Art Galleries/Museums
- Assyrian Art Coming to MFA, Boston
- MMA's Lehman Wing to Reopen
- Pushkin Museum Gets $177M Overhaul
- Aztec World Coming to Field Museum
- Tate Britain Label-writing Contest
- De Montebello Exhibit at The Met
- Akhenaten's Androgyny: New Thesis
- Armenian Khatchkar at The Met
- Belles Heures Exhibit at The Met
- Medici Court Draftsmen at Morgan
Assyrian Art Coming to MFA, Boston
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Stan Parchin
Stan Parchin
Important ancient Assyrian works of art from the British Museum return to the United States for an encore appearance, this time at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
After successful presentations in New York, Texas, China and Spain, Art and Empire: Treasures from Assyria in the British Museum wil be on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (September 21, 2008-January 4, 2009).
The Assyrian civilization's presence in the valley of northern Iraq's Tigris River dates back to the Third Millennium B.C. The height of its cultural sophistication and political dominance in the ancient Near East occurred from the 9th to the 7th Centuries B.C. with the appearance of splendid palace art and elaborate architecture in the cities of Nimrud and Nineveh.
Art and Empire... brings together powerful sculptural reliefs of warfare, hunting, palace life and court rituals. The exhibition includes precious carved ivories, bronze, ceramic and glass bowls and vessels, clay cuneiform tablets from the royal library, cylinder seals, figures of deities, statuary and furniture fittings. Excavated by 19th- and 20th-century by British archaeologists, these objects describe the administration, trade, legal and social issues of the Assyrian Empire. How magic, medicine and religion were interconnected in Assyrian culture is also examined.
Source:
The Assyrian civilization's presence in the valley of northern Iraq's Tigris River dates back to the Third Millennium B.C. The height of its cultural sophistication and political dominance in the ancient Near East occurred from the 9th to the 7th Centuries B.C. with the appearance of splendid palace art and elaborate architecture in the cities of Nimrud and Nineveh.
Art and Empire... brings together powerful sculptural reliefs of warfare, hunting, palace life and court rituals. The exhibition includes precious carved ivories, bronze, ceramic and glass bowls and vessels, clay cuneiform tablets from the royal library, cylinder seals, figures of deities, statuary and furniture fittings. Excavated by 19th- and 20th-century by British archaeologists, these objects describe the administration, trade, legal and social issues of the Assyrian Empire. How magic, medicine and religion were interconnected in Assyrian culture is also examined.
Source:
- Curtis, J.E. and J.E. Reade (eds.), et al. Art and Empire: Assyrian Treasures from the British Museum (exh. cat.). London: The Trustees of the British Museum, 1995.
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Stan Parchin
Stan Parchin
The Robert Lehman Wing of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art will reopen with two special exhibitions on Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and American landscape painting.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is presenting two special exhibitions in its renovated Robert Lehman Wing.
Tiepolo Drawings from the Robert Lehman Collection (May 20-August 17, 2008) features some 60 works on paper by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770) and his son Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (1727-1804). Included in the court-level presentation are preparatory figural and animal studies, narrative drawings, religious and mythological compositions, caricatures and genre scenes.
Also on view beginning May 20 is American Landscapes on the wing's first floor. Nine oversize paintings from The Met's collection will be on display while the American WIng galleries and period rooms are being upgraded.
Tiepolo Drawings from the Robert Lehman Collection (May 20-August 17, 2008) features some 60 works on paper by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770) and his son Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (1727-1804). Included in the court-level presentation are preparatory figural and animal studies, narrative drawings, religious and mythological compositions, caricatures and genre scenes.
Also on view beginning May 20 is American Landscapes on the wing's first floor. Nine oversize paintings from The Met's collection will be on display while the American WIng galleries and period rooms are being upgraded.
Pushkin Museum Gets $177M Overhaul
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Stan Parchin
Stan Parchin
Russia has earmarked $177 million (US) for the Pushkin Museum of Fine Art's four-year restoration and renovation, beginning in 2009.
RAI Novosti reported on May 5, 2008 that the Russian government has allocated more than 4.2 billion rubles or $177 million (US) for the restoration and modernization of its Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, a Beaux Art structure completed in 1912. The Pushkin, Moscow's largest museum of European art, also houses collections of Egyptian antiquities, Trojan gold artifacts and replicas of ancient sculptures.
