Curator’s Corner

Fine art during the Colonial period consisted almost entirely of painting. In the early colonial period, painting was confined to signs, mantle overpaintings, carriage decoration, and advertising. When the colonies began to be prosperous, and up until the Revolution, portraiture was the primary subject matter of painting. This was due in large part because of the colonists’ aspirations to demonstrate their prosperity in the same way as their English forbearers through commissioned art.

Sculpture was limited to architectural ornament, as well as gravestone and sign carving. After the Revolution, the influence of the Neoclassical style in European art helped encourage an increasing appreciation of sculpture in America among the growing, affluent middle class. While most of the sculpture produced in the first half of the nineteenth century consisted of neoclassical portrait busts and allegorical and mythological figures, a vein of naïve, self-taught sculpture did exist. Like naïve painting, many of these sculptors were self-taught.

Blythe was born to immigrant parents on the Ohio frontier. He showed an aptitude for art at an early age, producing portraits of family and neighbors, caricatures, and satirical depictions of local events. At sixteen he was apprenticed to a wood carver and produced whittled emblems and architectural decoration. A restless romantic, Blythe spent years thereafter wandering the length of the Ohio River valley as an itinerant portrait painter. He eventually settled for some years in Uniontown, Pennsylvania.

Blythe’s skill as a portraitist earned him the commission to carve a figure of Lafayette (Marie Jean Paul Joseph Roche Yves Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, 1757- 1834) for the Fayette county courthouse in Uniontown. He carved the figure of the Revolutionary War hero using an adze which gives it the rough-hewn quality. Although the figure is well-proportioned, it is stiff and lacking the refinement of Blythe’s contemporaries, such as Clark Mills, Hiram Powers, or even William Rush. The rigid pose is reminiscent of the formality of ancient Egyptian figures.

The Meiji “restoration” of 1867 ended over 200 years of the feudal dictatorship of the Tokugawa shogunate. Under the guise of once again “revering the emperor” as the supreme ruler, certain military families methodically transformed Japan, at an astonishingly fast rate, into a modern, westernized, industrial country. This all occurred after Japan was forcibly opened to western trade by Commodore Perry of the United States. With that opening to western trade, Japanese artists were able to see art from Western Europe more than ever before. Many western influences crept into Japanese prints, including the illusion of depth, monumentality of form, and western chemical aniline dyes imported from Germany.

Ogata Gekko was somewhat of an anomaly compared to past artists in the woodcut print field. He does not appear to have done the traditional apprenticeship to a master artist, and apparently was self-taught. His early career was as an illustrator and designer of advertisements. Influenced by traditional Chinese painting, his early career as an artist was as a painter, illustrator, and decorator of lacquer work. In the 1880s he became interested in printmaking in the Ukiyo-e style. While the historical Ukiyo-e style produced subjects of beauties, actors and landscapes, Gekko preferred genre subjects, landscapes, and particularly animals and plants. Among his favored subject matter was the depiction of animals in grassy settings.

Gekko’s style was unique in woodblock printing because he eschewed the strict linearity of earlier Ukiyo-e in favor of a style that imitated brush work. He must have driven his woodblock carvers and printers crazy with his technique. This print comes from a series of shishikiban (square prints), which were his favored format for depicting close-ups of nature. While this print contains traditional elements such as suggestions of depth with mist, open composition, and emphasis on minute elements of nature, there is a definite western influence on the insistence on three-dimensional space in the concentric ripples in the water, and the diminution of detail in the far background.

Gekko was the first internationally acclaimed Japanese artist. He displayed his prints at the Chicago Columbian Exposition in 1893, the Paris World Exposition in 1900, and the International Exposition in London in 1910. At the 1903 Saint Louis’ World’s Fair, he received a medal for one of his prints.

Gekko was born Nakagami Masanosuke, but took the name Ogata in 1884, in honor of the famous 17th century painter (learn more about him in my blog post from May 17). The name Gekko means “moonlight.” Gekko believed that he was upholding the tradition of Ukiyo-e. Perhaps that is why one of his first woodcut editions was a series of calendar pages called “Twelve Months of Ukiyo.”

This website has an awesome amount of the varied work of this brilliant artist, plus extensive biographical information.

The Arts and Crafts movement, an English reaction against mass-produced arts, found willing adherents in the United States when it was introduced in the 1880s. The emphasis of the movement was hand-crafting and natural materials, with a preference for historically-inspired styles. The movement led to all sorts of eclectic combinations of influence, such as crossing Japanese art with medieval European art. Nothing is a stranger combination of east and west than the bungalow style.

Although most Americans -- including me until recently -- assume that the bungalow was an American inspiration because we see it from the east coast to the west coast, the basic design came from India. The term actually originated in India, where the native population built low houses surrounded by verandas which provided a central living space with surrounding rooms and porches for sleeping. The name “bangla” came from the Indian province of Bengal (now Bangladesh). The British occupiers of India took the style and added aspects of the “English Cottage” style (mostly a Gothic/Romanesque revival style, very “quaint”) and introduced the style to Europe.

The bungalow style became popular in Europe as a design for summer retreats, and as such, was introduced in America by Boston architect William Gibbons Preston (1844-1910), who built a version of it on Monument Beach, Cape Cod. Books illustrating the style and plans of bungalows were published widely in America, and multitudes of identical bungalows were built across the country. Eventually the form came under the influence of the Arts and Crafts movement. Despite the variations, there are several common features, seen in this example as well: heavy eaves on a low-pitched roof; asymmetrical facades; prominent verandas with heavy supports; and combinations of materials – brick, stucco, and stick work.

