Showing posts with label modern art notes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label modern art notes. Show all posts

Monday, April 06, 2020

Thoughts on Michelangelo in Our Time of Crisis



by Gregg Chadwick

Frequent readers know that I enjoy the wit and erudition of Tyler Green. His Modern Art Notes Podcast is always worth a listen. The latest episode, embedded above, features art historian William E. Wallace and curator Julian Brooks.


Wallace discusses his latest book - “Michelangelo, God’s Architect: The Story of His Final Years and Greatest Masterpiece.” Wallace's new book is available on Bookshop
 Tyler writes :"The book offers a rich and lively biographical examination of the last two decades of Michelangelo’s life, a period when he became the architect of St. Peter’s Basilica and other buildings, even as he continued to sculpt and draw." 

Michelangelo
The Florentine Pietà
 1547-55

Wallace's discussion of Michelangelo's late Pietàs is exceptionally interesting. These are two of my favorite sculptural works by Michelangelo because of their incomplete nature. 



Michelangelo 
Two Views of the Rondanini Pietà 

1564
Castello Sforzesco, Milano

photos by Gregg Chadwick
I have spent hours in the company of Michelangelo's two late pietàs in Florence and Milan. 
There is an intently spiritual nature to these sculptures. The marble seems to flicker like candlelight. Form seems to melt with time. My painting La Vita Trasparente (The Transparent Life) was inspired by my visits to the Castello Sforzesco which houses Michelangelo's Rondanini Pietà. Watching a couple stroll through the garden along the castle wall reminded me of the hope that new love brings. Life flickers with light and hope in these moments. Now, as the Covid-19 crisis rages through Northern Italy and the world, I am brought back to the time that I painted La Vita Trasparente. I think of my friends in Milan, Verona, and Trento. Many are health care workers on the front lines of the pandemic. Today, it seems that the curve may be breaking in Italy. I hope this is a positive shift. I send my thoughts to all of you caught up in this struggle. Take care my friends. 


Gregg Chadwick
La Vita Trasparente (The Transparent Life) 
48"x38" oil on linen 2014
Private Collection, New York


In the second half of this podcast Tyler Green chats with Julian Brooks who co-curated with Emily J. Peters, the exhibition “Michelangelo: Mind of the Master” at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Brooks explains to us how Michelangelo used his drawings. Brooks discusses Michelangelo's studies for his unfinished and now lost Battle of Cascina, with detail and excitement. I wrote about Michelangelo's drawings after viewing the monumental 2017 exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. My thoughts then


These drawings are sumptuously beautiful, and set the stage for the rest of Michelangelo's artistic life. Michelangelo's touch is all over these works. The use of chalk in many of the drawings, rather than pen and ink, opens up a sensuous physicality that feels more like flesh than stone.
A map of desire seems to be drawn across the back of many of Michelangelo's figures. In the gallery I think of the poetry and art to come - Cavafy, Isherwood, Bachardy, Bacon, and Hockney.


Sadly, the Getty is temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is scheduled to be at the Getty through June 7. The catalog is available on Bookshop






Friday, October 18, 2019

Tyler Green's Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Lari Pittman



Wonderful podcast by Tyler Green featuring artist Lari Pittman.
The Hammer Museum at UCLA is featuring the exhibition “Lari Pittman: Declaration of Independence,” a retrospective of Pittman’s nearly forty-year career. 

Tyler writes:
The exhibition reveals Pittman’s engagements with America’s history and with issues and subjects that have been core to our history and identity, including landscape, violence, citizenship, belonging and more. The exhibition was curated by Hammer chief curator Connie Butler. It is on view through January 5, 2020. The excellent exhibition catalogue was published by DelMonico Prestel. Amazon offers it for $51.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

The Indianapolis Turner vs the New Orleans Lorrain


Joseph Mallord William Turner ( April 23, 1775-December 19, 1851)
The Fifth Plague of Egypt
48" x 72" oil on canvas 1800
Indianapolis Museum of Art
photo courtesy of the Indianapolis Museum of Art

Spurred on by fellow artblogger, Tyler Green, the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Indianapolis Museum of Art are putting their paintings on the line over next weekend's Super Bowl between the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts.
I'm calling an improbable New Orleans victory over the Colts. In which case the Indianapolis Museum of Art will lend Turner's vibrant and mysterious The Fifth Plague of Egypt to the New Orleans Museum of Art.
If the favored Colts win, the New Orleans Museum of Art will lend Claude Lorrain's Ideal View of Tivoli to the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Check out Tyler's blog for the ultimate in museum director trash talk and mannered New Orleans (and Indianapolis) grace as well.

New Orleans Museum of Art director E. John Bullard summed up the good spirited rivalry to Tyler:

"Max is a gracious opponent. Thanks for accepting the wager of a Claude from New Orleans for a Turner from Indianapolis. But this is definitely the Saints year. They are the Dream Team and in New Orleans we know that dreams come true. Geaux Saints!!!"

Ars longa, football brevis?



Claude Lorrain (1600-1682)
Ideal View of Tivoli
117 x 147 cm oil on canvas 1644
New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans
photo courtesy the New Orleans Museum of Art