I never use flash, of course. They hate that. But otherwise, they rarely disappoint.
1.
Jack
January 19, 2007, 2:37 PM
Promising indeed. And to think some or much of this work has been lying around in storage for years. Must be nice to be a real museum with a real collection, deep enough to allow for such relative neglect.