The style lost favor in the 1920s with period revival styles that resumed popularity until the 1950s. Interestingly, at one time, the Sears catalog sold complete bungalow homes of pre-cut pieces ready to be assembled on the home site!

The First Armory Show in New York in 1913 was the first introduction to avant-garde art movements from Europe for most Americans. At that exhibition, Americans saw Symbolism, Post-Impressionism, Cubism, and Expressionism, among other styles. Although the Armory Show was panned by the public and critics alike, it initiated a brief period of modernist experiment among some American artists. The Great Depression more or less spelled a temporary hiatus for modernist experiment, during a period when most artists worked on government mural projects extolling the virtues of American life in social realist style.

Dehn is considered one of the master printmakers of the mid-twentieth century. Having studied art in his native Minnesota and the Art Students League in New York, his first jobs as an artist were illustrating magazines. He met Ash Can School artists George Luks and John Sloan and found that he shared their interest in depicting realistic scenes of city life. While living in Europe between 1921 and 1929 he produced lithographs which satirized the excesses of wealthy members of society. He also became fascinated with landscape, particularly mountain landscape. Dehn’s first one person show of his lithographs was in 1930 right after the collapse of the world economy, and it initiated a period during which he worked primarily on public art projects.

In 1937 Dehn made the crucial decision to paint in watercolor. Standard Oil hired him to do watercolors of their extensive holdings. After World War II, during the 1950s and 1960s, he achieved financial success with his painting. Although Abstract Expressionism was the big thing at the time, he refused to take his landscapes into abstraction because he felt it was too personal of a style and not understandable to the general public. However, while one sees regionalism, social realism, and Japanese landscape painting in his work, Dehn was capable of producing watercolors of lyrical fantasy. Some Fish is one of those works. While the fish forms are depicted with a certain amount of realism, they have an almost whimsical, aware quality to their faces, and they float in an unspecified environment.

Another favorite watercolor by Dehn is the two flute players hovering in mid-air.

Installation art has been around for quite awhile. It really hit its stride in the 1960s and 1970s, but, if I want to be a picky art historian, I can find examples going waaaaaay back. Installation art is basically the establishment of a particular environment (temporary most of the time) in a gallery, building space, or even outside in nature by an artist or group of artists. It usually consists of the artist building/taking away elements that change the very nature of the space. Does that mean ancient Egyptian burials were environments? Technically, yes they were environments meant to provide for the deceased in the afterlife. Come on, a tomb full of rich artworks not an environment?

Some installation artists create a new environment by covering a gallery with their paintings on the gallery walls itself. Barry McGee comes to mind instantly, as does Arturo Herrera, Robert Gober, and Matthew Ritchie. Others use light to manipulate the viewer’s perception of the gallery space, such as Dan Flavin, James Turrell, and Stephen Knapp. In a previous blog post I mentioned that painter Florine Stettheimer created the first modern installation in 1916 when she transformed the gallery showing her paintings into a feminist environment. Louise Nevelson followed suit in her exhibits of her found object constructions that dominated entire gallery spaces. Many installations have bordered on performance pieces, and vice versa. Most notable among those is Claes Oldenburg’s Store of 1961, where he rented a store front in New York, created objects of muslin and painted plaster, mostly of food items, and sold them like a grocery store.

Virgil Marti is interested in the relationships between art and interior decoration. While his latest installations transform gallery spaces into psychedelic combinations of mirrors, macramé, and other objects referring to faded grandeur, many of his early installations were wallpaper events. These wallpapers were based on tacky wallpaper designs he saw while growing up in the Midwest. Marti created this unusual wallpaper by combining yearbook photographs of junior high school bullies he had known with traditional French wallpaper. He swapped out the peaceful country scenes from each oval with a yearbook portrait. A master printer, Marti hand-printed his Bullies on Tyvek, a synthetic paper-like material.

Despite the questionable “taste” of the wallpaper, it does cause the viewer to ponder on the title and the perception of bullies. Many years after experiencing bullying himself in his school, Marti found a way to creatively express his feelings on the subject with this room installation of wallpaper. This piece certainly ensures that you will never look at traditional, decorative wallpaper the same way again.

Do any K-12 art teachers out there use art to deal with bullying?

Although faience is often categorized as “ceramics,” it is not made of clay. It is made of silica, from sand composed of crushed quartz, and small amounts of lime. Faience would be better associated with glass, as silica and lime are used in making glass. Egypt is rich in silica in the form of desert sand. The silica forms the bulk of the body. Water is added to ground silica/sand, with lime and quartz grains added as it dried to prevent it from crumbling. Like ceramics, the final step in the process was firing and glazing. The body of the object was covered with a soda-lime/silica glaze with copper added for the distinctive blue-green color.

In ancient Egypt, the production of faience developed during the pre-dynastic period, roughly from 4000 to 3200 BCE. The earliest known objects made of faience were beads for necklaces and belts. During the Early Dynastic period (2920-2650 BCE), the size of faience pieces increased to include numerous objects used in religious ceremonies and burials, as well as tile decoration on temples and tomb precinct buildings. The most commonly seen objects in museums are beads, amulets, rings, pendants, and small ushabti (receptacles for the deceased’s spirit).

Chalices such as this were common tomb objects in Egypt. Aside from the usual reference to providing for the deceased’s needs in the next world, faience was a particularly relevant material for tomb objects. The word for it – tjehnet – is related to those for the properties of “gleaming,” “shining,” and “dazzling.” This not only refers to the faience’s physical properties, but also the equating of the rising sun with rebirth after death. The lotus flower, too, was a symbol of rebirth, because the lotus flower opened every morning to the rising sun.

