Thursday, August 20, 2015

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Tonight's picture was taken in August of 2003. Mattie was 16 months old and was visiting my parents in Los Angeles. Mattie was intrigued by the piano. He loved sitting on a lap and playing away on the keyboard. The sound fascinated him and it was like watching science in motion with him as he tested the white and black keys, the sound of the keys which made high pitched sounds versus low pitched ones, and of course the overall noise level based on how much pressure and force he put into the keys. 


Quote of the day:  People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing.  That’s why we recommend it daily. ~ Zig Ziglar

Today we visited The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. The Norton Simon Museum is known around the world as one of the most remarkable private art collections ever assembled. Over a thirty-year period 20th-century industrialist Norton Simon (1907–1993) amassed an astonishing collection of European art from the Renaissance to the 20th century and a stellar collection of South and Southeast Asian art spanning 2,000 years. Among the most celebrated works he collected are Branchini Madonna, 1427, by Giovanni di Paolo; Madonna and Child with Book, c. 1502-03, by Raphael; Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose, 1633, by Francisco de Zurbarán; Portrait of a Boy, c. 1655-60, by Rembrandt van Rijn; Mulberry Tree, 1889, by Vincent van Gogh; Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, 1878-81, by Edgar Degas; and Woman with a Book, 1932, by Pablo Picasso. 

Sculpture Garden

In the 1990s, the Norton Simon Museum underwent an extensive remodel; its interiors were redesigned by celebrated architect Frank O. Gehry, and its exteriors by landscape designer Nancy Goslee Power. Jennifer Jones Simon, widow of Norton Simon and then Chairman of the Museum’s Board of Trustees, asked Power to create a garden “just like Monet’s Giverny.”

While the garden is not an exact replica of Monet’s, the lush texture and rambling spirit of Giverny is evident. With a special request from Mrs. Simon, attention was given to ensure that the flowering of plants and trees continued during all seasons of the year. Finally, in the fall of 1999, the re-imagined garden opened, and it has grown more spectacular ever since.

This Monet themed garden is lined with bronze sculptures at every turn. They are amazingly well integrated into the gardens. Here is Henry Moore's Sculpture entitled, "Relief No. 1."

Within the gardens is this HUGE Cockspur Coral Tree. This is one noteworthy tree. The limbs of the tree look gnarled and braided together and when in bloom, the tree has a beautiful coral colored flower. 














We saw two different exhibits today! The first one was on Fragonard's beautiful drawings or in essence copies of great Italian works that he created along a two year journey he took with his Patron, Jean-Claude Richard de Saint-Non. Saint-Non eventually used these drawings that Fragonard created to produce a travel book. Such a book was sought after because it highlighted and captured all the great works all over Italy, and the sign of a well cultured individual back then was being familiar with such great works of art. The second exhibit we saw had to do with the addition of blue to the color palate. The exhibit highlighted why blue was hard to manufacture, the stages involved in the evolution of different blue tones and colors, how this revolutionized art. So much so that by the end of the 1800's, when blue oil paint was more easily produced and available in tubes, the birth of the impressionist movement occurred. 

Fragonard’s Enterprise: The Artist and the Literature of Travel

Before Jean-Honoré Fragonard ascended to the rank of one of the 18th century’s most popular painters, he studied at the French Academy in Rome, where he practiced the fundamental art of drawing as a method to hone his skills and to establish his own unique style. In Rome, he encountered his first patron, Jean-Claude Richard de Saint-Non (1727–1791). A passionate advocate of the arts, Saint-Non was an eager participant in the Grand Tour, the educational pilgrimage to Italy then in vogue throughout Europe. His voyage, made from 1759 to 1761, inspired him to chronicle this experience for an audience that shared his fascination with the peninsula. Saint-Non invited the young Fragonard to join in his tour through Italy’s illustrious cities. In exchange, Fragonard was tasked

with making copies after the important paintings and monuments to be seen in the churches and palazzi. The black chalk drawings Fragonard produced for his sponsor served as source material for Saint-Non’s engravings and aquatints, which were published in suites, and in his illustrated travel book Voyage de Naples et de Sicile (1781–86). These immensely popular publications served as barometers of taste for the arts, and as beloved reminders of the masterpieces visited.

The painting in color (above) was the original masterpiece. Fragonard would study it and then draw it, producing what you see here on the left. In essence he was the master of copying great works and his copies were then seen by many people through Saint-Non's travel book. If people couldn't go to Italy, he brought the great works of Italy to them through the travel book. 

A Revolution of the Palette: The First Synthetic Blues and their Impact on French Artists

"Happy Lovers" by Fragonard

The exhibit traced the effects of three synthetic blue pigments on French artists. The accidental discovery of Prussian blue in an alchemist’s laboratory around 1704 helped open up new possibilities for artistic expression at the dawn of the Enlightenment. As revolutionary as this new greenish-blue color proved to be, Prussian blue was a mere precursor to the explosion of available colors brought about by the Industrial Revolution. The French government played an active role in catalyzing innovation at the dawn of the 19th century, as the country emerged from the Revolution with its economy in disarray. The next synthetic blue, a vivid cobalt blue pigment, was inspired by the traditional cobalt oxide blue glazes seen on 18th-century Sèvres porcelain.

The third synthetic blue to emerge was the culmination of centuries of searching for a cheap, plentiful, high-quality replacement for the most valuable of all pigments: natural ultramarine. This was a color derived from lapis lazuli, a rare, semiprecious gemstone mined almost exclusively in Afghanistan since the 6th century, and imported to Europe through Venice. It is famously known to have been more costly than gold during the Renaissance. Natural ultramarine provided a brilliant, royal blue hue, but only if coarsely ground and applied in a comparatively translucent glaze over a light-reflecting ground. Other blue colors, such as smalt, which was essentially composed of particles of colored glass, were available to help achieve the lovely hues of ultramarine, but the poor covering ability of the paint and the difficulty of its preparation and use were familiar limitations.

In 1824, the French government announced a competition among chemists to develop a true synthetic ultramarine. The prize was finally awarded in 1828 to Jean-Baptiste Guimet. Painters at last had an affordable, fully balanced palette of cool and warm colors spanning the full spectrum. This fact, combined with the innovation of ready-mixed tube oil colors, greatly facilitated the direct representation of nature. Which was what enabled the birth of the Impressionist movement. This painting, Canoe on the Yerres River by Gustave Caillebotte illustrated the beginning of that movement in this exhibit.