LRM Online's Gig Patta spoke with guests Yareli Arizmendi and Sergio Arau on the red carpet at the premiere of The American Ballet Theater's Like Water for Chocolate.
Nothing could be sweeter than the U.S. Premiere of Like Water for Chocolate for American Ballet Theatre’s Spring engagement at Segerstrom Center for the Arts. This full-length ballet created by the brilliant choreographer Christopher Wheeldon brings the famous novel by Laura Esquivel to mouth-watering life.
Reuniting the award-winning team of Wheeldon (fresh from his Tony Award victory for MJ: The Musical) with composer Joby Talbot, and Tony-winning costume designer Bob Crowley, you’ll journey into the captivating family saga where the central character’s emotions spill out through cooking to influence everyone around her in startling and dramatic ways. Like Water for Chocolate tells the story of Tita, a young Mexican woman whose restrictive upbringing prevents her from marrying until her mother dies. Overwhelmed by a sense of duty and family tradition, Tita’s only form of expression is through cooking, but her life takes an unexpected turn when she falls in love with her wealthy neighbor Pedro. Their forbidden passion has far-reaching—and devastating—consequences.
With the superstar dancers of ABT translating the richly layered story, Center audiences will be the 1st in the country to experience this magical Mexican love story!
Sunday, September 10, 2023
The Golden Hour - Venezia
%20copy.jpeg)
Gregg Chadwick
30"x24" oil on linen 2023
Do you cherish a city or place that takes your breath away? For me, Venice, Italy has been a world of wonder since I first visited. My oil on linen painting "The Golden Hour" was inspired by my time over the years in the magical city of Venice. Poised between sea and land, Venice is a place where light, shade, color, and reflection merge and recombine in a watery environment. In this mirrored world, past and present seem to coexist.History's shadows slide in and out of darkened alleys.
The color and light found in the artworks of the Venetian painters Bellini, Carpaccio, Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, and Tiepolo, seen up close in the city of their creation, have been revelatory for me.
Their works glow like light upon water. This effect of reflected, sparkling light bouncing off canals, is called gibigiane in Venetian dialect. The liquid nature of transparent oils glowing from within, as if light lived within the pigment, captures me. I continue to study and adapt Venetian painting techniques in my paintings.
See this painting and more in my studio at Art at the Airport on September 30, 2023 from 5-9pm.
Kindly RSVP in advance:
https://artattheairport.eventbrite.com
Art At The Airport is made possible by Art of Recovery, an initiative of Santa Monica Cultural Affairs, santamonica.gov/arts/artofrecovery.
To learn about upcoming Art At The Airport events, visit: https://www.artattheairport.org/
Monday, August 28, 2023
Sunday, August 20, 2023
My First Hurriquake!
‘Hurriquake’ is a new one for us, too.
— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) August 20, 2023
Monday, August 14, 2023
His Name Was Bélizaire’: Rare Portrait of Enslaved Child Arrives at the Met
‘His Name Was Bélizaire’: Rare Portrait of Enslaved Child Arrives at the Met
— Gregg Chadwick 🇺🇦 🟧 (@greggchadwick) August 14, 2023
Check out this article from @nytimes. Because I'm a subscriber, you can read it through this gift link without a subscription. https://t.co/O7W7yVm2i2
Jeremy K. Simien, an art collector from Baton Rouge, spent years trying to find “Bélizaire” after seeing an image of it online in 2013, following its restoration, that featured all four figures.
Bélizaire and the Frey Children (After and Before Restoration)
Attributed to Jacques Amans
(French artist Jacques Amans was a leading portraitist in New Orleans during the 1840s- 1850s)
Metropolitan Museum of Art Collection, New York
Friday, August 11, 2023
Maui Strong
PSA: If you have a vacation to Maui planned for the next couple of months, you should probably cancel. The focus has to be on recovery & we need to house thousands of displaced people. Also while we appreciate your photos of Lahaina when you were on vacation, right now...it hurts
— HawaiiDelilah™ 🟦 #MauiStrong (@HawaiiDelilah) August 11, 2023
Wednesday, August 02, 2023
Congressman Eric Swalwell Exposes The Ridiculousness of the House GOP
MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas interviews Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell about the Donald Trump indictment, the conduct by the House GOP, and the Democratic Party agenda.
