Tag Archives: Saint Louis Art Museum

Knit With It

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The Knitting Lesson, Jean-Francois Millet, 1869

The Knitting Lesson, Jean-Francois Millet, 1869

The above picture and the following text are both courtesy of the Saint Louis Art Museum. SLAM or more colloquially called ‘the Slammer’ has as its motto, engraved upon the lintel above the main entrance, “Dedicated to Art and Free to All”. Its generous photographic access policy is a boon to this blogger and many other art devotes. This is based on the large number of cameras that I saw last Sunday afternoon.

This oil on canvas painting was shown at the 1869 Salon where it attracted praise for the tenderness of the moment portrayed as a peasant mother teaches her daughter to knit, an important occupation for women within rural communities. The girl is absorbed in her work on a sock, using four needles and a ball of white yarn. Millet’s painting was inspired by study of his wife, Catherine Lemaire, and one of his six daughters.

Realist artists affirmed the importance of contemporary reality and sought to move away from classical art subjects such as scenes from the Bible, mythology and ancient history. Realist painters, like Millet, were often motivated by democratic ideals. They chose to portray society’s marginalized classes, like the peasantry.

It has been more than two months since Anne had her bike accident. In this interval she has been doing physical therapy (PT), for both her knee and the finger that she broke. She has two therapists, they tend to specialize by body part. Michael is responsible for beating her up around the knee and Carol is in charge of rapping her on the knuckles. All of the soreness that their practices has evoked, has had a positive effect. They also quantify Anne’s increasing range of motion and returning strength.

Over the holidays, Anne was able to resume her knitting. This is a domestic art that she dearly loves and had missed practicing while she still had pins protruding from her hand. Her first project was a very modest one, gift card ‘cardigans’ or cozies. She had me acquire some Starbucks gift cards and we photographed the finished products, shown below. The end ones were for Michael and his wife. He was going to give only gift cards, so Anne’s gift played well with his plans. The center cozy, easily the best of the lot, was for Carol, the person most responsible for Anne’s return to knitting. She has resumed some of her pre-accident projects, but still feels soreness, if she over does it.

Gift Card Cozies

Gift Card Cozies

White Bird’s Little Bighorn

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White Deer’s Full Canvas
The Soldiers
Right Flank
Lower Flank Exerpt
Lower Right Detail


The Saint Louis Art Museum, like a caterpillar trying to become a butterfly is beginning to come out of its three and a half-year chrysalis. The new wing is scheduled to open in June and in preparation for that date the existing galleries, many of which had been stripped because of construction vibrations, are now being repopulated. One such is a third floor Native American gallery that has recently reopened. On Sunday afternoon, I visited the museum and viewed what I perceive as this collection’s signature piece, “White Bird, Northern Tsistsistas Warrior and Artist”. The following is the museums description of this work:

This exceptional hide painting is believed to be a first-person account of the Battle of the Little Bighorn of 1876, a pivotal moment in the history of the United States. Drawn with ink and pencils on native tanned deer hide, this eyewitness depiction by the artist White Bird brings the story to life. Warriors, gallantly astride their horses, leap across the surface of the hide leading the charge and surrounding the army. By contrast, the soldiers remain motionless and packed closely together in a defensive pose. White Bird conveys the individuality of each warrior and horse, carefully recording the specific regalia and individual face paintings that represent the “personal medicine of the warriors who fought.

White Bird, a Northern Tsistsistas (Cheyenne), fought as a young man in this famous battle, also know as “Custer’s Last Stand.” In this battle, Plains warriors from several tribes banded together to claim a decisive victory over the U.S. Army. Fifteen years later, Captain John M. Webster, stationed in Fort Keogh, Montana, commissioned this painting from White Bird, who at the time was serving as a scout for the army, a widely respected profession after the warrior societies were disbanded in the Plains. Plains warrior art is a visual record of war achievements, and depicts the autobiographical recounting of an individual coup or war deeds of a warrior, or in this case, the rendering of a particular event involving many warriors.

Sioux Painting

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Sioux Painting

Sioux Painting

“There was a great deal of noise and confusion,” said Waterman, an Arapaho warrior. “The air was heavy with powder smoke, and the Indians were all yelling.” Out of this chaos, said Red Feather, Crazy Horse “came up on horseback” blowing his eagle bone whistle and riding between the length of the two lines of fighters. “Crazy Horse…was the bravest man I ever saw,” said Waterman. “He rode closest to the soldiers, yelling to his warriors. All the soldiers were shooting at him but he was never hit.”

Betty

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Betty, Gerhard Richter, 1988

Betty is the title of this Gerhard Richter painting in oil on canvas. Created in 1988, Betty is based upon a photograph he took of his eleven-year-old daughter. Looking away, the girl turns towards what maybe another of Richter’s paintings. Richter mixes the softness of the girl’s features with the precise rendering of her flowered jacket in a work that blurs the distinctions between painting and photography.

Election Day!