Plans call for the construction of two exhibition areas, a new 600-seat concert hall, a library, larger storage facilities, an office building, underground parking lot, dining areas and retail shops, increasing the institution's space fourfold. The British architect Lord Norman Foster (b. 1935), winner of the Pritzker Achitecture Award (1999), has been approached to lead the museum's modernization project.
Scheduled to close in 2009, the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts will reopen in 2012 for its 100th anniversary.
Plans call for the construction of two exhibition areas, a new 600-seat concert hall, a library, larger storage facilities, an office building, underground parking lot, dining areas and retail shops, increasing the institution's space fourfold. The British architect Lord Norman Foster (b. 1935), winner of the Pritzker Achitecture Award (1999), has been approached to lead the museum's modernization project.
Scheduled to close in 2009, the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts will reopen in 2012 for its 100th anniversary.
Aztec World Coming to Field Museum
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Stan Parchin
Stan Parchin
"The Aztec World" at Chicago, Illinois' Field Museum describes the development of the pre-Columbian culture from its nomadic roots to imperial splendor, decline and fall.
The Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois will play host to The Aztec World from October 31, 2008 to April 19, 2009.
Hundreds of artifacts and works of art in this international loan exhibition describe the transformation of Aztec society from its nomadic origins in the middle of a lake to one of Mesoamerica's greatest empires within two centuries. Everyday life, religion, temple architecture, warriors, their weaponry and the treasures of rulers provide valuable insight into the ancient Aztec culture.
Source:
Hundreds of artifacts and works of art in this international loan exhibition describe the transformation of Aztec society from its nomadic origins in the middle of a lake to one of Mesoamerica's greatest empires within two centuries. Everyday life, religion, temple architecture, warriors, their weaponry and the treasures of rulers provide valuable insight into the ancient Aztec culture.
Source:
- Solis, Felipe (ed.), et al. The Aztec Empire (exh. cat.). New York: Guggenheim Museum, 2004.
Tate Britain Label-writing Contest
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Stan Parchin
Stan Parchin
Tate Britain is accepting new label copy for its artworks from visitors to the London museum.
London's Tate Britain is seeking fresh interpretations of works in its collection from the museum's visitors.
If you have a preference for a particular work of art or the subject matter of the Tate's paintings (e.g., botany, engineering, fashion, music, religion), choose one and write about it eloquently. Perhaps you've been to the actual location in one of the museum's landscapes. Describe your experience.
Although Tate Britain provides a recommended list of 19 pre-1900 and 20 post-1900 works, contestants can choose to create captions for anything in the museum's collection. The most interesting submissions will be turned into label copy and used by the museum. You will be notified if yours has been chosen and when it will appear near the work you described.
If you have a preference for a particular work of art or the subject matter of the Tate's paintings (e.g., botany, engineering, fashion, music, religion), choose one and write about it eloquently. Perhaps you've been to the actual location in one of the museum's landscapes. Describe your experience.
Although Tate Britain provides a recommended list of 19 pre-1900 and 20 post-1900 works, contestants can choose to create captions for anything in the museum's collection. The most interesting submissions will be turned into label copy and used by the museum. You will be notified if yours has been chosen and when it will appear near the work you described.
De Montebello Exhibit at The Met
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Stan Parchin
Stan Parchin
New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art will present 160 works acquired during the tenure of Philippe de Montebello, its retiring director, this Fall and Winter 2008.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will present The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions from October 24, 2008 to February 1, 2009 in its second-floor Tisch Galleries. Helen C. Evans, Curator of Byzantine Art in the Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, is organizing the monumental effort.
The exhibition will display approximately 160 works from 17 departments that The Met acquired by purchase and donation during Mr. de Montebello's more than three decades as Director. Spanning the ages globally from prehistory to modern times, the show's masterpieces will demonstrate how the museum's encyclopedic collections have expanded during the last 30 years. Notable amongst them is Madonna and Child (ca. 1300) by Duccio di Buoninsegna (act. ca. 1278-1318) and Study of a Young Woman (probably ca. 1665-67) by Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675).