Rep Eric Swalwell actively illustrates bravery and political courage outlined in fellow Rep Joe Neguse's new book - Courage in The People's House: Nine Trailblazing Representatives Who Shaped America
Support Congressman Swalwell: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/mt83
Follow Congressman Swalwell on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RepSwalwell
And This:
Ari Melber shows evidence connecting Ted Cruz and GOP senators to the coup plot. pic.twitter.com/V0EX33QMVW
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) August 2, 2023
Monday, July 31, 2023
Good Trouble in The People’s House
by Gregg Chadwick
Review of Courage in The People's House: Nine Trailblazing Representatives Who Shaped America by Joe Neguse
Courage in The People's House: Nine Trailblazing Representatives Who Shaped America by Joe Neguse is the latest in a line of must-read books about the history of political thought and action in the United States. Joe Neguse, the first Black American elected to the House of Representatives from Colorado, tells the stories of nine folks who stepped up and served their communities and country as elected representatives in Congress. Neguse explains that “the People's House fulfills the founders' intent as the most democratic part of our federal government. And true to form, over the decades this system has worked to open up access to more of our citizens.”
Neguse deftly tells the stories of nine groundbreaking Congressional Representatives:
Joseph Rainey
Joseph Rainey from South Carolina was the first Black person to serve in the United States House of Representative where he fought to pass laws that guaranteed equality for all in the United States.
Neguse quotes Rainey as he spoke to his fellow Congressional Representatives: “Why is it that the colored members of Congress cannot enjoy the same immunities that are accorded to white members? Why cannot we stop at hotels here without meeting objection? Why cannot we go into restaurants without being insulted? We are here enacting laws for the country and casting votes upon important questions; we have been sent here by the suffrages of the people, and why cannot we enjoy the same benefits that are accorded to our white colleagues on this floor?.... Why this discrimination against us when we enter public conveyances or places of amusement? Why is a discrimination made against us in the churches; and why in the cemeteries when we go to pay that last debt of nature that brings us all upon a level?
Gentlemen, I say to you this discrimination must cease.”
Josiah Walls
Josiah Walls from Florida was the first African American elected to the U.S. Congress from the Sunshine State and the only Black Representative from Florida until the early 1990s. During the Civil War, Walls joined the Third Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Colored Troops in time to fight during the assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina in July 1863. Walls campaigned in Congress for universal education throughout the U.S.
Neguse informs us that “In his first term in Congress, Walls pushed hard for education and the economic development of his state. He was a prolific legislator, introducing more than fifty bills as a member of Congress, many of them for improvements in Florida, and won a number of victories.
He proposed new mail routes that sped postal service, new customs houses, navigational improvements, lifesaving stations, telegraph lines, and a rail link to a port that would aid transportation to Cuba. And he received widespread praise in Florida's newspapers for his efforts.”
William B. Wilson
William B. Wilson from Pennsylvania was an immigrant from Scotland who worked as a child laborer in the coal mines of Pennsylvania and later became a labor leader and progressive politician. Wilson was elected to Congress and later served as the first Secretary of Labor from 1913 to 1921.
Wilson’s inspiring words are as true today as they were in 1920s America: “The men who seek money are always doomed sooner or later; the men who seek power or fame are continually taking chances and running risks of disaster; but those who are actuated by a simple desire to serve are the ones who ultimately win. The paths of such men may be long and tedious. It may be necessary for them to go through sloughs of despond and to climb treacherous heights; but by keeping the one star in mind they ultimately win, and become an honor to their families, to their communities, and to their nation.”
Adolph Sabath
Adolph Sabath from Illinois was an immigrant from what is now the Czech Republic who became a tireless fighter for immigrant rights in the United States. Sabath served in the U.S. House from 1907 to 1952. Sabath’s celebration of immigrants in the U.S. is deeply inspiring – “Due to immigration, our country is the wonder of civilization. Its population is made up of all the peoples of the earth. We have all races, all religions, all nationalities. They have come to us from all quarters of the globe, and we have the best.”
Oscar Stanton De Priest
Oscar Stanton De Priest from Illinois was the first African American to be elected to the House of Representatives in the 20th century. During his three terms, he was the only Black American serving in the House and had to battle against segregationist policies and racism within the U.S. Capitol Building. In a fervent speech before Congress he exclaimed, “The restaurant of the Capitol is run for the benefit of the American people, and every American, whether he be Black or White, Jew or Gentile, Protestant or Catholic, under our constitutional form of Government is entitled to equal opportunities. If we allow segregation and the denial of constitutional rights under the dome of the Capitol where in God's name will we get them?"
Margaret Chase Smith
Margaret Chase Smith from Maine was elected to the House and also the US Senate thus becoming the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress.
