Orientalism: A British View - Tate Gallery

The Tate Gallery's new exhibit on Orientalism is ruffling a few feahters. Go to their website for an excellent over view of the exhibit.

www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/exh_gfx_en/ART57918.html

El Greco to Velazquez Exhbit

Yesterday it was over 90 degrees in Boston; a month ahead of schedule. So it was a time to go either to the beach or to a Museum. I decided on the museum to see a documentary on China’s Three Gorges Dam and since it was so cool inside, I then went to see the above exhibit even though I didn't think I would much like the art works.

It was a very large exhibit of which I skipped about half which was all religious paintings. But there were some paintings that I really liked and I loved El Greco's Fray Hortensio Felix Paravicino. In fact I liked many of his portrait paintings. The detail in the man’s face was wonderful; such intelligent eyes and a strong sense of self. I felt that the man was there with me in the room. Perhaps it was the way the paint was applied to the picture. Somehow the paint strokes made the hands and the garment “alive.” And this was all achieved in black, brown, and white paints.

Another favorite was Pedro Orrente’s Jacob Conjuring Laban’s Sheep. I was a very realistic painting right down to the crimp of the wool on the sheep’s back and their confusion when separated wondering which way to go. Having researched whether i got the name right or not i see many referenes to the Genesis 29:10 and 30:33-43 as well as the Merchant of Venice which in turns goes back to Genesis so now I am thinking there is some religious meaning behind the picture. Cannot find a picture to put up on my blog though. Another interesting aspect to me that was while I had never heard of him he was born in Murcia, Spain which I had visited a couple of years ago. His mother was also born in the same city although his father was from the South of France.

Some books that I found in relation to Spain and its history that were really good was Ghosts of Spain by Giles Tremlett
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/books/review/wildman.t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
The Saragossa Manuscript by Count Jan Potocki (1761-1815)
The Tales of the Alhambra by Washington Irving
and Pereira Declares by Antonio Tabucchi

Art In Bloom

Every April the Musuem of Fine Arts in Boston invites Massachusetts garden clubs to display their artistic impression of various pictures or statues in the galleries. Each year I walk through and pick my favorites. This year I did not complete the tour but the winner was the Chinese gallery which are the photograph above and to the left.

Not a good photograph but a nice flower representation of Gauguin's "Where Do We Come From?"

Runner up in the Egyptian and Japanese galleries but unfortunately you cannot see the calligraphy on the stone behind the flower arrangement.


These two photographs are the rotunda and the stair case leading to the Huntington Ave. exit.

Cash Cow

Go visit Judi Rotenberg’s gallery at 130 Newbury St in Boston to see a very interesting exhibit by two artists: Mary Ellen Strom and choreographer Ann Carlson. Judy always puts on wonderful, avant garde shows so I would recommend getting on her mailing list at judirotenberg.com

It’s a little bit difficult to explain the show to you but basically the artists are sending us a message about the effects of consumerism. An example is the cow in the show titled Madame 710. As you can see in this photograph, Carlson is projected in the gallery with a cow whose udders are swollen with milk and who has a yellow tag clipped to its ear 710. Carlson is seen dancing around the cow wearing nothing but dollar bills. The cow is looking directly at you. This piece indirectly says some about industrial farming which I abhor and directly about the term “cash cow”; so, not such a great description about the show but please go if you can, the show is on until April 26th

Part of the show will be at the DeCordova Musuem in Lincoln, MA. in January.

Shell Wildlife Photographs of the Year Exhibit

While I was in London I visited the Natural History Musuem to see the Shell Wildlife Photographs of the Year. The very first photograph in the exhibit really caught my attention and I find that I am repeatedly thinking about the power of that photograph. While the colors (pink sky and blue snow) have the affect of pushing the owl forward it also has the impact of pushing your mental capacities toward the inner sanctum of the natural world. It makes me question what our place is in the universe and how well have we fit into it?

Another favorite photograph of mine, although not at the time but after I had returned home and found that I was thinking about the power that this photographed represented.

Than there was the photograph that literally danced off the wall. A complete joy to behold.




And the one that speaks a thousand words about humans impact on this earth and how vital it is for us all, everyone of us, to change dramatically the way we live on this earth.






Finishing up with the joy of life.
Click here to visit the exhibit
www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/temporary-exhibitions/wpy/onlineGallery.do

Osman Hamdi Bey

In 1860, Osman Hamdi Bey went to Paris to study law but ended up studying art instead. In 1891 he became the director of the Imperial Museum of Antiquities. In 1910 he died. The painting to the left is a wonderful self portrait by thr master himself.

In Osman Hamdi Bey's short life time he redefined westerners’ notions of the east that had been formed from the Crusades to Islamic Spain. Hamdi Bey portrayed mainly intellectual activities and domestic visions of the orient and denounced the erotic version of the orient saying that nude images of concubines were a disgrace to women I thought however, that his images of women at home looked very European. They were not well received in Europe because they did not portray the “exciting and lustful” vision of women that westerners were use to seeing and thus expecting.



However, as I started looking at nineteenth century painters of the orient I realized that neither the French painters nor Hamdi Bey were reflecting reality. They were all living out their dreams and desires through their art. This was rather a shook, as I initially believed that Hamdi Bey's painting reflected the “real” Turkey because of how different his scenes were to his French counterparts. The fact is that Hamdi was living in a dream world too, that of Turkey’s glorious past – the Golden era of Turkey and so I had to ask what timeframe and which Golden era? His paintings express a deep sense of loss, while not calling for a return to the past. One gets the feeling that he realized that modernity comes with ambiguity.

I came to this conclusion because if you look at his paintings his figures are never dressed in modern oriental clothing but rather costumes and fabrics that depict medieval time which was the time of Islamic Spain and the Crusades. The settings of his paintings are also late medieval/early Ottoman times. His visual reconstruction of late Ottoman period also coincided with historical novels that had similar themes and were immensely popular with the general public. This was also a time of great upheaval in Turkey as they were going through huge changes and thus there was a sentiment of the loss of the glorious past.

Just like Gauguin, he had a huge collection of old photographs that he utilized in imagining the backgrounds in his paintings and many of them are just “make believe native” settings. The Janissaries (a Turkish infantryman in the Sultan’s guard) belonged to the medieval period and are incorporated in several of his paintings.

His painting of the 15th century green mosque in Bursa has different geographies put together: note the Syrian fabrics on the figures. This ties in with the growing interest in cross cultural studies in Europe where he trained as a painter. The Conversing Scholar picture which shows three scholars in traditional clothes, are in fact all pictures of him self.


In many of his pictures the onlookers are not asked to associate with the people in the pictures thus establishing a sense of detachment and distance.

Hamdi Bey's engagement with history and his position in Ottoman society was on a higher level and his main themes or points seemed to be inspired by literary works such as Byron and One Thousand and One Arabian Nights whose stories are partly traced back to medieval Arabic folk stories from the Caliphate era. Osman Hamid kept most of his paintings for himself, he didn’t sell them. When he died the state museum and private collectors along with the Ottoman Painters Society bought them.

What is important about his paintings are not how they were received at the time but how they relate to Turkey’s past.