The exhibition will display approximately 160 works from 17 departments that The Met acquired by purchase and donation during Mr. de Montebello's more than three decades as Director. Spanning the ages globally from prehistory to modern times, the show's masterpieces will demonstrate how the museum's encyclopedic collections have expanded during the last 30 years. Notable amongst them is Madonna and Child (ca. 1300) by Duccio di Buoninsegna (act. ca. 1278-1318) and Study of a Young Woman (probably ca. 1665-67) by Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675).
Akhenaten's Androgyny: New Thesis
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Stan Parchin
Stan Parchin
Based on a study of artworks, Dr. Irwin Braverman has concluded that ancient Egypt's visionary pharaoh Akhenaten suffered from Marfan Syndrome and familial gynecomastia.
As reported by the Associated Press on May 2, 2008, a Yale University physician who explores the unsatisfactorily explained deaths of historical figures has concluded that the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten (r. 1353-1336 B.C.) suffered from familial gynecomastia, a condition that left the ruler with a female physique. Dr. Irwin Braverman presented his findings at the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Historical Clinicopathological Conference after having studied numerous statues, relief sculptures and carvings of the enigmatic New Kingdom pharaoh, including those in the current traveling exhibition Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs.
Speculative Diagnoses
Over the years, scholars have offered different explanations for Akhenaten's androgynous appearance, marked by his elongated face, limbs and fingers, wide hips and pronounced breasts. Among them are Froelich's Syndrome (adiposogenital dystrophy), Marfan Syndrome and Klinefelter Syndrome, the disorders sharing a variety of abnormal physical characteristics.
Braverman hypothesizes that Akhenaten's egg-shaped skull was caused by craniosynostosis, a condition in which its bones fused together at an early age. He goes on to say that Akhenaten does not fit the profile of a person afflicted with Froelich's Syndrome, which would have rendered him sterile, because he was the father of at least six daughters and perhaps the boy king Tutankhamun (r. 1332-1322 B.C.).
Egyptologist Donald B. Redford concurs with Dr. Braverman's diagnosis of Marfan Syndrome, a genetic condition responsible for Akhenaten's exaggerated features. But Braverman also suspects familial gynecomastia, a hereditary disorder that would have involved the religiously revolutionary pharaoh's oversecretion of the female hormone estrogen and resulted in his feminine appearance.
Speculative Diagnoses
Over the years, scholars have offered different explanations for Akhenaten's androgynous appearance, marked by his elongated face, limbs and fingers, wide hips and pronounced breasts. Among them are Froelich's Syndrome (adiposogenital dystrophy), Marfan Syndrome and Klinefelter Syndrome, the disorders sharing a variety of abnormal physical characteristics.
Braverman hypothesizes that Akhenaten's egg-shaped skull was caused by craniosynostosis, a condition in which its bones fused together at an early age. He goes on to say that Akhenaten does not fit the profile of a person afflicted with Froelich's Syndrome, which would have rendered him sterile, because he was the father of at least six daughters and perhaps the boy king Tutankhamun (r. 1332-1322 B.C.).
Egyptologist Donald B. Redford concurs with Dr. Braverman's diagnosis of Marfan Syndrome, a genetic condition responsible for Akhenaten's exaggerated features. But Braverman also suspects familial gynecomastia, a hereditary disorder that would have involved the religiously revolutionary pharaoh's oversecretion of the female hormone estrogen and resulted in his feminine appearance.
Posted by
Stan Parchin
Stan Parchin
A 12th-century Khatchkar or stone cross is on loan-term loan from the Republic of Armenia to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
A 2000-pound monumental Khatchkar or monumental stone cross from the 12th Century is on long-term loan to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art from the State History Museum of Armenia in Yerevan. The object is on view in the first-floor Mary and Michael Jaharis Galleries for Byzantine Art. The Met's installation of this massive sculpture is a first for any United States museum.
Khatchkar is derived from the words for cross (khatch) and stone (kar) in Armenian. During the Middle Ages, Armenian Christians on the eastern border of Byzantium erected khatchkars to memorialize the deceased and commemorate significant local events.
The basalt sculpture from Lori, the Republic of Armenia's northermost province, stands nearly eight feet in height. On its surface are rare carved symbols of the New Testament's four evangelists (the angel of Matthew, lion of Mark, ox of Luke and eagle of John), an oversized cross and birds at fountains, surrounded by intricate patterns of interlacing. The Khatchkar's iconography, reminiscent of designs found in Armenian Gospel manuscripts, demonstrates the New Testament's importance in medieval Armenian culture.