In 1950, during McCarthy’s Red Scare, Margaret Chase Smith delivered in the Senate Chamber a stirring rebuke against McCarthyism in which she defended American citizens’ rights to criticize, to hold unpopular beliefs, and to protest: “The United States Senate has long enjoyed worldwide respect as the greatest deliberative body in the world. But recently that deliberative character has too often been debased to the level of a forum of hate and character assassination sheltered by the shield of congressional immunity . . . I do not like the way the Senate has been made a rendezvous for vilification, for selfish political gain at the sacrifice of individual reputations and national unity."
Neguse deftly describes the moment as Smith concluded her speech – “She called for the body to remember American principles of free speech and fairness, she did not mince words. It was time, she stated plainly, for her party to disavow ‘t]he four horsemen of calumny- fear, ignorance, bigotry, and smear.’ The eyes of the reporters were transfixed on McCarthy, sitting a mere three feet away, as he turned pale and grim. He rapidly left the chamber as Smith finished her speech.”
Henry B. Gonzalez
Henry B. Gonzalez from Texas was the first Hispanic American ever elected to Congress from the Lone Star State. Neguse paints a vivid picture of Gonzalez’s road to the People’s House: “His parents were political exiles from Mexico and had hoped to return there, even after Henry was born in 1916, but they never did. An avid student of American history and the Constitution at an early age, he learned to speak English during the first grade in San Antonio and spent his days at the local library, reading history, literature, and classic texts in English. To eliminate his accent and improve his public speaking voice, he practiced with pebbles in his mouth in front of a mirror, after learning from his reading that the Greek orator Demosthenes had done the same. At home he read widely in Spanish, as well, devouring books brought home by his father, Leonides, who was editor of a Spanish-language daily newspaper.”
During the Vietnam War, Gonzalez was concerned that too much war making power had been given to the U.S. President: “If the president has unlimited foreign as well as domestic powers, what remains to prevent the development of a police state?
What remains to keep the government from assuming all power in the name of one man? The answer is that Congress must share the power. The president may not like this, but if we want this government to survive, that is the way it has to be. When the flexibility and suppleness of the Constitution are gone and power is no longer divided, the revolution will be over, and the king will be restored to his throne.”
Shirley Chisholm
Shirley Chisholm from New York was the first black woman to be elected to the United States House of Representatives. Chisholm represented New York's 12th congressional district for seven terms from 1969 to 1983. The powerful words of Shirley Chisholm exemplify courage:
“I ran for the presidency, despite hopeless odds, to demonstrate sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo.”
Fighting Shirley Chisholm: Unbought and Unbossed.
Barbara Jordan
photo by Annie Leibovitz
Barbara Jordan from Texas was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction and the first Southern Black woman elected to the United States Congress.
Jordan’s courageous speech during the Watergate hearings in 1974 still resonates today – “Earlier today, we heard the beginning of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States, 'We the people.' It is a very eloquent beginning. But when that document was completed on the seventeenth of September in 1787, I was not included in that 'We the people.' I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision I have finally been included in 'We, the people.' Today, I am an inquisitor. I believe hyperbole would not be fictional and would not overstate the solemnness that I feel right now. My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total. I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.”
Power concedes nothing without a struggle
Neguse concludes his book by encouraging Americans to get involved, to support democracy, and to vote in every election. - “As citizens, we each have a solemn responsibility to contribute to this magnificent experiment in self-governance.”
Neguse reminds us that one of Shirley Chisholm’s favorite maxims was proclaimed by Frederick Douglas when he said that, “Power concedes nothing without a struggle.”
And John Lewis was always willing to get into Good Trouble when he was seeking positive change.
Joe Neguse’s inspiring book Courage in The People's House: Nine Trailblazing Representatives Who Shaped America vividly opens up dusty copies of the Congressional Record and brings the stories of American changemakers to life.
Highly Recommended!
by Gregg Chadwick
14"x11" oil on wood 2023
Joe Neguse and his family and friends attend the swearing in ceremony at the U.S. House of Representatives.
Courtesy of Joe Neguse
Joe Neguse's Official House Photo
* All photos, unless noted, courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Sunday, July 30, 2023
Happy Birthday Kate Bush - and Emily Brontë
Born on 30 July: Emily Brontë (1818), the author of the classic novel, Wuthering Heights, and Kate Bush (1958), the composer of the pop song inspired by the novel. pic.twitter.com/utirkvhk04
— Prof. Frank McDonough (@FXMC1957) July 30, 2023
Emily Brontë
by Patrick Branwell Brontë
circa 1833
21 1/2 in. x 13 3/4 in.