This chalice appears in the set Window in Time: Ancient Egypt.

During the 1970s, modernist architecture began to veer away from the severe, sterile International Style (I call it glass box architecture) that had dominated western skylines since the 1950s. Mies van der Rohe and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill are prime examples of this style. While the idea of form following the function of a building persisted in the 1970s, many architects approached it in innovative new styles that reflected evolving influences: ecology, utopian architectural communities (such as Paolo Soleri), and, eventually, historical architectural styles (which led to Postmodernism).

Having grown up in the 1970s, I can remember not just a preoccupation with modernism, but an actual interest in envisioning what “the future” would look like in architecture. Granted, this led to some bizarre, impractical designs, but, the architecture of the early to mid-1970s is fascinating when one tries to figure out what the architect was thinking. Such is the case with this little “medical-dental building” in Allentown. Is it the product of an ecology-minded architect who was attempting to make the building seem to roll out of/into its surroundings? Or was it his vision of a “21st century” building?

I find several features of this building absolutely charming, including the asymmetry and the round entrances. The interior design must have been challenging with the curving outer walls, but the overall design is quite pleasing, almost organic the way the building seems to hug the ground. It puts me in mind of contemporary architect Renzo Piano, some of whose buildings also seem to rise out of the surrounding environment:

Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, Switzerland

Beyeler Foundation, Basel, Switzerland

If I had grown up in Allentown at the time and had doctor appointments in this building, I would have thought that it was totally awesome, like being in Star Wars or something.

After looking at this building, ask your students to design a building that they think reflects the purposes of a medical center.

Thomas was the first graduate of Howard University’s newly formed art department in 1924. She taught art to children for thirty-five years, the whole time producing realistic paintings, which she exhibited in shows for black artists. Her works were respected but not acclaimed.

In the 1950s she studied painting at American University and became interested in color and abstract art. At the time Abstract Expressionism held sway in the art world with its emphasis on pure color and dynamic brushwork, as well as fields of unmodulated pure color. Thomas’s interest in color led her to choose Color Field painting, rather than works that represented her African American heritage.

Thomas was offered a one-person show at Howard University in 1966 when she was seventy-four years old. Instead of exhibiting her color field paintings with large, flat areas of color, she decided to exhibit paintings that were in a totally new style. She was fascinated by the leaves outside of her window and the way that sunlight coming through them created endless varieties of pattern and color. Her style of mosaic-like color fields was born, including works such as Breeze Rustling through Fall Flowers. Having started showing in her seventies, Thomas became one of the most exhibited African American artists.

Red Rose Cantata is another work in the Davis archive you should check out.

Who are your art history heroes?

The written language has been perceived as an art form since ancient times: Egyptian hieroglyphics, cuneiform, medieval manuscript illumination, Sanskrit, and Asian calligraphy, to name a few. Arabic calligraphy has achieved particular heights of artistic beauty, in part because of the emphasis in the Qu’ran on the importance of the written word. Perhaps in no other cultures, however, do we see calligraphy elevated to the status of primary subject matter as we do in the cultures of Japan, China, and Korea, where entire screens are covered in giant characters. In these works, the emphasis on the movement of the brush stroke is as important as what the characters say.

Son is a contemporary South Korean artist with one foot in contemporary abstraction, and one foot in the tradition of Korean and Chinese literature and calligraphy. He transforms centuries-old poems into lively visual presentations, incorporating humorous and often abstract figures in his works. Many times, as in this work, the figures are based on calligraphy brushstrokes that have been much enlarged to create an abstract sense. While his abstract forms are completely modern, he makes sure that his calligraphy is not too far from traditional content. While he feels that calligraphy should be lively and expressive, avoiding the grid-like rows of Chinese calligraphy, he never enlivens it to the point where it denigrates the tradition of poetry and calligraphy.

Son has been exhibiting his calligraphic works since his debut exhibition in 1992. He often selects traditional Korean poems written in Chinese characters. The poem in this work is written by Shin Hum (pen name: Sang Chon, 1566-1628); it conveys the poet's appreciation and understanding of life. The calligraphy-based forms among the calligraphy recall the blown-up details of drawings that became the mature work of American Franz Kline (1910-1962).

Here are more examples of calligraphy as subject matter.

Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) was born in Staffordshire, long a center of ceramic production in England. Ceramics in England up to the 18^th century lacked the stylistic and technical sophistication of other European ceramics, such as in Spain, Italy, and France. Wedgwood was the son of a potter and was apprenticed to his potter brother at the age of fourteen. He became skilled in all aspects of the trade, recognizing the need for more sophisticated wares in England. His career coincided with the period during which numerous porcelain factories developed in reaction to imported wares from China and Japan. Up until this time, high society primarily used silver or pewter tableware.

Relying on the traditional Staffordshire stoneware as a base, Wedgwood’s first success was his “Queen’s Ware,” a cream-colored stoneware fired to the temperature for earthenware. The lead-glazed creamware was so popular that Queen Charlotte of England and Empress Elizabeth of Russia commissioned huge amounts of dinner service. Having royal patronage helped his business, and Wedgwood was the first ceramic artist to produce a catalog illustrating his wares. Between 1773 and 1775 Wedgwood perfected a combination of ingredients to produce his most famous ware: Jasperware. Jasperware was so named because it resembled the semi-precious stone jasper in texture and color. It was hard, unglazed stoneware achieved by adding carbonate and sulfate of barium to a semi-porcelain clay and then using a metal oxide for the desired color. Blue, like that of this paint box, is by far the most famous color.

