arthistorypal

[arthistorypal]

I think the thing about Mari Kondo that was so revolutionary to a lot of people was just the idea that cleanliness wasn’t something you owed anybody or something you do for other people or like-

Like I grew up with a Very Clean mother, but while I got quite a few good homemaking skills from her, the primary attitude about cleaning and tidying I got from the way she talked about it was that like - keeping clean is a Moral Good that we are Obligated To in service of some higher power like God or Society. Being tidy is how you show your Inherent Value to people by displaying what a Good Person you are to them, and it’s also about Making Them Comfortable and Staving Off Their Judgment. And it’s purposes are performative or they are in service to absolute utility. If it’s not about avoiding judgment, it’s about optimizing yourself to peak productivity, again in service to some overlording expectations you are required to meet to be Worthy. Organization, Aesthetic, and Discipline are all variables in a large equation that exists to determine how good a grade you can get on some cosmic test that you’re always taking.

And I think lots of people grew up feeling like that. That “chores” or cleaning were about other people or a standard set outside of yourself. Something done to you by someone or something else in service of their interests.

And then Mari Kondo comes along as says the simplest damn thing, “your space exists to make you happy” and it’s fucking RADICAL to thousands of people. I realize the advice in her books can seem like the same advice every decluttering “expert” has been giving since the dawn of time - don’t keep things beyond their usefulness, make sure there’s a dedicated space for everything. But from everyone else that advice felt in service to an overbearing “should” that was disparaging and disempowering and just makes a person feel like a failure.

Meanwhile, the very first step of the “KonMari method” is literally just “Think about what makes you happy.” She explicitly instructs you don’t start tidying without first considering your happiness. And then your own happiness is at the center of every step. There’s no hard law, no strict number. Not “try to get rid of half your things” or “throw away everything you haven’t used in a year”. It’s “go through everything in your life while thinking about your own happiness.” Wild. Unprecedented. My happiness? My joy? It’s not about Right and Wrong or Proper and Improper, it’s actually about being happy?

I think for lot of people raised in a certain Protestant mindset in the West, the idea that being happy was a factor at all in maintaining a space, let alone the main goal, was a complete revelation. Of course it seems absurdly obvious in retrospect, but a whole lot of us weren’t raised to take our own happiness into account, especially when it comes to housekeeping. Oh, my goal is to be happy. My goal is to get joy out of my space. I don’t owe anyone anything, but I owe myself kindness, and I deserve only things that make me happy. Amazing. Never even thought about being happy before. Been told how to optimize efficiency, how to optimize appearance, how to optimize utility, how to optimize storage, and it’s all a drag, and then Mari Kondo comes along like “what about joy?” Damn. That’s way easier and more fun and also has more sustainable results.

[arthistorypal]

Cat playing with an adder, 1873, Karl Bodmer

Medium: etching,paper

https://www.wikiart.org/en/karl-bodmer/cat-playing-with-an-adder

[arthistorypal]

blue = longing

Portrait of a Girl. 1906.

Alexej Georgewitsch von Jawlensky was a Russian expressionist painter active in Germany. He was a key member of the New Munich Artist's Association, Der Blaue Reiter group and later the Die Blaue Vier.

[arthistorypal]

Me, contemplating my inevitable demise.

Magdelen with Smoking Flame c. 1640  Georges de La Tour.  France (baroque).

[arthistorypal]

This is hits different right now

The Grandmother’s Birthday, 1856, Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller

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“Spring 2020, Garden in the Time of COVID-19, Painting During the Pandemic, Trapped” Christine Sloan Stoddard

Christine Sloan Stoddard is a Salvadoran-American author, artist, and film/theatre professional based in Brooklyn. Her books include Naomi & The Reckoning, Desert Fox by the Sea, Belladonna Magic, Water for the Cactus Woman, and other titles. She is a Visible Poetry Project filmmaker, Table Work Press award-winning playwright, and founder of Quail Bell Magazine. Previously, she was the first-ever artist-in-residence at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House in Manhattan and Brooklyn Public Library’s Eastern Parkway Branch in Crown Heights. Currently, Christine is the artist-in-residence at HeartShare Human Services of New York and curates public programs for the Art Deco Society of New York. She studied at Grinnell College and holds undergraduate degrees from VCUarts. In 2019, she earned her MFA in Digital & Interdisciplinary Art Practice at The City College of New York-CUNY. 

Insta:  @artistchristinestoddard

http://www.worldofchristinestoddard.com

You can vote for Christine’s piece Monday through Thursday @ theqgallery.org.

[arthistorypal]

Some colorful works that are a vibe for this season.

