Tag Archives: impressionism

Art

Far Reaching Effects Of Visual Culture In Our World Of Appearances

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Dusty book stall archeologist and writer Jonathan Guyer oversees the far reaching effects of visual culture in our modern ‘all about appearances’ world.

Jonathan Guyer on CBC -Canada Broadcasting Corporation 

Through frequent excursions to the bookshops of downtown Cairo in Egypt,  Guyer has unearthed a wealth of forgotten political narratives and overlooked illustrative histories. Book-ending his fascination with the alternative story lines of locally appropriated Western comics, Guyer’s faith in the ethical and ideological potential of cartoons and satirical imagery extends to the underground artistic movements of contemporary self-published zine-makers. In his eloquent interview, the prolific and level-headed writer remarks on welcome shifts in the Middle Eastern visual landscape, the necessary and terrifying obligations of artists, and the autonomy of art in an authoritative society.

Bascha Mon Prince Street Rag oil on canvas

Adaptive and indomitable painter Bascha Mon has traced each frame of light between the new and full moons. Bound to spontaneity and guided by intuition, Mon’s practice feels out a logic from the sanctuary and purgatory of a blank canvas. Impelled by the psychic pains of a laboring human family, Mon retrieves the fragments of her commiserating heart from the cold grasp of reality, like pulling her distorted reflection from the surface of the water. Expressed in her stirring and poignant interview, Mon’s necessary attachment to art conceals a deep solidarity with the misplaced souls of the Earth, who struggle to make sense of an existence where whimsy and intense meaning coexist. The sage observer and painter is never dissatisfied by an individual work, as no piece is anything less than perfect if it belongs to a whole.

Shipping Container is a book on Literary Theory by Craig Martin

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Tom Allen, is ensnared by the vehement poems of mid 19th century writer Jules Laforgue, the progenitor of free verse in the French tradition and treasure to the great modernist poets. Laforgue fashioned his fervent style of observation from the fiery idealism of the symbolists and the microcosmic subjectivity of impressionism. Another one of our users, Niels Van Tomme, is pleasantly amused by the playful and engaging Shipping Container, Craig Martin’s contribution to the Object Lessons series. Martin’s colorful prose enlivens the itinerant existence of this ubiquitous transport vessel, the unsung hero of our convenient and mobile world.

Urging the flow of time and water is the promise of change made by a fork in the stream.

For the Silo, Brainard Carey.

Art

The Met Acquires Monumental Tiffany Window

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(New York, December, 2023)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced the acquisition of a monumental Tiffany three-part window, Garden Landscape. The window—over ten feet wide and nearly seven feet tall—was designed by Agnes Northrop in the studios of Louis Comfort Tiffany, the attribution of which is based on a signed design drawing for the center panel that resides in The Met collection.

As part of the Museum’s American Wing 100th anniversary, the window will be installed in the Charles Engelhard Court in November 2024. The window will be dramatically framed by the columns from Laurelton Hall, Tiffany’s Long Island country estate.

The acquisition is made possible by Alan Gerry Gift; 2023 Benefit Fund; Louis V. Bell, Harris Brisbane Dick, Fletcher, and Rogers Funds and Joseph Pulitzer Bequest; funds and gifts from various donors, by exchange; Ronald S. Kane Bequest, in memory of Berry B. Tracy; Lila Acheson Wallace, several members of The Chairman’s Council, The Erving and Joyce Wolf Foundation, Martha J. Fleischman, Elizabeth J. and Paul De Rosa, Women and the Critical Eye, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Lockwood Chilton Jr., Cheryl and Blair Effron, The Felicia Fund, Julie and James Alexandre, Elizabeth and Richard Miller, Anonymous, John and Margaret Ruttenberg, and The Gerald H. Ruttenberg Foundation Gifts.

Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and CEO, said: “This stunning work of art is an extraordinary example of the transformational creativity of Agnes Northrop and Tiffany Studios. Magnificent in concept and execution and more than grand in size, it deepens the American Wing’s Tiffany holdings and will enhance the already stunning Engelhard Court with a powerful, immersive viewing experience.”

Sylvia Yount, Lawrence A. Fleischman Curator in Charge of the American Wing at The Met, said: “Northrop’s remarkable environmental work further strengthens our representation of women artists in the American Wing and allows us to share broader stories of early-20th-century culture with our visitors.”

The window was originally commissioned by Sarah Cochran, Pittsburgh businesswoman and philanthropist, for Linden Hall, the grand Tudor-Revival estate she had built in 1912 in Dawson, Pennsylvania. She personally requested the subject of the window, which represents a lush landscape and garden suggestive of her own at the estate. Placed on the stair landing of the house, the window enticed the viewer up marble steps and offered a long vista through tall, majestic pines flanking a central fountain amidst profuse flowers—pink and blue hydrangeas, poppies, and nasturtiums. The two side panels depict, on the left, foxglove and peonies, and on the right, hollyhocks, exquisitely rendered in glass. These were subjects favored by Northrop and American Impressionist painters.

