I’ve mentioned in previous blogs how spotty modernism was in American art in the early 1900s. Since the colonial period, American artists had a tenacious obsession with realism, including the wo ...
Read MoreTraditionally, furniture was designed to conform to the human body and what was being worn at the time. That’s why we see low side chairs with no arms during the mid-1800s when women were wearin ...
Read MoreThe art of lacquer has long fascinated me. When I was in an Asian Art seminar in college (decades ago), I learned that ancient Chinese bodies coated in lacquer still had supple skin. Now that’s ...
Read MoreMy nephew just repainted our kitchen table and chairs. It occurred to me that the chairs are modern day versions of the Windsor chair. Our chairs even have the elegant h-stretcher joining the legs, an ...
Read MoreHaving ancestry in northern Europe (Switzerland), I naturally gravitated toward Northern Renaissance art in college. I’m particularly fond of Flemish artists, because they reflect a similar unva ...
Read MoreIn the mid-1900s, Scandinavian artists emerged at the forefront of modernism in all facets of design: architecture, furniture, and the art of household objects. Among them were many women who came up ...
Read MoreAt first glance this small sculpture would lead the viewer to believe that it was firmly within the realm of ancient Egyptian art. It actually belongs to a culture that bordered dynastic Egypt, and tw ...
Read MoreAs an art historian who grew up in the age of blossoming feminist art movements, one of my major disappointments has always been the significant women artists of previous movements who were not given ...
Read MoreThe genre of the simplified (abstracted) landscape has been around a loooonnnnnng time. In particular, I think of the dreamy, suggestive landscapes of Chinese artists from as early as the Song dynasty ...
Read MoreThanks to Steven Tatum at Virginia Tech for educating me about African masks, an art form I’ve long been fascinated by. The variety of forms and uses boggles my Western European accustomed mind! ...
Read MoreLike women artists, African American artists have been neglected in the major art history survey texts, especially when it comes to pre-emancipation. I am always delighted to have an epiphany about an ...
Read MoreThe 15th of April was the 101st anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. In order not to dwell on that morbid subject (but to relate it to art) I’m showing you all one of a series of paintings ...
Read MoreDid you know that April is National Older Americans Month? Robert Arneson died way too soon, and I’m not sure he’d appreciate me featuring him for this theme, but his work shows us how we ...
Read MoreEaster time for Christians just passed and the resurrection of Jesus is the big event of the period. I’d like to explore the term “resurrection” in another context: the “rising ...
Read MoreMany Americans are interested in the American Civil War (1861–1865). Let’s face it, the Civil War was a major turning point in American history. It paved the way for giving African America ...
Read MoreA pope was chosen last week in Rome. I also have a pope of choice, and he isn’t of the Roman Church bent. Since many were oohing and aahing about the new head of the Roman Church, I decided to p ...
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