Most Jasperware objects were for display: vases, medallions, plaques, pitchers, and urns. Tea sets, paint boxes, and plates in Jasperware were most likely also for display. Jasperware appeared at a time when the Neoclassical style was all the rage in Europe. This beautiful little paint box has numerous classical motifs such as rosettes, putti, and garland. As a painter, I would be really hesitant to actually use this beautiful piece to paint. I have a beautiful Jasperware plate, a present from my brother, which, of course, is on display.

The Wedgwood website displays stunning examples of Jasperware.

Much of Ess’s work is produced with a pinhole camera. The simplest type of pinhole camera is a light-proof small box or container with a hole in the middle of one side and a black interior. On the inside of the box, opposite the pinhole, a piece of photographic, light sensitive paper is placed to receive the image. Earliest mention of the inverted image resulting through a pinhole was in the 5^th to 4^th centuries BCE in ancient Greece and China. Study of this phenomenon led to the development of the camera obscura, basically a pinhole camera fitted with a lens over the pinhole to magnify the image. During the Renaissance and Baroque periods, the camera obscura was used by artists to aid them in capturing perspective and landscape details accurately for their paintings. The camera obscura led to the development of photography.

For two decades, Barbara Ess has become renowned for her pinhole camera photographs. She uses a simple cardboard box with a minute aperture. Because of the limited available light and short depth of field, her photos are always dark and misty, often silhouetted around the sides. Everything is slightly out of focus except for the very center of the subject. The photographs are made on black-and-white negatives and printed on colored papers, whose tones become delicately nuanced by the scant light afforded by the camera. Ess focuses less on technique rather than on unique subject matter, such as this view of a dog’s front legs. The extremely limited field of vision creates a stark, dreamlike print in which Ess explores the ambiguity of perceptual boundaries in often intimate compositions.

Does anyone teach using pinhole cameras? I would love to hear about your/your student’s experiences.

Sōsaku hanga (creative print) was a movement that had its origins in Japan as a reaction to the rapid industrialization of the country after its “opening” to Western powers. At the turn of the 20^th century, there was a great debate in Japan in artistic and literary circles about expressions of “self.” This was in part influenced by the Japanese exposure to European modernism: many Japanese artists travelled to Europe during the 1890s. Another factor was the reaction by young artists during the first decade of the 20^th century to stifling cultural strictures and the establishment in 1907 of the Japan Fine Arts Academy, which looked upon printmaking as a “minor art.” The Creative Print movement artists differed from ukiyo-e artists in that they designed, cut, and printed their works themselves. Traditionally printmaking in Japan consisted of the artist, the woodblock cutter, the printer, and the publisher each contributing to the final print.

Artists of the Creative Print movement primarily considered themselves painters. Many of them emulated modernist movements in the West, and were not broadly accepted among an established art hierarchy that still considered painting the highest of “fine art.” It was only in 1927 that printmaking was accepted by the Japan Fine Arts Academy as art. By that time, however, many Japanese artists were experimenting with modernism. Only after World War II did Japanese modernist prints gain worldwide recognition, thanks in some part to American patronage of works that reflected Western abstraction, a perception of the blending of East and West.

Keiko Minami was a painter and printmaker who followed her husband Hamaguchi Yozo to Paris after World War II. Both were sōsaku hanga artists. Minami’s lyrical, fairy-tale like images were eventually commissioned by UNESCO and UNICEF. This lovely print demonstrates many of the elements and principles of art: line, asymmetrical balance, and positive/negative space.

This gallery features more of Minami’s work. She was primarily interested in young female figures, animals, and nature.

Two factors led to the production of aboriginal art as a saleable commodity rather than for community or ceremonial purposes: the widespread seizure of First Nations lands and severe reduction in hunting and farming capability, and the late 19^th century Arts and Crafts Movement. That movement was a reaction against industrialization and mass-produced “art.” Native art was valued (and romanticized) by non-native patrons as something authentic and sharing in the anti-modernist sentiment. The same assimilationist policies that threatened their cultural survival led to the establishment of “Indian” schools, such as the Studio School in Santa Fe, which taught native artists western materials, styles, and techniques. These factors led in the mid- to late-20^th century for the development of a full-scale emergence of a native tradition in contemporary art.

The general consciousness of the importance of self-determination that characterized the 1960s may have helped lead to the establishment of the Institute of American Indian Art in Santa Fe in 1962. Native educators incorporated indigenous ways of teaching contemporary art, promoting ideas of individual artistic freedom. Many of the most prominent native modernists of the 1970s and 1980s came from that school. During those decades, many native artists, such as Emmi Whitehorse, developed broader interpretations of Native art to move away from figurative and representational forms.

Whitehorse received her MFA from the University of New Mexico in Santa Fe. She has described her paintings as “personal diaries.” They are brilliant abstractions that suggest landscape in the atmospheric washes, and evoke traditional Navajo symbols in the shapes resembling seeds, pods, and roots of plants. Born and raised on the Navajo reservation, she lived with her grandmother and grew up surrounded by Navajo tradition. In Fire Weed, it is obvious that the southwestern landscape is Whitehorse’s inspiration. As a child she collected plants with her grandmother, who hung them on the wall to dry. That is the origin of the floating vegetal forms. Whitehorse’s work is a bridge between the contemporary art world and the world of Navajo tradition.

Visit the artist’s website to view Images of other works.