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The County Election, 1852, George Caleb Bingham

This is Election Day. It is a day that many of us thought would never come, but finally it is here. Along with all of the excitement and hoopla, there will be both tragedy and angst. I submit that it has always been like that. My only apology is that things have gotten better, as we all strive towards a more perfect union.

George Caleb Bingham’s “The County Election” pictures the American democratic progress. I don’t normally do this, but click on the picture to enlarge it. This painting belongs to the Saint Louis Art Museum, which is “Dedicated to Art and Free to All”. It also permits non-flash photography. The story portrayed in the painting, takes place in a small Missouri town in the nineteenth century, when the rituals of voting were still taking shape. The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), an independent federal agency, has created an excellent description of this painting, here. This is my synopsis of the NEH description:

Known as “the Missouri artist”, Bingham presents this raucous voting party as an enactment of democracy, bringing together residents of a rural community to make decisions for the common good. In his crowded composition, Bingham suggests the inclusiveness of a democracy with representatives of every age and social stratum, except African-Americans, who would not enjoy the right to vote until after the Civil War, and women, whose right to participate would not be recognized for another seventy years.

The painting reveals other irregularities in the electoral system that would not be tolerated today. Because there was no system of voter registration, the man in red at the top of the courthouse steps swears on the Bible that he hasn’t already cast a vote. Because there was no secret (or even paper) ballot, a voter calls out his choice to the election clerks behind the judge, who openly records it in a ledger. Because there were no restrictions on electioneering, the well dressed gentleman behind the voter, one of the candidates, is free to hand his card to citizens just before they cast their vote. Yet none of this appears to dull the spirit of the voting process.

The elections sins portrayed by Bingham were meant as criticisms. The scene portrayed was the artist’s perception of an actual election, an election that Bingham lost and the well dressed gentleman, a Mister Sappington won. Saint Louis residents will recognise this old family name.

According to Winston Churchill, “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried.” Today, Election Day, there will be new cheats, new controversies. We are only puny, fallible humans, so do your best, go vote.

Are you a patriot or a vampire?

Windows onto the World

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Curtains by Roy Lichtenstein

 Last night, a dark and stormy night, was punctuated with wave after wave of clashing thunderstorms. I lost count how many times I was awoken by the flash of lightning and the crash on thunder. Just about the time I had drifted off to sleep again, the next wave of crash-bangs would wake me up again. After one such iteration, I got up to get a drink of water. While drinking it down in the kitchen, a particularly close lightning strike lit up the room and an instant later shook that same world. Our frilly and banal kitchen curtains were backlit and the rest of the room was also briefly illuminated. I was reminded of the above Lichtenstein painting.

This relatively sleepless night left me feeling tired and grumpy in the morning. I don’t think that I can mount a full fledge rant here, I’m just too tired, but I can give you some grousing. I think that I am still up to that.

Once I was up this morning and sufficiently ‘awake’ to start my morning rituals, one of my first tasks was to visit my iPhone. I luv my iPhone. After checking email, this blog and Facebook, I began this morning’s downloads, these normally being podcasts and Apps updates. I hate those little numeric red dots that appear when there is something to do. I’m anal like that. This sleepy morning there was one special red circle, it was on the ‘Settings’ icon. It signified my iPhone’s desire to upgrade to iOS 6.

Normally, this desire would not cause consternation. Using iTunes, I’ve done it plenty of times in the past. At this point under the rubric of full disclosure I should tell you that I’m a PC and not a Mac. I’ve been a PC even before there were PCs. I’ve been programing computers for over forty years. Before you dismiss me for a vacuum tube Neanderthal, hear me out. My values were formulated while working for over a decade for a computer manufacturer. They are democratic values. Simply put, PC values are {democratic | free enterprise | American} values. While, Apple’s values are {monopolistic | autocratic | totalitarian} values.

So, I can mount a rant. My complaint is that this iOS ‘upgrade’ will erase Google Maps from my iPhone. It will be replaced by Apple’s ersatz replacement App. This is all part of these two big boys intramural fight. In the words of that street sage, Rodney King, “Can’t we all get along?” Oh snap, yes we can! There might be an Android in my future.

The graphic for this post is a picture of the Roy Lichtenstein painting, “Curtains”. It was a gift to the Saint Louis Art Museum from Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Pulitzer Jr. It was painted in 1962, using oil and magna on canvas. The following text is the Slammer’s write-up on this art work.

In his black and white paintings of the early 1960s, Roy Lichtenstein drew from popular, mass-produced imagery. Here, the source was a newspaper advertisement. The frilly kitchen curtains with matching valance suggest the banal, suburban developments of post-war America. While the image implies a critique of consumerism, it also presents a visual pun on the classical notion of painting as a window onto the world.

The slammer, also-know-as the Saint Louis Art Museum has its motto engraved upon its lintel, ‘Dedicated to Art and Free to All’. One is free to walk in to it and one is free to take pictures in it. The new wing opens next year, it’ll be grand.