1.  Woman in a Chemise, André, Derain 1906, 100 x 81 cm, Oil on canvas

2.  Artist: Tsukioka Yoshitoshi 月岡芳年, Meiji era, 1888,Woodblock print; ink and color on paper

3. Robert Delaunay, Nude woman reading (Nu à la lecture) (1915), oil on canvas, 86.2 × 72.4 cm, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

4. Landscapes and Beauties: Feeling Like Reading the Next Volume, Utagawa Kuniyoshi,  Edo period, 19th century,

[arthistorypal]

The house in the house, 1924, Giorgio de Chirico

Medium: oil,canvas

https://www.wikiart.org/en/giorgio-de-chirico/the-house-in-the-house

[arthistorypal]

My goal today is to read just a wee bit...and feel as warm, charmed and as independent as the women in these portraits feel in the solitude silent reading provides.

Girl Reading, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, c.1890, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Young Girl Reading, Jean-Honoré Fragonard c.1770, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

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Virginia Woolf, The Years

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Edward Hopper’s Shakespeare at Dusk, 1935 depicts an empty Central Park. 

The title of the work is based off of this Shakespeare sonnet.

That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou see’st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. (William Shakespeare, Sonnet 73)

Click here for a more in depth article on this painting and other related ones.

[arthistorypal]

Today’s quarantine mood is the mice in the foreground maintaining social distancing and being productive indoors. We do NOT condone the the group of mice convening outdoors, doing GoD knOws wHat.

 Kawanabe Kyosai, Mice transcribing a book, ca. 1870s Meiji Era, Japan, ink and color on paper.

You may be wondering, this is excellent, of course, but why did someone make this? Continue reading for a most interesting history of Kawanabe Kyosai or just read this article. 

Kawanabe Kyōsai 河鍋 暁斎 (1831-1889) started studying art under ukiyo-e (woodblock print) master Utagawa Kuniyoshi and continued under Kano masters, where he was known as the “Demon of Painting.” In 1854 he went independent and started developing a new style called kyōga (‘crazy pictures’) and thus adopted the name Kyōsai.

What was so crazy about his art and life? Much of his art was fueled by sake binges. The end product was often bizzare, frightening,  and downright wild. He created a wide spectrum of satirical, realistic, and fantastical scenes, which were often made into popular color prints and illustrated books. 

 Dōshin Satō in “Modern Japanese Art and the Meiji State: The Politics of Beauty” says:  

The world of kyoga was, of course, a world of Kyosai’s own, but also a world that the times certainly demanded. The tumultuous period from the bakumatsu era to the aftermath of the Meii Restoration was a time that provided an almost inexhaustible number of incidents to report through these media. Ukiyo-e and kyoga flourished because they swiftly reported details of incidents that occurred in rapid succession and, as a result, succeeded in creating a base of support with the common class.

Westerners between the 1870s to the early 1900s were obsessed with the style ukiyo-e and Japanese prints, and Kyosai was part of that crew. His work was exhibited at the Vienna International Exposition in 1873 and at the Exposition of Paris in 1883, and several Europeans during this time documented his life. Yet Kyosai did not care much for European influences or trends. He continued painting prolifically until the end of his life.

For more photos and another well-written article on Kyosai check this out:

https://illustrationchronicles.com/A-Crazy-Sake-Fuelled-Trip-to-Kawanabe-Kyosai-s-School-for-Spooks

[arthistorypal]

ennui

a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement.

This cartoon print by Robert Seymour from 1829 entitled Ennui criticizes an upper class couple, who seem to be so privileged and bored, that they have nothing better to do but bicker. Here the couple maintains their social distancing, in accordance with CDC recommendation. The quarantine may have moved some of us to a state of ennui, and led us to brooding over the state of things and getting irritated at our family members. Yet if such first world problems are the only thing plaguing us, then we are indeed very privileged. To ignore this is to imitate the foolishness depicted in this print. I mean, just look at these people:

Even in their distress, the man holds a gold pocket watch and reclines with his shoes lazily thrown off, while the woman rests her feet. We don’t know what they are upset about, yet their extravagant reaction makes us think that it must be relatively trivial.

This class critique may remind us of influencers we want to point a finger at for trivializing aspects of the pandemic, or hold the mirror up toward our own complainy selves. For us who can indeed afford to not work at this time, ennui is a luxury.

[arthistorypal]

Day 2 quarantine: appreciating our healthcare workers (Part 1)

This morning around 10am, a U.S. Navy Hospital ship pulled into midtown Manhattan, to help aid with the coronavirus crisis in New York. On one hand, the 1,100 people staffing the USNS Comfort will help thousands of people.  But it is gut wrenching to think about the medical staff battling this pandemic from the frontlines every single day, even as the situation gets worse. I was going to save an art history post honoring our medical staff later, but my heart is filled with prayer and compassion for these heroes! 