The wax-resist process of decorating cloth is an ancient art form. Textiles were decorated with wax-resist technique certainly as far back as Ancient Egypt. The technique flourished throughout Asia, flowering in Southeast Asia (where it is called “batik”), especially in Indonesia, which is perhaps best known for “batik” fabrics. The process came to Africa in the nineteenth century via Dutch traders. Africans traditionally loved colorful fabrics and the process was adapted, customizing it with designs and colors that reflected local traditional culture.

The basic process for wax-resist printing is to paint or stamp a design or pattern in molten wax on a length of fabric. When the fabric is dyed, the wax resists the dye and forms the pattern. The wax is then removed in boiling water. One of the most treasured aspects of wax-resist is the “cracks” patterns that occur due to the fact that the wax cracks while the fabric is being dyed and the dye seeps through the cracks onto the cloth. In West Africa, indigo, mud and kola nut dyes are very popular. In Nigeria, wooden or calabash stamps are often used to stamp the molten wax onto the cloth.

Nigeria currently holds 63 percent of West African textile manufacturing. Nigerian wax-resist textiles are found in almost every marketplace in sub-Saharan Africa. African wax-resist designs fall into several categories: women’s lives, town life and its effects, nature, and rhythm (music and drumming). This bolt of cloth displaying light bulbs would fall under the “town life” category. Interestingly, in the last five years there has been a major effort in Nigeria to make that country more energy efficient through the use of energy-saving light bulbs. Compare this whimsical pattern to more traditional resist-dyed patterns in our collection.

I’ve already talked about Japanese postcards in a past blog. What I find fascinating about this postcard is the cross-cultural influences. After being forcibly opened to the West, Japanese artists were exposed to western art styles and techniques. Many artists incorporated western perspective into their work, while some adapted western media such as oil paint. One of the most prominent Japanese oil masters was Asai Chu (1857-1907). In 1900 he was sent by the Japanese government to Paris to attend the Exposition Universelle in which his work and the work of other Japanese artists were featured. He became fascinated by the then-current style of Art Nouveau and transmitted that style back to Japan. By 1902 the style was very popular in Japan, gracing not only postcards, but many other forms of graphic arts.

Asai Chu was struck by the fact that western artists of the Art Nouveau style were particularly interested in the work of Ogata Kōrin (1658-1715). Also, artists who worked in the Art Nouveau style had borrowed motifs from Japanese woodblock prints, which had an angular, linear look, incorporating the grids and parallel lines of Japanese interior design depicted in these images, as well as the sinuous, flowing lines of blossoming tree branches, rivers, and kimono designs. The elegant refined detail of work evident in these and other artworks from Japan gave a new aesthetic input, feeding western desire for a new style/decoration for a new century.

Another interesting aspect of this piece is the use of lithography. The first printing press was introduced by Germany in the 1860s. Before that the only printing technique used in Japan was the woodblock. By 1873 the use of lithographs was popular in Japan. It was similar to woodblock printing in that color lithography required a different stone for each color. After 1882, more private publishers used lithography than woodblock prints for postcards, etc. In 1885 they organized the Tokyo Lithograph Union. Lithography had the advantage of being easier to use for mass production than woodblocks.

Let’s sum all this artistic influence flow up shall we? Japan to West to Japan. There you have your “holy cow!” moment of the week.

Check out more Art Nouveau Japanese postcards from the MFA Boston’s phenomenal collection of the genre.

The Tokugawa lords took the shogunate (“shogun” was a military leader) by force in 1603. In order to ensure that no one threatened their power, the Tokugawa rulers enacted strict policies to, in essence, freeze Japan socially. Among the many laws was one that prevented middle and lower class people from buying luxury clothing, jewelry, etc., plus a ban on travel outside of Japan. With such strict laws regulating most aspects of everyday life, Japan experienced a 250 year period of peace. With peace came an increase in demand for luxury items among the upper classes, while merchants and artists (the lowest two stations of the social order) profited from this demand.

The merchants and artists spent their newfound wealth on the rich cultural atmosphere of the cities’ theater and red-light districts, as well as on personal adornment. One way around the sumptuary laws (laws restricting luxury dress) was to buy kimonos of a plain cloth on the outside, lined with luxurious, costly silk inside, out of sight. Another way was to acquire costly items such as this inro which were easily concealed. Inro, carried by noble and commoner alike, were a small series (commonly three to six) of nested boxes hanging from the kimono’s obi (sash) by a silk cord. They were made for carrying anything small such as identity seals or medicine. Much like a miniature chest of drawers, the inro boxes were held together by a silk cord that went through holes down one side, under the bottom box, and up the other side.

Ogata Korin was a master painter, known primarily for his stunning six-part screens (byobu). His most famous screens usually depicted close ups of elements of nature, such as irises, cherry blossom branches, or birds, isolated on a background of gold leaf. He also worked in ceramics and lacquer. This inro is similar stylistically to many of his screen painting, with the herons isolated against the gold leaf of the rushes and black lacquer background. The blank background and simplified shapes of grass and birds create a decorative yet descriptive composition.

When we think of the art of the Baroque period in Europe, several descriptive terms come to mind: grandiose, formal, theatrical, classical, and, need we say it, overblown. During the mid- to late 18^th century, English artists and philosophers became engaged in a fascinating debate about the qualities of landscape. The debate evolved to the point where English newspapers included columns devoted to descriptions of walks that afforded the most spectacular views of gardens, landscapes, estates, etc. One even sees this aesthetic in the novels of Jane Austen, who described Blaise Castle in her novel Northanger Abbey as “the finest place in England.”

