The Boston Museum of Fine Art offers “Dalí: Disruption and Devotion”. The presentation of 30 painting and prints by Dali (1904–1989) and other artists like El Greco, Orazio Gentileschi, and Velázquez, enables “visitors to experience a unique take on one of the most celebrated avant-garde artists of the 20th century.”
“Dalí: Disruption and Devotion”
Museum of Fine Arts Boston
Until December 1, 2024
Ok! It’s that time of year again. Noticed so many Instagram posts announcing college football events. Tons of clips of HBCU marching groups, with their fancy Drum Majors, big bands and cheerful Cheer leaders. All the best to them!
Watching reminds me of the image above. Can’t you just hear his whistle, the brass section, the drums? Strut on.
I Love it!
A former football player turned artist, Mr Barnes’ work, filled with sports figures and images of everyday people, is known for his use of bright color and elongated figures.
Ernie Barnes, 1939 – 2009, “Drum Major”.
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“This exhibition is the first major survey of Joan Brown (American, 1938–1990) in over 20 years, and offers a compelling look at the prolific career of a painter known for her large-scale, high-key portraits of family, animals, and herself.”
Joan Brown
(Originally posted 3/5/12)
A PBS program that I enjoyed is now on DVD – “Simon Schama’s – Power of Art”. Relaxed and informative, it even includes some personal tidbits about one of my favorite artists. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was gloriously talented, but he was also a youthful offender – violent and incorrigible. Not a cute “Denis the Menace” type, (he murdered a rival) but, as Schama labels him – a thug. I was shocked! Does his anger and madness show in his art? Maybe.
Considered part of the early Italian Baroque style of painting, his work, perhaps as a way of seeking redemption, focused on biblical themes – but, if you look at the faces, you will notice that these are no cherubs or saints, his paintings are inhabited by the people that he found in the local taverns with all their blemishes and wrinkles. I’ve found his work to be vibrant and alive regardless of its theme – whether card players or John the Baptist – full of energy, often full of violence, always very up close and in your face.
Schama narrates the hour and takes a gossipy, anecdotal look at the short life of Michelangelo Caravaggio, (1571 – 1610), and includes some re enactments to give background as to why/how certain paintings were created – like “Calling of Saint Matthew” and his “David with the Head of Goliath”.
BTW – Caravaggio was like Alfred Hitchcock, who always had a walk on or walkthrough in his movies and TV shows – the artist liked to paint himself in the middle of his scenes – with a table of card sharks, with a group of musicians and most notably, he serves himself up as the “Head of Goliath”.
The PBS series included the same 8 artists that are highlighted in Mr. Schama’s book of the same name, “Power of Art”: Caravaggio, Rembrandt, David, Turner, Van Gogh, Picasso, Rothko and Bernini.
(Image: David with the Head of Goliath, c. 1609. Oil on panel)
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A current presentation at The MET, Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism, is the “first art museum survey of the subject in New York City since 1987, the exhibition establishes the Harlem Renaissance and its radically new development of the modern Black subject as central to the development of international modern art.”
“Featured artists include Charles Alston, Aaron Douglas, Meta Warrick Fuller, William H. Johnson, Archibald Motley, Winold Reiss, Augusta Savage, James Van Der Zee, and Laura Wheeler Waring.”
The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism
*~* Until July 28, 2024 *~*
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
5th Ave and 86 Street, NYC
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