From the National Portrait Gallery in London:
This portrait
"This painting, which was discovered at the same time as the famous group portrait of the Brontë Sisters (see NPG 1725), is apparently all that remains of a group portrait of the Brontës by Branwell Brontë of which it formed the right-hand part. The shape just visible to the left is almost certainly the shoulder and arm of Branwell Brontë, who also appears second from the right in the two other Brontë groups (NPG 1725, where he painted himself out, and the 'Gun Group'), his head forming the apex of a triangular composition. While the identification of the Brontë sisters in the surviving NPG group is now generally accepted, the identity of the sitter in this fragment is still disputed, and the claims of Emily and Anne have both been pressed.In an interview in 1895, the Rev Nicholls told Clement Shorter that he had cut out a portrait of Emily, from a group picture, which he then destroyed, and gave the fragment to the Brontës' old servant, Martha Brown, during one of her visits to him in Ireland. [1] Martha Brown is known to have been in possession of this portrait of Emily in 1879, for in that year, Sir William Robertson Nicoll visited her in Haworth and saw it there:'I shall never cease to regret that I did not buy the portrait she had of Emily Brontë, though I got a few other things. I did not buy it because I could not very well afford it, and it has been irrevocably lost. I have made many efforts since, and have been helped by many of Martha Brown's relatives. But that really fine and expressive painting has hopelessly disappeared, and now we have nothing that deserves to be called a likeness of that rarely endowed girl.' [2]"
by Patrick Branwell Brontë
circa 1834
35 1/2 in. x 29 3/8 in.
More on Emily Brontë by Patti Smith at this link - https://open.substack.com/pub/pattismith/p/no-coward-soul-mine?r=92ug&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Monday, July 24, 2023
We Are All The Hold Steady
by Gregg Chadwick
Review: The Gospel of The Hold Steady: How a Resurrection Really Feels
by Michael Hann and The Hold Steady
Craig Finn and The Hold Steady
The Hold Steady, described by many as the world’s best bar band outside of E Street, releases a new book on July 25, 2023 that delves deeply into the stories behind the band and its loyal fans. The physical book is gorgeous. The story of the band and their passionate fans blazes across the volume from the first page to the last. Over two hundred expertly composed photographs capture The Hold Steady on stage and off with a proper smattering of confetti strewn floors.
The history of The Hold Steady is told through interviews with the band members and those who were there behind the scenes. From their Midwest roots to their adopted Brooklyn home, the members of The Hold Steady open up about the struggles and triumphs of creating, performing, and promoting their music. Lead singer and lyricist Craig Finn opens the book with a heartfelt introduction. “The Hold Steady didn’t change my life, it is my life.”, Craig writes. And then says, “And if you’ve read this far, it’s likely yours too. Our songs are mainly fiction, but they try to be very honest at the same time. So, at the end of each show, we say and scream and shout all together a benediction: “We Are All The Hold Steady!”
The Hold Steady
In The Gospel of The Hold Steady, we hear from the members of the group as they describe the birth of the band. The Hold Steady’s origin story is built on the ashes of Craig Finn’s earlier band Lifter Puller and the Minneapolis, Minnesota indie music scene. After Lifter Puller broke up, Craig moved to New York. Bassist Galen Polivka, whose old band had played with Craig’s band in Minneapolis, had also moved to New York and sowed some early seeds for The Hold Steady by exclaiming to Craig at a club in NYC that “If you want to start something musically, I’m in, and I’d love to play bass for you.” Drummer Judd Counsell joined the early phase of The Hold Steady along with guitarist Tad Kubler. Craig writes that the music they had in common was Thin Lizzy, AC/DC, and Zeppelin. Craig explains that “Being Midwestern was something that made us unique.” After gigging in Brooklyn and NYC, The Hold Steady was ready to record their first album Almost Killed Me and keyboardist, writer, and university lecturer Franz Nicolay joined the band. Their inaugural album was released in March 2004 and the word began to spread. Drummer Bobby Drake flew out from Minnesota to replace Judd Counsell on the upcoming tour. The Hold Steady brought their mix of beautiful loser Midwest tales, infused with Brooklyn Indie, and garnished with Classic Rock riffs to the “not so wholesome heartland” of America.
The voices of the fans – The Unified Scene – are also found in the book. The last chapter gathers a collection of personal stories from fans that describe what The Hold Steady means to them.