The Picturesque style emerged after the publication in 1794 of Sir Uvedale Price’s (1747-1829) book Essay on the Picturesque. The word “picturesque” comes from the Italian pittoresco which means in the manner of painting. Price’s ideal of natural beauty was associated with the carefully contrived landscapes of such Baroque painters as Claude Lorrain (1600-1682 France) and Salvator Rosa (1615-1673). Uvedale’s book essentially emphasized a middle ground between urban design and landscape, although the style eventually took on anti-urban tones.

John Nash designed Blaise Hamlet for the retired workers from Blaise Castle estate at Henbury. Blaise Castle was owned by John Scandrett Harford (1785-1866), a wealthy banker and Quaker abolitionist. Nash’s design for Regents Park and Saint James Park in London are an example of the synthesis of the urban/rural trains of thought, while Blaise Hamlet emphasizes the rural “sublime.” One of the key aspects of the Picturesque was the “pleasing” harmony of buildings and landscape, and the “appropriate” proportions of landscape to architecture.

In architectural terms, Blaise Hamlet is a good example of the Picturesque, freeing architecture from the tyranny of symmetry (of the classically inspired Baroque architecture). Looking at Sweetbriar Cottage conjures up ideas of variety, irregularity, asymmetry, roughness of texture, and a romantic harking back to medieval cottages. The Picturesque style was a huge influence throughout Europe, and, in architecture, led to the eclecticism of many revival styles in the nineteenth century, particularly Gothic.

Born in Salem, Massachusetts, Fidelia Bridges was orphaned at the age of 16. At that age she developed what would be a life long friendship with Anne Whitney, the pioneer woman sculptor. The two discussed art and women’s place in society. Whitney encouraged Bridges, who had a growing interest in painting, to pursue a career in art. Bridges studied painting under William Trost Richards in Philadelphia. At the time he was influenced by the English Pre-Raphaelite movement that emphasized a detailed study of nature with botanical accuracy.

Bridges set up her own studio in Philadelphia in 1862. Richards sponsored her among his wealthy patrons there. At this time she was exhibiting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. In 1867 she went to Rome for a year, staying with Whitney, who was now the head of a group of women artists who wish to work without the strictures of American society. After this trip Bridges began to form her mature style, quite apart from Richards’ influence.

Bridges turned entirely to watercolor at this time. Her work varied little in subject matter throughout her career: close-ups of small fragments of nature such as flowers, grasses, and birds, focusing on minute details in vibrant colors. She was elected as an associate at the National Academy of Design in 1874. She also received many commissions for lithographic prints from Louis Prang and Company, a rival of Currier and Ives.

By the 1870s, Bridges had moved away from the all-over detail of her Pre-Raphaelite-inspired style, at times moving toward almost Asian simplification of the subject. This piece is typical of her work from the 1870s with its dramatic emphasis of positive and negative space between the flower and the neutral background. The Asian influence is also seen in the asymmetrical arrangement of the flower in the composition. Despite the simplification in the work, Bridges has managed to produce a work with an amazing amount of detail of natural light. Works such as this compare favorably with the “Flowers and Birds” series woodcuts of Hiroshige (1797-1858), although it is not known if Bridges ever saw such work. She was primarily influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite emphasis of focus on details of nature.

A vault is a masonry roof or ceiling based on the principle of the arch. The main section of medieval churches, the nave, was usually covered by a repeating series of vaults, much as the barrel vault is a continuous row of arches forming a rounded vault. The vaults of Gloucester’s cathedral cloister are gorgeous fan vaults. The key element to vaults is the rib, a projecting arch which carries the vault. In a fan vault, the ribs fan out from the piers supporting the vault.

The ambulatory of a cloister connected to a cathedral is the section detached from the main body of the church where monks could meditate in peace. The fan vaults in Gloucester’s ambulatory are further decorated with ribs connecting each rib of the fan. The end effect of this beautiful ambulatory is one of an elegant Rhythm, one of the Principles of Design. Let’s throw in Pattern, Balance, and Unity as further Principles of Design evident in this space. Just for good measure, let’s mention some of the Elements of Design obvious here: Line Texture, and (flowing) Space.

During the mid-12th century, with the rise of a strong monarchy, France became a center of artistic activity, including architecture. As Church architecture evolved from Romanesque to Gothic, it became increasingly refined and structurally sophisticated. In Romanesque architecture, walls are thick and massive, and in Gothic, thin and light. The Gothic pointed arch can not only support more weight than the rounded Romanesque one, but it can also span a variety of bay shapes. The Gothic church, with tall, slender columns, piers, windows and arches, is more vertical than the Romanesque. The new Gothic architecture did not have an immediate impact outside of northern France.

Beginning about 1174 with Canterbury, English churches began to adopt Gothic elements, but they placed less stress on verticality. Some of the unique features of English Gothic churches include: screen-type west facades, main portal on the south side of the nave, and square apses. The fan vaults of the Gloucester Cathedral cloister are among the most famous in Europe, and certainly the most famous in England next to those at King’s College Chapel in Cambridge (which is actually Late Gothic [15^th century]).

The Eight Independent Artists (Ash Can School) was a group of eight Philadelphia painters encouraged by their leader Robert Henri (1865-1929) that anything was fair game as subject matter, even gritty street scenes of New York. Born in New Jersey, Shinn, like the other artists of The Eight, began his career as a newspaper and magazine illustrator in Philadelphia. In 1900 he traveled to Paris where it is highly likely that he saw the cabaret scenes of Edgar Degas (1834-1917), the French Impressionist. While working in Philadelphia he met John Sloan, William Glackens, and George Luks. Inspired by Henri, these artists moved to New York and painted various scenes of urban life.

