Day 291 - Harnett




 

April 1, 2022

Gallery 763 holds 13 oil paintings and a number of sculptures executed between 1860 and 1890. The introductory signage notes that many of the paintings present a rather sentimental and traditional, if not conservative, view of American life that ignored the new realities of mass immigration and industrialization. In fact, the works on display do include several portraits of large families in comfortable and prosperous settings. But, after all, these were the people who could pay painters for their work!

Despite its relatively small size (perhaps 28" high and 24" wide)  William Michael Harnett's 1879 still-life, entitled "The Artist's Letter Rack," immediately grabs me because its trompe l'oeil effect is so successful.  I've never seen a letter rack and can't imagine how this one works, but the pink square that presumably holds the letters and calling cards practically jumps off the canvas; I had to get close to see that the work really is a painting, not a collage.  The three-dimensional effect is enhanced by the use of slightly darker paint along the inner edge of the left side of the frame to create a sense of depth. I marvel at the realism with which the letters are depicted - in particular, the torn edge of the blue envelope, with its white contents peeking out, and the precision of the postmarks. A newspaper clipping apparently pasted on the wall is so finely delineated that I think I should be able to read the poem inscribed on it - but I can't.  But what's the string at the upper left-center doing there? Beats me.

I couldn't resist including Frank Waller's 1881 painting of the interior of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, (then on 14th Street), in which a bonneted woman peers closely at one of the works on display.  She reminds me of yours truly, in different attire!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 349 - Charles Ray horse

Image
June 19, 2923  Gallery 917 holds the Philip Guston painting I wrote about earlier (day 341).  Gallery 918 is home to just one work: a huge (perhaps   16 feet long and   10 feet high) granite bas-relief by a contemporary American sculptor, Charles Ray, who was born in 1953. The bas-relief, sculpted in 2019, is entitled “Two Horses,” which are seen in full-body profile. But you have to look closely to see the second horse, whose head and neck are in much lower relief than the horse in the foreground, and whose torso is almost completely obscured. The main giveaway that more than one horse is depicted are the six hooves at the bottom of the image. The striations in the granite at the bottom of the relief suggest that the horses are fording a stream, with water  covering their lower legs. The sculptor has done a remarkable job of capturing the front horse’s bony legs, the musculature of its shoulder, the sinews of its neck, the feathery texture of its mane.   The caption notes that horses
Read more

Day 360 - The Wentworth room

Image
 May 18, 2024 When I enter this room (gallery 711), which was taken from a house in Portsmouth, New Hampshire that was built in 1695-1700 for John Wentworth and his wife, I'm immediately struck by how much grander it seems than the Ipswich room, in spirit if not in scale. (The Wentworth room appears to me to measure about 35 feet long and 20 feet wide.)  For one thing, the fireplace, set against the long wall, is framed by beautiful dark wood paneling. (Such paneling may have lined the other walls as well, but if so, it has disappeared.) The single placard presents only very basic information about the room, but it includes  a QR code, which I dutifully scan, and to my surprise, once I've joined the Met's wifi, the website opens and contains much more detail.   I have to remind myself that, as with other period rooms, the furnishings in this room didn't come from the Wentworth home. Instead, they reflect  Met curators' knowledge about furniture styles and the curato
Read more

Day 356 - Medieval sculpture

Image
 May 7, 2024 Gallery 520 is at the area behind the large choir screen in the Medieval Art galleries. (At Christmas, the front of that screen is the site of the "angel tree" and the Neapolitan creche, where I make an annual pilgrimage; the figures of peasants tending their flocks and coming to adore the Christ child never fail  to move me.)  The gallery contains tapesetries, a large coffer, and a 14th-century Italian column head showing Saint Veronica holding up her veil on which a rather ugly head of Christ appears. A display case holds a parchment from 1466-67, during the War of the Roses, that charts the genealogy of the kings of England.  Edward IV's claim to the throne is substantiated by the inclusion among his forebears of King David, Alexander the Great, King Arthur, and William the Conqueror.   Most of the gallery, however, is devoted to sculpture.  Dating from about 1325 to 1550, the statuary comes from all over Western Europe (France, Germany, the Low Countries,
Read more