by admin | Aug 31, 2011 | Art and the Environment, Nature
Yesterday when I took a walk along my usual trail, I was curious to see how high the creek had risen after 24 hours of rain…..well it had stopped for at least 20 hours by that time. To my surprise, the site had been altered with wonderful “environmental art” or sculpture made from the earth. The hurricane, which had followed an earthquake four days earlier, were beyond our control, but turning nature’s rocky debris into art was a good response to the power of nature. Someone (children or adults?) had piled towers of stones on top of the large boulders. The new shapes were quite interesting and artful sculptures. So I had to return home and get my iPhone. In the distance, colors came out vibrantly and beautifully, changing as the sun and water picked up various hues through the trees.
When I went back
today all the towers were gone, but a few tumbled stones remained on the large rocks. There had been a little rain last night, but not much wind. I’m so glad to have captured that artistic moment of time in photos. And to the unknown artist who created these deliberate changes to the environment, your efforts are beautiful and well appreciated. Although so much art does not last in time, it is the thought, the act and the creative process which make it worthwhile.
While looking at one of the towers closely, I was reminded of a bird and thought of Brancusi’s birds set on pedestals.
by admin | Feb 25, 2011 | Architecture, Art and the Environment, Sicily, The Greek World
In Selinunte, Sicily, the remains of several Greek temples from the 6th- 5th century BC reveal much about temple construction, although they fell to Carthaginian invasions and earthquakes not longafter their building. Temple E has most of its outer colonnade, the peristyle, restored.Classical harmony is apparent in the rhythm of fluted columns, continuing up into the triglyphs raised to the sky.
Architect Mark Schara, with his good eye for detail, took almost all of these photos.
.
But many of the capitals have fallen. On the ground level, we can appreciate their large scale.
Temple F was badly damaged. Much of the white stucco facing for the fluted limestone column on right is still visible.
Tem
ple G, below, was the largest of the 7 temples of Selinunte, the ancient city of Silenus.
This temple had columns about 54 feet tall. Here, we see the columns were made of individual segments called drums, each of which are 12 feet high.
The overturned capitals, echinus on top of the abacus, has an 11′ diameter. Here, the abacus and echinus were carved in one piece, unlike above at Temple E.
At the time of destruction, not all of the capitals had been fluted. Thus we
know that the temple was never completed
Nearby in Agrigento, the ancient city called Akragas, had a series of ten te
mples in the Valley of the Temples.
The Temple of Concord is one of the best preserved Doric temples.
It had been converted into a church in the early Christian period.
In the 8th -3rd centuries BCE, Sicily was a battleground between Greeks who settled 3/4 of the island and Carthaginians who settled the western portion; then it became the target of Roman conquest.
Though only a small portion of the peristyle remains, the
Temple of Hera was in better condition than most of these temples
which fell victim to Carthaginian destruction, then earthquakes.
But an even taller temple to Olympian Zeus would have been the largest of
Doric Greek temples, the height of a 10-story building; it was incomplete when the disaster struck.
Construction began in 480 BCE and was still in progress when it was decimated in 407 BCE. The Telemon or Atlas figures whose bent arms support the architravemay in fact represent Carthaginian prisoners who had been made to build the temple. 
But even these giants, who appear to have held up the building, have fallen,
struck down by the Carthaginians who conquered Akragras.
Only a replica of one of the ruined giants remains on the site.
Ancient Akragas may have had 200.000 people in the 5th century BCE.Today we witness the fallen giant as a symbol of human pride grown too large,
and, consequently, fallen.
by admin | Dec 5, 2010 | 19th Century Art, American Art, Hudson River School, Landscape Painting, Nature
Thomas Cole, Sunset on the Arno, 1837, is at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley until January 23. The exhibition, organized by the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, is from a private collection. Whispy clouds hover above, almost like angels.
Forty paintings from the Hudson River School of painting glow in the Shenandoah Valley, in the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley, Winchester, VA. Certainly this location has some resemblance to the Hudson River Valley and these paintings would naturally resonate in the community. Just as the 19th century artists centered mainly in New York and New England hoped to capture and hold onto the natural beauty of their unspoiled nature, the Shenandoah Valley still offers a resting place from too much human development. Entitled “Different Views of Hudson River Painting,” the paintings will be in Winchester until January 23.
Jasper Francis Cropsey, The Narrows of Lake George, in the Hudson River Museum. A smaller, view of Lake George with similar colors is on view is in the in the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley
In this two-room exhibition, many pristine paintings are arranged amongst poetry and quotations by Walt Whitman, William Cullen Bryant and others. The four seasons, many sunsets and other wonders of nature are on view. These paintings capture views we occasionally see in the mountains or countryside in those moments of nature’s most beautiful light and color. I was particularly drawn to Jasper Francis Cropsey’s radiant, reflecting color in Lake George, reminding me of the beautiful autumn that has just passed. Much if its appeal is that this painting and several others allow us to remember something and then hold onto it.
John William Casilear, Quiet River (Genesee), 1874. Often there are usually more cattle than people in the Hudson River paintings.
The majority of paintings are small and intimate; brushstrokes are minute and very detailed. People and animals, if depicted, are extremely small to show the grandeur of the natural world. The air is clean, often hazy, and the water is totally placid. We are invited into contemplation.