This painting shows Shinn’s interest in light and ambience, which he learned in Paris. The palette is different from the Impressionists, but the fluid brush strokes and filmy treatment of light and atmosphere all reveal the influence of Impressionism. The fluidity of Shinn’s brush work may also reflect the influence of Henri’s work, which was grounded in the Dark Impressionism style that ultimately used Baroque painting as an influence. American critics at the time were still not thrilled about Impressionism. They also rejected the Ash Can School artists’ tendency to present asymmetrical, dynamic, open compositions, such as this one, where the focal point is off to one side. Shinn, inspired by Degas, preferred to show vaudeville scenes from the orchestra pit in order to produce interesting lighting effects.

Starting in the 1920s, Shinn seems to have lost interest in painting scenes of urban life. Still interested in theater, his output consisted mostly of theatrical backdrops, including ones for the Ziegfield Follies. He also painted many murals, such as a large cycle on the history of New Jersey in the Trenton City Hall council chamber. His later paintings tended to be sketchy, suggestive nudes in interiors and escapist landscapes, but his work never again reflected an interest in realistic scenes of urban life.

Kaolin (the clay used for porcelain) was discovered in Limoges in 1772. This replaced the glass frit-infused clay of earlier porcelain, which was abandoned totally by the Sèvres Porcelain Factory in 1804. The Sèvres factory was bankrupt by 1798 because of the French Revolution (1789-1799). The appointment of Alexandre Brongniart (1770-1847) in 1800 turned the fortunes of the company around. Brongniart was a zoologist, chemist, botanist, and geologist who applied his scientific knowledge to porcelain production. New enamels were invented, new shapes (at the time primarily the Neoclassical style) were produced, and Brongniart designed a new kiln that was more efficient and cost-effective.

Under Brongniart’s tenure as head of Sèvres, Renaissance, Gothic, and even the not-so-long-ago Rococo period styles were copied. In a way, this historic eclecticism was seen as preserving art movements of the past. Often, however, when copying an object or decoration from a previous period, the Sèvres piece dwarfed the original object – bingo, the trademark of 19^th century historicism, sort of like the Wild West in the US: the bigger the better and more of it. Not only were porcelain objects covered in enamel decoration, but gold leaf gilding was very popular overall.

This coffee pot is an exception to the over-abundance of decoration typical of the period, but it certainly conforms to the in-your-face design typical of the 19^th century in European porcelain. The second half of the 19^th century in Europe witnessed a series of international exhibitions displaying fine and “decorative” arts from around the world. Competition between British and French porcelain makers was particularly heated, as each country tried to establish themselves as pre-eminent in design and manufacture. This coffee pot was featured at the London 1862 International Exhibition. It was advertised as being of “oriental” inspiration, a euphemism for anything Asian.

In using an elephant’s head as the motif, this pot is closely aligned to the taste for exoticism that was part of the Romanticism movement of the 1830s through the 1850s. The elephant motif was a popular symbol of magnificence and luxury. This piece features the pâte-sur-pâte (paste upon paste) technique, which involved building up low sculptural relief on the surface of an unfired pot with successive layers of slip. Such pieces gained great popularity in France and England and were expensive luxury items. Marc Emmanuel Solon later brought the technique to the Minton porcelain factory in Staffordshire, England.

The Wallace Collection in London has a large collection of gorgeous Sèvres porcelain.

Stettheimer was born to a wealthy family from Rochester, New York. She studied painting under academic landscape painter Kenyon Cox (1856-1919) at the Art Students League in New York. Her earliest works reveal that she was a competent draftsperson. She also studied paintings of the Baroque and Rococo artists in Germany, as well as Expressionism. She was particularly affected by the brightly painted interiors of Rococo German pilgrimage churches. She also experienced the experiments in modernism in Paris.

When Stettheimer returned to New York in 1914, she and her sisters Carrie and Ettie soon formed a circle of avant-garde artists which included Europeans such as Marcel Duchamp (1887-1966), Pavel Tchelitchew (1898-1958), and Albert Gleizes (1881-1953), as well as Americans like Charles Demuth (1883-1935) and Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946). These artists experimented variously with Cubism, Dada, and Expressionism, which perhaps explains why Stettheimer turned her back on academic realism. However, she did not embrace any one European style, preferring to pursue her own path. She produced many portraits of her circle of artist friends, depicting their interactions with the American avant-garde.

Stettheimer’s first and only one person show was in 1916. She meticulously decorated the gallery for the opening, covering the walls with white muslin on which her bright paintings were hung and interspersing bouquets of flowers. She had created the first feminist environment, years ahead of those created by sculptor Louise Nevelson. However, the critics panned her show and paintings, ironically scorning the opening as “feminine.” Thereafter she only showed her works to select groups of people in her New York apartment.

Spring Sale at Bendel’s is a humorous look at the chaotic world of high fashion and New York’s elite. The soaring space she created is reminiscent of the great spaces of Baroque churches, while the high-key palette may reflect the influence of the painted German Rococo interiors. The composition of ambiguous space and willowy, jewel-like figures established a style that matured in her most famous works, the Cathedral series of the 1930s. In her use of fantastic, flattened forms, bright colors, and intentionally naïve space, she created a decorative surface that pointed the way to abstraction of the later 20^th century. That fact, coupled with her personally nurturing avant-garde artists at a key moment in the history of American art, makes her a pioneering woman artist.

