Category Archives: Art

Jul 02 2014
Art

girl arranging her hair

cassatt

There’s actually nothing better than an exposed collarbone. Nothing. Bonus points on her being a redhead (ignore what I said in my last post).

Degas had once asked, “What do women know about style?” to Cassatt, and this painting was her retaliation. Do you think Degas just said, “As I thought, NOTHING!”

No matter, Degas had this work in his studio. He then sold it to Louisine Haverney, a major suffragette who co-founded the National Women’s Party (she once tried to set an effigy of Woodrow Wilson on fire in front of the White House —  😯 😯 😯

The painting was then a part of the Chester Dale collection — ah yes, our 1960s Kevin McCallister — before joining the NGA collection.

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Jul 02 2014
Art

the critic

the critic

Norman Rockwell’s “The Critic” first appeared on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post in 1955.

Rockwell used his oldest son as the model for the studying art critic. He honored his mother by making her the portrait at which he’s looking carefully. Her red hair was added for fun by Rockwell.

You know what’s fun? Cotton candy, baseball games, ice cream bars. You know what’s not? Being a ginger in the summer.

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Jul 01 2014
Art, Person

emile bernard

bernard self portrait

I’m actually starting to think that Emile Bernard was the classic mean girl boy. Hear me out. In 1888, Vincent van Gogh is endlessly writing letters to Gauguin and Bernard about creating an “artistic community.” I mean, these letters — like this one, to Bernard in June of ’88 — are desperate.

I’m just imagining the two recipients just giggling like high school girls at their French studios at Vincent’s expense.

So, in the classic mean girl (think Mean Girls’ Plastics) fashion, Bernard sends the above self-portrait as a big “Oh, you want to hang out with us? That’s so sweet!”

And you know what van Gogh writes back?!

Van Gogh was enthusiastic about the gift – “a couple of simple tones, a couple of dark lines, but it is [as] elegant as a real, genuine Manet.”

I read “elegant,” but all I’m envisioning are those less-popular girls that fawn over Regina George:

Well, it turns out Emile Bernard is, in fact, our story’s Cady Heron. He’s the one to arrange Vincent van Gogh’s first retrospective after his death in 1890. But where Mean Girls grants Cady the cute boy and the diverse friendships, Bernard loses Gauguin. They sharply split ways because Georges-Albert Aurier named Gauguin the leader of Symbolism and initiator of the Synthetist manner, a title Bernard felt entitled to.

Can’t win ’em all, Emile.

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Jun 30 2014
Art, Person

hova and the golden ratio

I’m about to connect some weird dots, but GO WITH ME on this. It’s like Chopped: In this post, you must use The Golden Ratio, the Mona Lisa, and Jay Z.

  • Golden Ratio: First, a quick math (!!!) lesson: The golden ratio is a special number found by diving a line into two parts so that the longer part divided by the smaller part is aso equal to the whole length divided by the longer part…For all those that need a good variable set, that’s a/b = (a +b) / a = 1.618You know who liked this Golden Ratio? Leonardo da Vinci.

   golden ratio
Illustration of golden ratio, obviously.

  • Leonardo da Vinci: No surprise that da Vinci loved math and was familiar with the Golden Ratio. There’s a lot of scholarship that looks at the Mona Lisa as a distinguished, mathematically-accurate artwork. If I show you, do I have to talk about it?mona lisa spiral
  • Jay Z: Maybe my most favorite secret ingredient! So, Jay Z has a song called “Picasso Baby” on Holy Grail (ugh, I KNOW, I barely knew it too). He creates a pretty creative…but mainly expensive…laundry list of artworks in the song. But, just as Yonce has Parisians screaming at her in a car, Hova appropriates his own French conversation:

WOMAN: I have given and shown you everything, with nothing to hide. There you are, Ivy, like the nombre d’or… Jay, how do you say nombre d’or?

JAY: “The golden number.”

Boom, Hov, LOVE IT. Your daughter is sooo perfect, she imitates immaculate proportions! Take that, Iron Chef Guarnaschelli — I am your new Chopped Champion! I’ll be around to collect my 10K this week.