There are majestic views of Niagara Falls and Mount Washington, but also simple scenes of unknown places
such as John William Casilear’s Quiet River (Genesee),1874. There is nothing intellectual about the exhibition, only the opportunity for reverie in peaceful, pastoral places. Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson School and painter of the Journey of Life series in Washington’s National Gallery, often painted his landscapes as allegories, but there doesn’t seem to be an underlying message in this Italian scene, Sunset on the Arno–unless the clouds are seen as angels.
Laura Woodward, Adirondeck Woodland with Deer, has an infinite variety of greens, from very light to dark. The two deer are barely shown against the daylight around the bend of a stream and under the tall trees on the right.
The entire exhibition helps us understand why the Hudson River School is still admired. Alexis Rockman, a contemporary New York painter featured in this blog’s next entry was influenced by the Hudson River School.This distinctive American style of painting was importan
t from the 1830s to 1880s. Impressionism in France had a much bigger influence on modernism and is usually more popular, but these artists–and there are so many of them– deserve a long look and a lot of our respect.
At home I have a small painting on a plate, done in the Hudson River style by my great-grandmother, as gift to my great-grandfather It is signed on the reverse, “From Helen to James, painted between Xmas and New Year’s 1889.
Washington museums also have several paintings of the Tonalists who came after the Hudson River School and were generally more painterly. These artists used more layers and show greater influence from the techniques of French painters, particularly from the Barbizon School. The Tonalist painters of moonlight scenes, offer a nice comparison with the sunsets of Hudson River painters—less color but perhaps even more evocative of moods. These paintings include several by Ralph Albert Blakelock at the National Gallery, Phillips, Corcoran and Smithsonian American Art Museum, as well as paintings by George Inness.
Here is a blog devoted to the Hudson River School: http://circa1855.blogspot.com/
by admin | Jun 8, 2010 | Ceramics, Sicily
In the hills of central Sicily the Cathedral of Caltagirone–its dome covered with ceramic tiles–is just one the many wonders in this city of colorful tile (Baroque and Art Nouveau buildings, too). Ceramics everywhere…….I resisted the temptation to buy more pottery (my house has enough and there’s no more room), except one small putto, because I can look at these beautiful photos and remember how it felt to be there.
The green pinecone is a prominent symbol in this region. It reminds me of the pineapples in Williamsburg.
A stroll through the local park reveal planters, light fixtures, fences in a variety of colors. The common colors for the tiles are blue, green, yellow and orange, in an endless variety of creative patterns. Figural designs and shapes are thoroughly Italian, especially with the masks, but some geometric designs in the tiles hint of an Arabic background.
Nearby is a ceramics museum. Scalloped arches are an Islamic feature. The town’s name comes from the Arab “kalat” meaning castle and “geron” meanting caves. Arabs or Saracens ruled Sicily from the 9th-11th centuries, contributed much to the local pottery industry before the Normans came. Like so many parts of medieval Sicily, the Arab-Norman genius combined to form a marvelous craftsmanship.
Then in the 17th an Italian style came on withstrong force in its Baroque phase, as on the steps below built in 1606.
Thanks to Mark for the photos immediately above and below.
Each of the 142 steps of the Scala Monte Santa Maria del Monte has a different ceramic tile design. Today ceramic shops line the streets at the foot of the steps, and its a particularly good place to buy dinnerware, or ceramic figurines. 
Even the Bridge of San Francesco is patterned with Majolica tiles
by admin | Apr 28, 2010 | Architecture, Sicily, The Greek World
The gigantic Temple of Olympian Zeus, Agrigento, was damaged by earthquakes before completion. This new statue, a flying bronze, echoes the temple’s fallen state. The wing overlaps and seems to touch a huge Doric capital to the right of the middle.
I was recently in Sicily to view mainly the ancient Greek sites. My camera broke and thankfully Kelli Palmer is letting me share her pictures of Agrigento, a city known for the beauty of its golden limestone.
The Temple of Concord in Agrigento is one of the best preserved Greek temples standing today, probably due to the fact that it was used as a church in the Middle Ages. Right now contemporary sculpture is on display there and at the other temples in Agrigento. The combination of antique/modern — though not always successful — is particularly well done at this site because it does not detract from the ancient architecture while displaying the new work effectively. The sculptures seem to be made for this purpose.
A nude comfortably “bronzes”herself on the
porch of a 5th century BC Doric temple. It is
not known to whom the temp
le wasdedicated.
Bronze hands reach upward, perhaps
expressing aspirations appropriate to
either church or temple. The arches date from the middle ages. The medieval builders cut arches into the walls, changing the ancient temple’s “cella”
into a church’s nave.
The modern marble figure, draped in a fashion reminiscent of the Venus de Milo, is far more sensual than a cult statue to Demeter, Persephone, Aphrodite or even the Christian Mary would have been in a religious building. But it stands harmoniously in this room which had been converted into a church’s nave in the 6th century. The relationship of a church‘s nave to its side aisles is similar to the relationship of an inner temple (the cella) to the outer colonnade.
When I went back
today all the towers were gone, but a few tumbled stones remained on the large rocks. There had been a little rain last night, but not much wind. I’m so glad to have captured that artistic moment of time in photos. And to the unknown artist who created these deliberate changes to the environment, your efforts are beautiful and well appreciated. Although so much art does not last in time, it is the thought, the act and the creative process which make it worthwhile. 
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