This collection will include on art works that focus on the role of the medical workers, as well as photographs with the same subject. A major theme is the way nurses are used as a symbol of humanity, maternalism and patriotism, particularly in times of war. Disclaimer: nearly all nurses were female until the 60s and 70s. So all of these people about to be women.

The French caption at the bottom of Postcard of a nurse during the Great War translates to “eternal gratitude to the one who was so maternal.”

Nurses. Resting After a Shift by Lev Kotlyarov was actually painted in the 1980s, and was showcased at the Russian Institute for Realist Art. I love how each nurse has their own personality, and the haphazard comfort of each of their sleep positions. The composition is warm and the impressionistic brush strokes capture the moment as fleeting.

This 1920 painting: The Scottish Women's Hospital: In the Cloister of the Abbaye at Royaumont. Dr Frances Ivens inspecting a French patient has an interesting backstory. The artist, Norah Neilson-Gray left the Glasgow School of Art to work at this hospital during WWI as an orderly (responsible for maintaining cleanliness and non-medical matters). The painting is one of two commissioned in 1920 by the Imperial War Museum to commemorate the hospital and its leader Dr Frances Ivens. Neilson-Gray died at the early age of 49 from an infection she contracted in France.

The painting is surely patriotic (red white and blue), but notice how the focal point shifts away from Ivens and the soldiers arriving, to the work the nurses are doing. Using light and linear perspective, the arches spotlight the line of hospital beds. I can’t take my eyes off of the older nurse in white staring ahead. Both she and the patient where all white and seem to be calmly looking at something out of frame. They aren’t paying attention to the arrival party any mind yet--their priority is the patient.

The Evolving Face of Nursing by renowned muralist Meg Saligman 2009-12-1 in Philedelpgia. This 6,500 square feet work commissioned by the Mural Arts Program encompasses  diverse range of nurses from students and directors, to home care and visiting nurses. The glowing transform and shift and LED lights change colors by night and day. 

[arthistorypal]

Not only is this a cool example of collage, but it is also ripe for a social distancing meme. 

The setting is The music room of Fanny Hensel (nee Mendelssohn), AKA pianist, composer and elder sister of the more renowned composer, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (#supportfemalecomposers #feminism) Fanny stayed in the Hensel residence at no. 3 Leipzigerstrasse in Berlin. Before and throughout her marriage Fanny organized and programmed small musical gatherings in this room. (Right now Madame Marie Fargues is covering the grand piano, but I promise it’s the focal point of the room). This room gives us lot’s of ideas of what to do during quarantine: decorate your walls with art, work and sew in the sunlight offered by the window, tend to our plants, and pray next to the large cross at your desk, which is of course something we all have. 

Jean-Étienne Liotard painted this seated portrait of his wife, Marie Fargues, shortly after they married, between 1756-58. The Swiss painter was about 54 when they married while Fargues was 29. . Known for his trips to Turkey and pastel portraits, he reused a similar composition from a drawing he did in Constantinople in different contexts. The large  103,8 cm × b 79,8 cm portrait of Fargues in a Turkish costume captures her relaxed, dreamily looking at something out of frame. Explore it up close here (the page is in Dutch though).

The standing woman is one of the many fashion plates that were circulated in magazines in England, starting at the end of the 18th century. This one from 1813, was engraved by hand using colors on paper. If you ever have a curiosity about what the high fashion styles were for a specific decade, I would sugest checking out these fashion plates as a start. 

Also feel free to caption or title this something memey. 

[arthistorypal]

If you ever need to make something aesthetic, consider using this art palette engine, to give your page/collage more artistic flair.  Or you could just spend hours looking at color coordinated art, that’s cool, too. 

[arthistorypal]

Every day I intend to take a selfie and then make a collage of historical art with the same color palette with a particular theme.  How do I find art with the same palette? Via a quirky cool tool called Art Palette https://artsexperiments.withgoogle.com/artpalette/ 

The theme I was going for was indoor isolation and desolate urban areas...very relatable. 

Here is the list of the artwork: 

The Music Room of Fanny Hensel (nee Mendelssohn), Julius Eduard Wilhelm Helfft, 1849, https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/igFCdT07wELkCQ

(Left) View from Kriezotou street, Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas, 1983, https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/GwGSoG_7bpVr4A 

(Top) s Gravenhage, Javastraat, Anonymous, 1860/1880 https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/tAGzTg_zf-lKaQ

(Seated woman) Portret van Marie Fargues, echtgenote van de kunstenaar, in Turks kostuum, Jean-Étienne Liotard, 1756/1758 https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/igFCdT07wELkCQ

(Standing woman) Fashion Plate (Full Dress), Rudolph Ackermann5/1/1813, https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/IgGGgWd7vdqE8w

(Bottom) Coln Die Eisenbahnbrucke, Johann Friedrich Stiehm1878/1878, https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/qQFo3mXOrA-1Gw