The Art History Blog

Edward Hopper, Nighthawks, at the Art Institute of Chicago

Now that I live in the Midwest, the Art Institute of Chicago will be popping up more and more on this blog, and I promise an extensive Art in Real Life dedicated to this huge institution once I have more than an afternoon to devote to it.  Until then, here are some preliminary thoughts after a whirlwind first visit to the museum…

We began with the brand-new Modern Wing, and though my group of friends and I didn’t get through nearly all of the new addition, I wasn’t as impressed as I thought I’d be. We all agreed it was a fairly predictable receptacle for Modern art, though it was light and airy.  We spent a fair bit of time in the contemporary photography gallery, whose curatorial choices I found somewhat baffling: one wall is covered in grey paper that has been folded over and over, upon which photographs and label text are hung or printed.  Though I wanted to like it (I love paper, after all) I could not for the life of me figure out why the choice of grey, folded paper over painting the wall–it didn’t click.  And while I liked the clear, deliberate juxtapositions the curator had made with the works themselves, the space was too small and had too many people zigzagging around the space to fully appreciate those choices.* 

Admittedly, I’m much more in love with art made before the 1900s than most later works, so for me what makes the Art Institute really worth a visit is their European and American art collection.  Among the highlights: famous Georgia O’Keeffes, American Gothic, Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks (see above), Cezannes and Monets galore, Toulouse-Lautrec’s Moulin Rouge, and of course, Seurat’s La Grande Jatte, among many others.  Rest assured: More of those to come on this blog! We ended our visit with the miniature rooms underneath the grand stairway, a collection of tiny, incredibly crafted historic spaces that are a lot of fun.

Finally, if you like anything to do with Japanese culture, calligraphy in general, or the beauty of a brushstroke, you must go visit Beyond Golden Clouds: Japanese Screens before September 27.  I loved the “greatest hits” of the Art Institute, but that show–from the work it showcases to the clear label copy to the huge room lined with screens–is truly stunnning.

*Edit—Today I spoke with an assistant curator at my own museum and she brought up two great points about the Modern Wing.  First, the architecture really does interact with the city of Chicago: the buildings, the railway, the parks are all visible from the many windows inside it, in a way that isn’t so in the older building, and it creates a much more welcoming atmosphere.  In addition, she mentioned that she thought the photography gallery was curated by an artist–which might explain its unusual setup.  That’s what I get for not having the time to read labels!

The Art Institute of Chicago | 111 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL | Website

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Parmagianino, Madonna with the Long Neck, 1534-40, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy. Image from Wikipedia

What’s an artist to do when he’s bursting onto the scene just after greats like Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael recently left it? This was the dilemma faced by the Italian Mannerists, artists who had to figure out a way to emerge from the shadows of Renaissance greats and define their own style.

One look at Parmagianino’s most famous painting, The Madonna with the Long Neck, tells us he was trying to do exactly that.  Unlike the muscular Madonna by Michelangelo or the graceful, grounded Madonnas of Raphael, Parmagianino elongates the figure of the Madonna, and every other person in the painting.  The Christ Child seems to slip dangerously off of her lap; bones seem rubbery within legs and fingers.  To add to the effect, the painting is larger than life–really emphasizing the length of her limbs. 

Things to think about How does your eye travel through this painting?  What kinds of tricks does Parmagianino use to help your eye along this path?

Inspired by a college classmate’s ventures into daily blogging and a thought-provoking blog entry on Smarthistory.org, I’m going to give this daily blogging thing a try with “The Daily Label”.  I’ll be writing a (hopefully) daily, spunky label-style post on one artwork, and at the end I’ll pose one of the questions I might ask you if I were giving you a docent tour in front of the piece I just wrote about.  Respond away (to both the question and the daily label idea) in the comments!

Venus of Willendorf, at the Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria. Image by Wikipedia User MatthiasKabel via Wikipedia.

The so-called Venus of Willendorf is one of the oldest and most famous ladies in all of art history, and she’s small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.  Her small size gives us an important clue to the people who made her: she’s portable, hinting that her makers moved around a lot (hunter-gatherers, in other words).  Her 4-inch high frame isn’t the most “realistic” of figures: her female attributes are quite exaggerated.  On top of that, creating figurines of women was much more popular than creating ones of men.  No one knows quite why this is–but most guess that it has something to do with the culture’s great reverence for women’s ability to bear children. 

And where does her name come from?  Like almost every single older work of art, this isn’t the name the artist gave her, but rather the name that stuck after her discovery.  Willendorf is the place in Austria where she was found (she now resides in the Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna).  As for Venus, the ancient Roman goddess of love, she predates classical mythology by over 20,000 years–prehistoric female figures found in the 1920s, like this one, were often bestowed with the name ‘Venus’.

Answer me this What do you think it is is it about this diminuitive statue that has stood the test of time and fascinated people for so long? Does it draw you in the same way?

References & Resources

Chick lit? Romance novels? Not for the art historian or museum professional, surely!  If you’re looking for a juicy read that you can apply to your day job, look no further than (the regrettably out of print) Making the Mummies Dance by Thomas Hoving.  I’ve been looking for a copy of this book for years, and finally found it for only five bucks among the vast shelves of my new favorite bookstore.  This book not only kept me sane through a week alone in my new apartment without TV or internet, it helped me get back into museum mode after a month of doing little more than catching up on Bravo marathons post-graduation.  

This wonderfully gossipy tell-all from the director who revolutionized the Metropolitan Museum of Art between 1967-77 is readable, informative, and has all the famous and infamous names of the 60’s and 70’s. Hoving doesn’t shy from telling every detail, good or bad, about his former curators, trustees, donors, and enemies — and he’s also not shy about his own accomplishments. I found Hoving’s self-confidence more amusing than annoying, and in my opinion it was often justified: he did, after all, expand the Met’s encyclopedic collections as well as its campus, truly pushing the Met into the household name it is today  Either way, it’s not hard to get past the boasting (to his credit, he does identify what he thinks were his mistakes) and simply enjoy this conversational confessional, with its glimpse into the inner workings of the glittery world of Museum trustees and executives, who jetsetted back and forth between countries every other week, courted donors with grand parties, and built palatial palaces for art in an age before recessions and budget cuts.  Definitely a must-read for any museum professional or museum lover.

Making the Mummies Dance, Thomas Hoving, 1994. Buy from Amazon