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Jun 30 2014
Art

women ignoring men

Let my Mallory Ortberg obsession continue…

Read the full article, “Art History: 500 Years of Women Ignoring Men,” here.

mallory 4

“Oh, my God, Tess, don’t encourage him. You’re terrrrrible.”

“No, I’m serious! That was so good! Can you play another one? You’re, like, really good at this.”

mallory 5

“I would love to go out tonight but I’m…I’m dying.” [coughs weakly into handkerchief]

“Oh, my God.”

“Yeah. It’s consumption, so.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“No, it’s fine.”

“I will stay and nurse you.”

“No, you won’t.”

mallory 6

“Hi, sorry, this is a women-only balcony.”

“Women’s balcony, sorry.”

“Male balcony’s over there, this balcony is all-women, sorry!”

 

 

 

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Jun 29 2014
Art, Person, Sports

diego rivera, frida kahlo

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Mexico plays today against the Netherlands, so I figured, “What the heck? Let’s post an attractive picture of Diego and Frida!”

Turns out that is much (much!!) easier said than done. Like, IMPOSSIBLE. Frida was also 20 (two zeroooo) years younger than Diego!! DANG! Have we developed a term for a male cougar?

I’m looking into it.

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Jun 28 2014
Art

les miserables

gauguin miserables

Get a load of this nonsense: Paul Gauguin paints himself as Jean Valjean. Yeah, we’re talking WOLVERINE’S Jean Valjean.

From the Vincent van Gogh Museum (who, sadly, owns the work):

Gauguin compared this fictional hero, a man rejected by society despite his inner power and love, with the misunderstood artists of his own time, including himself.

This painting was also dedicated to Vincent van Gogh. Emile Bernard’s in the background.

I’m starting to realize why it’s called the miserable.

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Jun 27 2014
Art Video

lincoln memorial

lincoln memorial

With a week until the Fourth of July, I decided to focus on a major American achievement — the return of overalls the Lincoln Memorial.

Sculptor: David Chester French
Also known for: DuPont Memorial Fountain, John Harvard statue (full oeuvre here).

Memorial, by the numbers:

  • 35 – outer columns (one for each state in the Union at the time of the Civil War)
  • 28 – blocks of marble carved by the Piccirilli Brothers that create Lincoln
  • 9 – replicas of smaller “working Lincolns” French cast from the original
  • 48 – wreathes festoons (one for each state in 1922 — fancy!)
  • 7 – ranking on “America’s Favorite Architecture” list (2007)
  • 0 – at the time of publication of this post, the number of times “Wedding Crashers” was named in the Lincoln Memorial Wiki’s section “In Popular Culture” (like, HELLO!?)

I overheard a tour guide say, “the story gets happier” when he described Robert Lincoln being able to attend the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial. My footnote for that in my notes? “Haha.”

 

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Jun 25 2014
Art

normal moments

Remember that time yesterday when I discovered Mallory Ortberg? Well, I’m about to develop a love for her that is similar to Suri’s Burn Book for Kiernan Shipka. And her posts continue to bring sparkle and hilarity to this domain, so I say, let it shine.

mallory 1

what dead girl 

i don’t even know what you mean 

this girl was here when we got here

she wanted us to stand on her

yeah that was like all she could talk about 

“please stand on me”

so don’t worry it’s very normal what we’re doing here

mallory 2

hey guys hey come on in just come right on in i’m so glad you’re here by yourselves just the two of you 

we’re going to have such a good normal time in this cave together 

mallory 3

yeah so just drink out of this cup and then something will happen after that i guess

 

Actually, though, Mallory — you are magic. Guest post ASAP, plz…I’ll send cookies.

Read the rest of her wondrous article, “Normal Moments in Art History with no Murder,” here.

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Jun 25 2014
Art

michael jackson and bubbles

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Jeff Koons gives us Michael Jackson and Bubbles. Gods among men…and yes, I sure bundle Bubbles in that mix.

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