Northrop was one of the most important designers in Tiffany’s employ and his preeminent woman designer. In a field dominated by men, Northrop established herself as one of the leading designers of windows, and was recognized for her work by winning a prestigious award at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900. She helps shed light on the critical and often unrecognized role played by women in the art of Louis Comfort Tiffany. Northrop and Tiffany pioneered new landscape and garden subject matter for stained glass, and the window reveals Northrop’s careful observations of nature and her gift for translating it into glass.

Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, Anthony W. and Lulu C. Wang Curator of American Decorative Arts, said: “This extraordinary evocation of a garden landscape is Northrop’s masterpiece. Made during the height of Louis Tiffany’s career, it was conceived, commissioned, and crafted by women. Featuring flowers in bloom from spring through summer, seen in the enigmatic light of approaching twilight, the window presents a luxuriant garden perennially in bloom.”

Tiffany’s opalescent glass shares a zeitgeist with American Impressionism, merging imagery with chromatic light. Northrop exploited the varied textures, lush colors, and light effects that were only possible with Tiffany’s special Favrile glass made at his furnaces in Corona, Queens, utilizing especially innovative and unusual techniques, some unique in a stained-glass window. The ingenious selection of the glass as well as the cutting of the glass into often thousands of pieces of almost impossible shapes was done by Tiffany’s skilled artisans, who were also largely women. Tiffany deemed the Linden Hall window of such note that he put it on public view in his New York showroom before shipping it to Cochran’s Pennsylvania home.
Featured image: Image: Three-part Garden Landscape window for Linden Hall, Designed by Agnes F. Northrop (1857–1953), Tiffany Studios (1902–32), New York, 1912. Leaded Favrile glass. 124 × 82 inches; 88 3/4 × 81 5/8 inches; 88 3/4 × 81 5/8 inches; center panel: 124 × 82 in. (315 × 208.3 cm); side panels: 88 3/4 × 81 5/8 in. (225.4 × 207.3 cm)
Gaming

Machinarium Videogame Combines Art And Visual Storytelling

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Machinarium is not a new videogame. But if, like many gamers, you overlooked it when it was released in late 2009, you owe it to yourself to go back and pay it some attention. Machinarium may look simple or perhaps even a touch primitive at first glance, but in reality the game is an inspirational fairy tale set in a wondrous, grimy world of living machines; a touching story of struggle, heroism and robot-love.

One of Machinarium’s most remarkable qualities is the way its tale is woven without a single word—there’s not one instance of speech or text in the entire game. Instead, everything is told visually. Dialog between characters unfolds as brief animations, while plot details are filled in through flashbacks.

Even the physical appearances of the game’s denizens, from the diminutive main character to his ruffian tormentors and the strutting, tin-pot police who, in theory at least, guard over the city, figure prominently in the storytelling process, as the pint-sized underdog struggles against bullies and thugs to be the hero his doe-eyed beloved has always believed him to be.

That may be a lot to read into a game that, bizarre setting aside, is a fairly straightforward point-and-click adventure. From a gameplay standpoint, Machinarium is solid if not particularly noteworthy. But the details of its world most definitely are. Each level and everything in it is entirely hand-drawn, providing a unique and whimsical visual style, while the soundtrack, both musical and ambient, is every bit as impressive—possibly more so. The combined effect is nothing short of extraordinary.

Gamers unfamiliar with the standards of “adventure logic,” in which odd, occasionally arbitrary sequences of actions are required to complete tasks and move things forward, may need a little time to get settled, but veterans of the genre will feel right at home. You will collect objects, you will combine objects, and you will use those objects on other objects to make things happen. But the game mechanics are actually quite simple, because everything is visual and its various regions are fairly tightly compartmentalized. Some of the problems you’ll face are real stumpers, however, and while one hint is available for each of the game’s screens, don’t expect it to do much more than give you a very gentle nudge in the right direction.

But that’s okay. Machinarium is a slow-burning experience that’s best savored rather than merely consumed. It crafts gripping beauty out of an ugly world in a way that elevates it from the merely good to the truly memorable. It’s not for everyone: twitchy Halo junkies probably won’t find too much to like in it. But for anyone in the mood for something a little more thoughtful, or who’d just like to see the videogame medium stretch its legs a little bit, Machinarium is a wonderful, magical game that simply should not be missed. For the Silo, Andy Chalk.