Rob Sheffield writes that “Every fan has their own stories, their own songs, the favorites we cling to like patron saints.”
Craig writes in The Gospel of The Hold Steady, “that a rock band is in a race against time.” We join Craig and the band on their existential quest as they struggle to find meaning and joy through their insightful lyrics and raucous music. The Gospel of The Hold Steady is the perfect companion volume for this quest.
Highly Recommended!
The Hold Steady is Craig Finn, Tad Kubler, Galen Polivka, Bobby Drake, Franz Nicolay, and Steve Selvidge. Since forming in Brooklyn in 2003, they have released eight studio albums. Their debut album, The Hold Steady Almost Killed Me, was named one of the 100 best albums of the century by Rolling Stone.
Michael Hann is a writer and editor based in London who contributes to the Guardian, the Economist, and Uncut. He also wrote Denim and Leather: The Rise and Fall of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.
Friday, July 21, 2023
RIP Tony Bennett
Tony left us today but he was still singing the other day at his piano and his last song was, “Because of You,” his first #1 hit.
— Tony Bennett (@itstonybennett) July 21, 2023
Tony, because of you we have your songs in our heart forever. ❤ pic.twitter.com/hsOqtSdTNg
More on Tony at -
https://greggchadwick.blogspot.com/2011/12/the-ghost-in-human-machine-tony.html
Saturday, July 15, 2023
Study and restoration: The Museo del Prado's copy of La Gioconda
Ana González Mozo, researcher in the Museum’s Technical Documentation Section and Almudena Sánchez Martín, restorer at the Museo del Prado, comments the technical study and the restoration process of the Copy of La Gioconda.
From the Prado:
"A member of Leonardo’s studio produced the Prado panel and that the copy and original were produced at the same time and in parallel. With regard to who the artist might be, the pictorial handling is not comparable to the style of pupils or collaborators such as Boltraffio, Marco d’Oggiono or Ambrogio di Predis, who have a defined artistic personality. However, it is possible to locate this work stylistically in a Milanese context, close to Salaï or perhaps to Francesco Melzi, Leonardo’s most trusted pupils, heirs of his work and the painters who had direct access to his landscape drawings.The high quality of the materials used for the Madrid panel suggest that it was an important commission. In addition, up to now all known copies of La Gioconda were executed after its creation and reproduce what was a celebrated work from an early date. Technical analyses demonstrate that the Prado’s version was executed at the same time as the original, supporting the hypothesis of a workshop “duplicate” produced at the same time and with direct access to the gradual process of creation of Leonardo’s original work."
La Gioconda
Atelier of Leonardo da Vinci
ca. 1503-16. Oil on walnut panel, 76.3 x 57cm, 18mm thick
More at:
Monday, July 10, 2023
Happy Birthday Camille Pissarro
"Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing" 💭
— The Courtauld (@TheCourtauld) July 10, 2023
Camille Pissarro was born #OnThisDay in 1830🍃
📷 Lordship Lane Station, Dulwich, 1871 #InOurCollection pic.twitter.com/alJQKmqRaK
Sunday, July 09, 2023
Monday, June 26, 2023
On June 26, 2015 Marriage Equality became the law of the land.
Happy Pride Month!
On June 26, 2015 Marriage Equality became the law of the land.
With hundreds of others I celebrated on the Supreme Court steps because the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, making marriage equality legal, granting due process and equal protection to hundreds of thousands of same-sex couples.
Later that glorious day, I chatted with President Obama’s official photographer Pete Souza in front of the White House which was lit up in rainbow colors in celebration of the LGBTQ community. While we watched, the Presidential Marine Corps unit arrived. Onboard was President Obama returning from his moving speech at the memorial service for the church folks who were gunned down by a young white supremacist in South Carolina. President Obama sang "Amazing Grace" that day. Arrivals and departures…
48”x36” oil on linen
Minutes ago, @VP delivers remarks outside @TheStonewallNYC pic.twitter.com/1wpq15uzwV
— Christopher Kane (@Chris_Kane_) June 26, 2023
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band RACING IN THE STREET - Live at Ullevi Gothenburg 06/26/2023
Live at Ullevi Gothenburg 06/26/2023
Monday, June 19, 2023
Van Gogh's Cypresses at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
by Gregg Chadwick
Cypresses
Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, Zundert 1853–1890 Auvers-sur-Oise)
June 1889
Oil on canvas
36 3/4 x 29 1/8 in. (93.4 x 74 cm)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
“To give an idea of Provence it’s vital to do a few more canvases of cypresses and mountains.