The latter part of that century saw the rise in satirical artwork in Britain and Europe that mocked prevailing mores and political figures. Many such cartoons addressed legitimate grievances against social ills of the time such as alcoholism or abuse of power by politicians. Other cartoons, however, were nasty nationalistic bashing of other cultures. British satirical artists particularly enjoyed bashing America (for obvious reasons) and France. American artists of the period were equally as venomous in their depictions of the British.

The eighteenth century is often called the Age of Enlightenment because of the wealth of forward-looking philosophy, science, and art. It’s also called the Age of Revolution because, naturally, of the American Revolution (1776-1783) and the French Revolution (1789-1799). After the re-discovery and excavation of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii (1748, 1764, 1804), an avid interest in classical antiquity, Greek democracy, and the Roman Republic flourished. In art, this engendered the movement called Neoclassicism. In politics, it led many of America’s founding fathers to advocate revolution.

This print documents a gathering of many prominent women of Edenton, North Carolina in October, 1774. This was the year the Continental Congress passed resolutions encouraging Americans to boycott tea, cloth, and other products imported from Britain. The women signed a petition supporting those “near and dear” to them, i.e., their husbands who were active in resisting British authority.

Aside from the fact that this print depicts American women displaying their patriotism, it also documents a revolution of sorts for women. At the time, women were not allowed to participate in politics, nor was it deemed appropriate for them to sign petitions. The British artist obviously alludes to this impropriety in the crude way he depicts most of the women. It suggests that the people leading revolutionary thought in the colonies were wealthy people with nothing better to do. This is emphasized in the foreground where a child is being bothered by a dog rather than tended to by its mother. The gathering was not called the “Edenton Tea Party” until some time later, as a way of vying with the notoriety of the Boston Tea Party.

Under the harsh dictator Porforio Diaz (1830-1915), many illustrated journals and broadsides nurtured the flourishing of satirical art, despite the threat of retribution by Diaz’s regime. These publications criticized the corrupt government, wealthy aristocracy, and the social abuses of the Roman Church. The most famous cartoons to emerge from this nascent period of the Mexican Revolution (began c1910) were those depicting the calavera (skull figure). The calavera theme dates back to ancient Mexican societies which, in yearly rituals, mocked Death and its supposed hold over humanity. The Spanish conquerors at first tried to quash such ceremonies, but it soon became part of All Saints Day (November 1^st), also known as the Day of the Dead.

Little is known about the life of Manuel Manilla. He began producing prints in 1882, making approximately 500 engravings in the service of Antonio Vanegas Arroyo in Mexico City. These prints had to do with various elements of the Mexican middle class, including the circus, bullfighting, magic scenes, and the Virgin Mary. An artist of the people, sharing concerns about the corruption of the Diaz dictatorship, he began to popularize the calavera prints in the late 1880s. Originally produced for the Dia de los Muertos, Manilla conceived of the calavera as the traditional leveler of society, proof that all people are equal, no matter what their station in life. He depicted the calavera interacting in every aspect of Mexican society. His work surely was an influence on the more famous Posada, who began working for Arroyo in 1892.

In a broader sense, the image of the calavera is fascinating because it is practically a universal image in art of the western world. The subject of Death confronting people from every station appears in the Death Dance cycles of Europe (particularly northern Europe) in the Middle Ages (c1000-1400), which continued to be popular through the Renaissance period (c1400-1600). The calavera images of Manilla and Posada were a great influence on the art of the Mexican muralist such as Diego Rivera (1886-1957), who viewed the subject as an artistic bridge of subject matter between the ancient native Mexican cultures and the Spanish conquerors. The strong tradition of graphic arts in Latin America, in which Manilla played a key role, would also nourish many subsequent printmakers, most notably those who formed the Taller de Gráfica Popular (Peoples Graphics Studio) founded in Mexico in 1937.

The pictorial movement got its greatest impetus after the establishment of a formal art program at the Santa Fe Indian School in 1932. Non-native art teacher Dorothy Dunn (1903-1991) established the Studio, a painting program for high school-aged students. Dunn purposely did not teach western artistic ideas about perspective, plasticity, or complex composition. Instead she insisted that her students work in styles influenced by traditional Pueblo art forms such as weaving and ceramic decoration. The Studio School generated a flattened, stencil-like style that stressed subject matter. This style, known as the “Studio Style,” came to be considered “traditional Indian art” by many dealers and museums.

In the 1960s, the Studio Style was reevaluated by Native artists who considered the style a stereotype and a forced traditionalism. The Institute of American Indian Art also felt that the stylized paintings no longer adequately expressed the breadth of First Nation artistic aspiration. However, it is possible that few contemporary developments in First Nation art could have taken place without the foundation established by The Studio, which produced the first group of successful (in terms not only of sale but of wide-scale exposure) Native artists in the twentieth century.

Abel Sanchez, known as Oqwa Pi (Red Cloud) was educated at the Santa Fe Indian School under Dunn. After graduation he was commissioned to paint murals there. He returned to San Ildefonso where he spent his life as a farmer and painter. He was very respected by the people of his pueblo and was elected governor of San Ildefonso six times. When he died, the All-Indian Pueblo Council and governors of nineteen New Mexico Pueblos signed a resolution of sorrow and presented it to his widow, Nepomucena Sánchez.

The Snake Dance, practiced by many of the Pueblos, is thought by scholars to have traditionally been a water ceremony, as snakes were considered guardians of springs. Today it is primarily held to honor ancestors and ensure adequate rain. The Pueblo First Nations consider snakes “brothers” who are able to transmit their prayers to the spirits and ancestors in the afterlife.

The Wheelright Museum of the American Indian has an exhibition running until April 2010 of painters from the Santa Fe Indian School.