This Fall, additional works of art from medieval Armenia from The Metropolitan Museum of Art and other institutions will go on display near the Khatchkar.
Sources:
Khatchkar is derived from the words for cross (khatch) and stone (kar) in Armenian. During the Middle Ages, Armenian Christians on the eastern border of Byzantium erected khatchkars to memorialize the deceased and commemorate significant local events.
The basalt sculpture from Lori, the Republic of Armenia's northermost province, stands nearly eight feet in height. On its surface are rare carved symbols of the New Testament's four evangelists (the angel of Matthew, lion of Mark, ox of Luke and eagle of John), an oversized cross and birds at fountains, surrounded by intricate patterns of interlacing. The Khatchkar's iconography, reminiscent of designs found in Armenian Gospel manuscripts, demonstrates the New Testament's importance in medieval Armenian culture.
This Fall, additional works of art from medieval Armenia from The Metropolitan Museum of Art and other institutions will go on display near the Khatchkar.
Sources:
- Mathews, Thomas F. Treasures in Heaven: Armenian Art, Religion, and Society (exh. cat.). New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1998.
- _____, et al. Treasures in Heaven: Armenian Illuminated Manuscripts (exh. cat.). Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.
Belles Heures Exhibit at The Met
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Stan Parchin
Stan Parchin
"The Belles Heures of the Duke of Berry" exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum will be expanded when it appears at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Belles Heures (1405-1408/09) of Jean, Duc de Berry, owned by New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, was painted in France by the Limbourg Brothers. While the sumptuous book is unbound, its 90 illuminated leaves (pages) will be on view in a special exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum from November 18, 2008 to February 8, 2009.
The Met announced that in Fall 2009, when it displays The Belles Heures of the Duke of Berry, the show will be expanded with other works created for the Valois princes of the Late Middle Ages.
The Met announced that in Fall 2009, when it displays The Belles Heures of the Duke of Berry, the show will be expanded with other works created for the Valois princes of the Late Middle Ages.
Medici Court Draftsmen at Morgan
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Stan Parchin
Stan Parchin
16th-century Italian artists' works on paper are on display in "Draftsmen of the Medici Court: Drawings from the Morgan" at New York's Morgan Library & Museum.
Draftsmen of the Medici Court: Drawings from the Morgan at New York's Morgan Library & Museum from February 29 to May 11, 2008 presents drawings and writings by artists who worked at the Italian Renaissance court of Florence's Duke Cosimo de' Medici (1519-1574).
Cosimo and his eldest son, Francesco (1541-1587), patronized a number of artists in their many dynastic exploits. Among them was the redecoration of the Palazzo Vecchio under Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574); the palace was the Medici home and a symbol of early Florentine republicanism. The exhibition, on view in the first-floor Clare Eddy Thaw Gallery, features figure and costume studies, ceiling designs and allegories by Andrea del Sarto (1486-1530), Vasari, Francesco Salviati (1510-1565), Machietti (1535-1592), Bernardo Buontalenti (1531-1608), Giovanni Maria Butteri (1540-1606/08) and Jacopo Zucchi (1540-1596).
Also on display are letters by Giorgio Vasari and Agnolo Bronzino (1503-1572) that describe working at the Medici court. They're accompanied by two volumes of Vasari's Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects (1568).
Cosimo and his eldest son, Francesco (1541-1587), patronized a number of artists in their many dynastic exploits. Among them was the redecoration of the Palazzo Vecchio under Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574); the palace was the Medici home and a symbol of early Florentine republicanism. The exhibition, on view in the first-floor Clare Eddy Thaw Gallery, features figure and costume studies, ceiling designs and allegories by Andrea del Sarto (1486-1530), Vasari, Francesco Salviati (1510-1565), Machietti (1535-1592), Bernardo Buontalenti (1531-1608), Giovanni Maria Butteri (1540-1606/08) and Jacopo Zucchi (1540-1596).
Also on display are letters by Giorgio Vasari and Agnolo Bronzino (1503-1572) that describe working at the Medici court. They're accompanied by two volumes of Vasari's Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects (1568).
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