… It took me all the time to observe the character of the pines, cypresses, &c. In the pure air here, the lines which don’t change and which one finds again at every step.”
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Saturday, 4 January 1890 836
“Van Gogh’s Cypresses” is the perfect exhibition for this moment in time. In our pixel soaked, AI drenched, climate change endangered world we are in need of a sojourn to physical reality and a soulful engagement with the natural world. This exhibition at the Met in New York brings together Van Gogh's paintings, drawings, and illustrated letters that engage the theme of cypress trees. Many of the artworks are fragile and light sensitive, so are rarely loaned out. Expertly put together by Engelhard Curator of Nineteenth-Century European Painting Susan Alyson Stein, the current exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York runs from May 22–August 27, 2023.
It was a pleasure to virtually venture through the exhibit by following Ms. Stein’s exploration of Van Gogh’s paintings of cypress trees and the mythological and historical lore hidden beneath Van Gogh’s richly hued paint in the video attached below and her masterful exhibition catalog.
Over the years, I have seen most of the paintings illustrated in the catalog in their home museums in Paris, New York, London, Amsterdam and beyond. Yet, viewing them gathered in this volume, I seem to see them anew. Van Gogh’s richly textured oil paint shines in the reproductions. I can almost hear the wind and smell the air of Provence in these artworks. A bittersweet melancholy hangs over this collection of cypress inspired artworks and not only because these trees are often seen as guide posts or markers of the world beyond our corporeal bodies. Two of the most iconic artworks in this collection - The Starry Night and Wheat Field with Cypresses were painted by Van Gogh at the asylum in Saint-Rémy where he admitted himself after a psychological crisis. The swirls of paint in these artworks become trees and harbingers of galaxies beyond.
Viewing these artworks through Ms. Steins prose, we are privy to a vision beyond mere depictions of nature. Inspired by his artistic colleagues Monticelli, Gauguin, Seurat, and Émile Bernard - Van Gogh was attempting to create paintings that evoked the deep past but were completely new at the same time.
Susan Alyson Stein explains that “cypresses held an ineluctable allure for Van Gogh.” These inescapable cypress trees enabled Van Gogh to “bring his art to the next level and make his mark as a modern painter.”
Van Gogh spent two years and three months in the South of France. From February 1888 through May 1890, he put down with ink on paper and oil paint on canvas artistic themes that emerged from his deep observations of nature and his internal responses to the light and landscape of Provence.
After leaving Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh died soon after he returned to Northern France. At Van Gogh’s funeral held on July 30, 1890, the catalog informs us that The Moniteur des arts reported that Doctor Gachet “spoke a few touching words over his friend’s coffin, which disappeared under branches of cypress trees and bouquets of large sunflowers.”
The Starry Night
Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, Zundert 1853–1890 Auvers-sur-Oise)
1889
Oil on canvas
29 x 36 1/4" (73.7 x 92.1 cm)
Museum of Modern Art, New York
The paintings in the exhibition Van Gogh’s Cypresses have been gathered from across the globe. From the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, to collections in Cologne, Bremen, Essen, Otterlo, Copenhagen, Paris, London, Cleveland, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington DC, New Haven, and New York, Van Gogh’s cypresses have been brought together for the first time since 1901.
Country Road in Provence by Night
(Landweg in de Provence bij nacht)
Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, Zundert 1853–1890 Auvers-sur-Oise)
12-15 May 1890
Oil on canvas
36 x 29" (90.6 x 72 cm)
Kroller Muller Museum, Netherlands
The catalog has an introduction and five major sections. The intro and three of the sections are authored by Susan Alyson Stein. These sections “The Roots of His Invention: Arles, February 1888-May 1889”, “The Making of a Signature Motif: Saint-Rémy, May-September 1889”, and Signing Off in Style: Saint-Rémy, October 1889-May 1890” take us through Van Gogh’s life and artistic production in Provence with the guiding lens of his cypress paintings.
The fourth section entitled “Untangling Nature” by Charlotte Hale and Silvia A. Centeno explores the art materials used by Vincent and describes in depth his painting process.
The fifth section by Alison Hokanson with the assistance of Marina Kliger provides an overview of literary and artistic uses of the cypress tree theme.
The French poet, critic, painter Albert Aurier praised Van Gogh’s paintings in an article where he described Vincent’s “cypresses shooting up their nightmarish silhouettes of blackened flames.”
On view: May 22nd - August 27th, 2023
Learn more about the exhibition: https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)