I feel this captures every single sentiment about a Saturday. The lounging, the leisure, the expensive silk robes…all of it. And these girls are like, “Yeah, and we about to do it all over again tomorrow.”
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makin' art real talk
Category Archives: Art
let’s be real
While I am ALL FOR bottomless pitchers for brunch (but like, where can I get that china?!), there just aren’t enough crumpled linens and tapestries at my normal Saturday eateries.
seven deadly sins
Hieronymus Bosch is only a little crazy. Luckily, we’re looking at a painting that comes before his insane, invented lands where humans and birds live together in uproarious, straight up, and bizarre ways.
This is a work acquired by Spain’s Philip II, and you can see this amazing panel at the Prado. Each of the corner’s small circles represents “Death,” “Judgment,” “Hell,” and “Glory.” The panels within the greater circle illustrate the seven deadly sins. Christ is in the middle, standing knowingly above the scroll that reads, “Beware, Beware, God Sees.”
So, the scariest combination of Pictionary and Wheel of Fortune that I have EVER SEEN.
mercelle lender
Today, we celebrate Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. A man who stood at the lofty four-six, Lautrec spent many a-night at the Moulin Rouge and other Parisian nightclubs. Lautrec’s parents were first cousins (gross), and many of his health problems were attributed to inbreeding (double gross). He drank like a maniac; even his cane came well-equipped with liquor storage. He ended up dying in an insane asylum with syphilis.
My favorite part about this painting of Marcelle Lender is that Lautrec LOVED redheads (smart man, I say). Like, was obsessed. I’m talking, this chick was in an short-running opera (too soon?), and he attended twenty times. Twen-tee. When he wanted her to have the painting, she basically called him a creep. “What a horrible man,” she said, “You can have [the painting].”
Well, the National Gallery helped itself to it, thanks to John Jay Whitney, in the 90s.
odalisque
Henri Matisse’s “Odalisque” has quite a long lineage of ownership. The Nazis seized the work from art dealer Paul Rosenberg in 1941. The work traveled from Paris to New York, where it was purchased by the lumber millionaires Prentice and Virginia Bloedel. (Note: The two founded Bleodel Reserve, a pretty major mansion and wildlife habitat north of Seattle that sits on a measly 150 acres.) They donated the painting to the Seattle Art Museum in 1991.
Since “Odalisque” was a work confiscated by the Nazis, Rosenberg’s granddaughter Anne Sinclair (France’s own “Barbara Walters”) sued the Seattle Art Museum (the first lawsuit of its kind regarding looted art). The museum then sued the New York gallery (like, of course). The museum unanimously voted to give the work back in 1999. In 2007, Sinclair put the work up for auction. The price tag? 33 million.
As if this story couldn’t get more dramatic! Anne Sinclair’s ex is Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former IMF Managing Director who was acquitted of assault charges against a hotel maid. See? Told you.
sunday night blues
Paul Gauguin, sans trousers, playing the piano. So there IS something worse than Monday.
patriotism?! nailed it.
Sometimes art is a patriotic manicure.
Liberty
This image above is from the Paris World’s Fair in 1878, and the one below is from the Centennial Fair of 1876. Reason #934 I was born in the wrong generation.
Between 1876 and 1882, if you lived in New York, you could throw down 50 cents and climb atop Lady Liberty’s torch. I would have been doing this daily.
Her head and limb joined the rest of her in the 1880s, with a final ceremonial dedication October 28, 1886. She was once under the authority of the US Lighthouse Board (!!!), then the Department of War, and since 1933, the National Parks Service.
Thanks, France!
freedom
Happy Fourth of July, America. To celebrate, I salute FREEDOM.
The Statue of Freedom has been sitting pretty (actually though, look at that CROWN!) on the US Capitol since 1863. Wouldn’t you know, of all people, Jefferson Davis (Secretary of War under Pierce and eventual President of the Confederacy) was in charge of the Capitol’s construction and decorations.
At the time of the installation, the head honcho of the casting agency, Clark Mills, went on strike. Before walking off, however, he passed the responsibilities off to Philip Reid, one of the slaves on site. Reid went on to preside over the rest of the casting.
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