East-West Influence: Bertha Lum
In keeping with my constant grousing about the Western obsession with the influence of Classical and Renaissance art on subsequent periods in Western art history, I would like to focus on a period whe ...
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Curator's Corner
Mesoamerica-North American Connection: Mississippian Culture
I just finished my part of work on the revision of our studio book about clay and so I thought I would show you a ceramic artwork this week. As an art historian, I enjoy making connections between cul ...
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Curator's Corner
Utagawa Hiroshige Winter Wonderland
Since we’re in the midst of “The Holidays,” I thought I would show you all a nice snow scene (as if we haven’t had enough so far this month on the East Coast). Now, I’m t ...
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Curator's Corner
Canadian Photographer: William McFarlane Notman
I’m returning to a Canadian artist again this week because this work reminds me of two things I think we tend to forget: 1) Photography was an art form that evolved in Canada the same as it did ...
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Curator's Corner
Mayan Textiles
I am always fascinated when I stop to think about indigenous cultures that have flourished culturally for many, many centuries. True, we in the West consider the ancient Greek and Roman cultures as ou ...
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Curator's Corner
Canadian Sculptor Jacqueline Winsor
Among the many new museum collections we are continually adding to our digital image archive, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery of Buffalo, NY is one of my favorites. What a wonderful collection of contem ...
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Curator's Corner
Mayan Honduras: Copán Monument
We in the Western Hemisphere don’t have to look very far to find a civilization that rivals that of ancient Greece and Rome. The Maya in Central America thrived for almost 3000 years in Mexico, ...
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Curator's Corner
Art in Everyday Life: Ancient Greece
As I’ve mentioned before, I resist the Western art historical tendency to consider the art of ancient Greece and Rome as the high points of artistic achievement, in a broad view of art around th ...
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Curator's Corner
Art in Everyday Life: J. Palin Thorley
While looking at images for the revision of one of our books, I came across an image of a metal pitcher from the 1930s. It had such clean, modern lines that it could easily be mistaken for a contempor ...
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Curator's Corner
Northern Renaissance Engraver: Israhel van Meckenem
I like showing you works from the Renaissance period in Northern Europe. This is partly because my mother was Swiss and I wrote my master’s thesis about a Swiss Renaissance painter (yes, Switzer ...
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