Pre-Raphealites are the other big collection at the Delaware Museum of Art. We saw a Pre-Raphaelite exhibit at The National Gallery in London. It was disappointingly small but the works were stunning. The exhibit was centered on Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait and how it in influenced the Pre-Raphaelites. It was one of the early acquisitions by the National Gallery and was a sensation just as the Pre-Raphaelites were starting. The second picture really doesn’t do the painting justice. He dress really looked like velvet
Ponce is a great small city. Before we went there, our tour book said that it had more museums per capita than any other city in the world. A lot of them are historic homes and only one is an art museum, but there are a lot of traditional museums there. The Museum of Puerto Rican Music was great. We were the only ones there when we went. They asked us at the ticket desk if we read Spanish and when we said no, they gave us a guided tour. The guide played a lot of the instruments as part of the tour. It was great. Edit: You can tell Ponce has a lot of museums when Tripadvisor has an article on the five best museums and Yelp has one on the 10 best museums, for a city of 166K.
Back in the '80s, we were going to use the Arnolfini portrait for our wedding invitation, but couldn't afford the printing (not to mention copyright, which didn't occur to us at the time). Seeing it waaay back in a corner room of the Nat'l Gallery, we were surprised at the small size of the painting. Notice van Eyck's self-portrait in the mirror?
That mirror and the self portrait were one of the big influences on the Pre-Raphealites. Pretty much ever detail was an influence. Since it was an early purchase by the museum and very different than what they already had, the Pre-Raphealites spent a lot of time studying it. A lot of them were students at the museum’s art school at the time. The description of most of the art in the exhibit picked out a detail from the Arnolfini Portrait that was a direct or indirect influence. I spent a lot of time going back to look at details of the portrait.
I love PR in general, so much to see, so many very different geographies on the same island, it's lovely.
I really REALLY love looking through this thread but I wish posts would come with explanatory notes. I haven't got a clue what's going on here.
Don't know why this work has affected me, I am a painter I understand colour, brushwork, technical things, but I will never understand why after a number of hours I keep returning to this thread just to have another look. In effect it is a middle class family out for the day, the two females are looking at me but the animals have more personality, I don't and don't need to know what was in his head, maybe it is his family. Maybe not.
Just got back from DC. Of course went to The National Gallery of Art. I went for the Vermeer exhibition, which was excellent (and crowded) that wasn't the highlight for me. The highlight for me was Jan Van Eyck's 'The Annunciation." It was my second visit to DC and I missed it the first time. I was completely transfixed by this painting. What a masterpiece.
I don't know if it's my favorite of all-time, but I thought it was worth photographing at a thrift store for the lusty manliness of its brushstroke. For some reason, seeing this, immediately invoked the memory of eating an antipasto salad.
First that comes to mind is this room of Monet canvases at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. When I’m close enough to reach it, I see piles of paint. When I back away and my nearsightedness blurs the colors I see a realistic image.
This isn't my favorite painting of all time (for me there are too many to choose just one), but I thought this thread would be okay to post it in. I was perusing an art book a few weeks ago and came upon this image. It struck me as something appropriate to perhaps the early 20th century, a futuristic view of some sort of science fiction scenario. But I was stunned to find it was made in 1784! Called "Plans for a cenotaph for Isaac Newton" by Etienne-Louis Boullee, the image seems way ahead of its time. I can only imagine the effect it may have had on viewers of that time.
Wikipedia is our friend. It turns out, it's a project for a building. I mean, an actual building, not just a fantasy building. This is the section of how it was suppose to work at night. It was never built because too demanding for materials and techniques known at the time. And expensive, I guess.