Tag Archives: Arts & Literature
Art: ‘Hokusai. Thirty-Six Views Of Mount Fuji’
Mount Fuji has long been a centerpiece of Japanese cultural imagination, and nothing captures this with more virtuosity than the landmark woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji by Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849).
The renowned printmaker documents 19th-century Japan with exceptional artistry and adoration, celebrating its countryside, cities, people, and serene natural beauty. Produced at the peak of Hokusai’s artistic ambition, the series is a quintessential work of ukiyo-e that earned the artist world-wide recognition as a leading master of his craft.
The prints illustrate Hokusai’s own obsession with Mount Fuji as well as the flourishing domestic tourism of the late Edo period. Just as the mountain was a cherished view for travelers heading to the capital Edo (now Tokyo) along the Tōkaidō road, Mount Fuji is the infallible backdrop to each of the series’ unique scenes. Hokusai captures the distinctive landscape and provincial charm of each setting with a vivid palette and exquisite detail. Including the iconic Under the Great Wave off Kanagawa (also The Great Wave), this widely celebrated series is a treasure of international art history.
Books: ‘The Tiny Bee That Hovers At The Center Of The World’ – David Searcy
An ethereal meditation on longing, loss, and time, sweeping from the highways of Texas to the canals of Mars–by the acclaimed essayist and author of Shame and Wonder
David Searcy’s writing is enchanting and peculiar, obsessed with plumbing the mysteries and wonders of our everyday world, the beauty and cruelty of time, and nothing less than what he calls “the whole idea of meaning.” In The Tiny Bee That Hovers at the Center of the World, he leads the reader across the landscapes of his extraordinary mind, moving from the decaying architectural wonder that is the town of Arcosanti, Arizona, to driving the vast, open Texas highway in his much-abused college VW Beetle, to the mysterious, canal-riddled Martian landscape that famed astronomer Percival Lowell first set eyes on, via his telescope, in 1894. Searcy does not come at his ideas directly, but rather digresses and meditates and analyzes until some essential truth has been illuminated–and it is in that journey that the beauty is found.
Art History: Whistler’s ‘Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac’
In the final episode of “Cocktails with a Curator,” Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon bids audiences farewell with a discussion of “Arrangement in Black and Gold: Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac” by James McNeill Whistler, the best-represented artist at the Frick with twenty works in the collection. Whistler met the eccentric poet and aristocrat depicted in the painting in 1885, and they soon became fast friends, with Montesquiou sitting for the portrait in 1891–92, making it the most modern work on display at Frick Madison. This week’s complementary cocktail is the Black Manhattan, a spin-off of the cocktail from the very first episode of “Cocktails with a Curator.” Xavier, Aimee, and Giulio extend their thanks to all those who made this program possible and, of course, to you, the viewers—cheers! To view this painting (or object) in detail, please visit our website: https://www.frick.org/whistlerblackgold
Book Review: ‘Pessoa – A Biography’ (NY Times)
The Arts: Rembrandt And The History Of Mahogany
In the inaugural episode of “Where in the World?,” Curator Aimee Ng explores the history of mahogany, a material hidden beneath the surface of a Rembrandt portrait and sourced oceans away from the famed artist’s homeland.
The Frick’s temporary move to Frick Madison has prompted new ways of looking at our works of art. The reframing of the collection sheds light on the fact that the Frick’s art, although predominantly European, is undeniably linked to the world beyond Europe. In this series, we’re exploring some of these stories, asking “where in the world” we can find new connections to familiar objects.
To view the Rembrandt painting in detail, please visit our website: https://www.frick.org/rembrandtruts
Profiles: British Artist Aimee Lax (V&A Museum)
Aimee Lax is an artist whose work examines the fragility and strength of the natural world, showing how it can be simultaneously threatening and beautiful. During her residency she has focussed on the question of the Anthropocene, looking at the burial of nuclear waste and the strange morphological effects on organisms in areas exposed to nuclear radiation. Creating works which convey a sense of otherworldliness and the uncanny, she uses clay to illustrate the dangers of the past, present and future. Engaging Ceramics Artist in Residence October 2019 – July 2020.
Views: France Honors 150th Anniversary Of Marcel Proust’s Birth
#France is marking the 150th anniversary of the birth of famed #novelist Marcel #Proust. He penned much of his greatest work, the seven-volume saga “In Search of Lost Time”, along the shores of Cabourg, in Normandy. Under the fictional name of Balbec, the town was put on the literary map. To find out more about Cabourg’s Proustian legacy, and Proust’s short but hugely influential career, we take you to The Villa of Time Found, whose immersive exhibit takes visitors on a sensory trip back in time.
Cocktails With A Curator: Bruegel The Elder’s “The Three Soldiers” (Video)
n this week’s episode of “Cocktails with a Curator,” Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon discusses “The Three Soldiers” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, one of only a few works by the artist outside Europe. Bruegel is best known for his lively and often comical peasant scenes, but here he takes as his subject three landsknechts, or German mercenary foot soldiers.
Currently on view on the second floor of Frick Madison, this grisaille painting shows a drummer, a standard-bearer, and a fifer outfitted in flamboyant costume (and presumably urging their fellow soldiers into battle). This week’s complementary cocktail is the Radler, a mixture of lemonade and lager favored in German-speaking lands north of the Alps.
To view this painting in detail, please visit our website: https://www.frick.org/bruegel3soldiers
British Masterpieces: ‘Purfleet And The Essex Shore’ By J.M.W. Turner
Travel back in time to J.M.W. Turner’s Harley Street gallery before immersing yourself in one of the finest seascapes ever painted by a British artist. Movie trailer legend Nick Ellsworth reads from Poet Laureate John Masefield’s ‘Sea Fever’ as we set sail across the mouth of the River Thames to explore Turner’s masterpiece. ‘Purfleet and the Essex Shore as seen from Long Reach’ established Turner’s reputation as the greatest marine painter of the modern age.
Boomers Daily 