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THE ART OF ART TREKKING – PART THREE
As I did in my two previous posts on my spring visit to the Saint Louis Art Museum, I want to highlight a few of the artworks that caught my eye in some of the newly redecorated and rehung galleries. I walk through all of the museum’s galleries. A lot of them where still being reworked. And also, I was wearing myself out. So here are some of the things I stopped to see.
As I hinted in yesterday’s teaser, the Alexander Calder mobile has a gallery all to it alone. The overhead lighting is subdued and the kinetic sculpture’s elements are highlights with small spotlights.
Personally, I’m not a big fan of Max Beckmann and the German artists, but they are being shown in one of the larger galleries.
I was more impressed with some of the earlier works with a lot more detail in another gallery.
Saint Peter’s in Rome
And these Moorish doors from a Spanish convent were both huge and impressive.
Then I went up to the third floor galleries where the American art is displayed. I have always been a fan of George Caleb Bingham who was a Missouri artist and politician who captured the life and times of the people who lived in the towns around the Missouri and Mississippi River’s in the mid-19th century. That was when my great-grandparents arrived in Saint Louis from Germany and Poland. My paternal great-grandfather from Germany was a brick-maker and made the red bricks that made Saint Louis the red brick city. My maternal great-grandfather from Poland who could speak Polish, French, German and English work as a government land agent who helped newly arriving immigrants to GO WEST and settle in Oklahoma, Texas and other western territories. Looking at Bingham’s paintings, I can discover what some of the things that they experienced.
The next gallery, features some of the early American artwork.
Augustus Saint-Gaudens sculpture
I’ve also always liked the work of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, though most people only remember him as the man who designed the US coins in the golden era coinage.
This statue of Queen Zenobia is the work of Harriet Hosmer who was one of the first American sculptress. It was created in 1859. She lived in Saint Louis and the work was displayed in this building in 1904 at the World’s Fair. The museum displays a photo taken at the time showing the work. Then it disappeared … for over a hundred years. Then in 2007, a member of the museum’s board was browsing in an antique shop in South Saint Louis when he rediscovered the lost work. After it was cleaned, it returned to the museum.
After setting a spell on one of the comfortable leather settees the museum provides for viewers to rest while contemplating the artworks, I headed for home to return another day to take all the galleries I missed.
COMING JUNE 29 – THE NEW MUSEUM ADDITION
A sneak peek of the new sandstone sculpture commissioned for the new addition.
THE FINE ART OF ART TREKKING – PART TWO
Still infected with the infernal Gilbert and Sullivan Mikado earworm, I decided to pick up my art trek in the museum’s Far East galleries with a few items that really caught my eye …
From Japan …
… to India.
Then I moved on to the new gallery which features the art of Imperial Rome …
Sometimes, it’s nice to just contemplate the work of people responsible for the culture we know today.
Also the Roman Gallery will also be the connecting passage from the original 1904 building to the new 2013 addition opening June 29.
TO BE CONTINUED …
Next week we with continue the Art Trek up the magical stairway up to the third floor of the museum and the American Galleries.
THE FINE ART OF ART TREKKING – PART ONE
Well, after three days of racing against the arrival of yet another week of daily rain I finally wore my self out mowing too tall grass, weed whacking invasive growths and reseeding the bare spots left by last years total drought. I don’t think we’re going to be worrying about that this year. And weather-wise, the weather wizards have removed the snow potential from the local forecasts … just rain from late today to next Wednesday.
So now I’m able to post Part One of my visit to the Saint Louis Art Museum that I promised to you last week.
The finishing touches are underway in the museum’s new addition scheduled to open at the end of June. In the original Cass Gilbert Palace Of Fine Art (1904) all the galleries have been repainted, spruced up and rehung with a lot of art that has been in storage for years.
This year, I’ve decided to take a closeup shot of each of the six sculptures that stand over the museum’s main entrance. Each one represents some aspect of art and culture.
The first work on the east end of the building appears to represent historic art and culture. In his right hand he holds a mini-Sphinx and in his left a symbolic tool. Feel free to comment if you can identify it. As you can see, the pigeons have not been kind to the young man. (Did you know that if you click on the photo, you will get an enlarged image? Click in that image and you will get an extreme closeup of the image.)
The first thing you see when you enter the museum is the Sculpture Hall.
Gilbert based his design for the museum on the ancient Roman Baths of Caracalla. Or what historians imagine what it looked like.
The side bays each feature a an oversize work of art …
From modern to historic …
A 2000-year old Mayan carving about six-feet high.
Because I promised Becky C, I’m starting my tour in the new Modern Art galleries.
Van Gogh
The center panel of Monet’s Water Lily Triptych
A smaller work by Seurat.
Notice how the richer paint tones on the walls accent the artwork.
Picasso
Sometimes when the artist worked in painting and sculpture, the curators have positioned the two styles together.
Well, that ends the Art Trekking for today. Hope you enjoyed it!
To be continued …
IMPERIAL ROME COMING UP IN PART TWO
If you’re visiting Saint Louis, be sure to add the Art Museum in Forest Park to your don’t miss list. It’s FREE to all, Tuesday through Sunday. Closed on Monday.
JUST ART
Every time I visit SLAM, aka The Saint Louis Art Museum, I try to find one item I have never seen before.
A Picture Of A Pitcher
You have to admit, this one is different.
Alas, poor Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci …
For five and a half centuries he has been recognized as an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. And tonight he has been elevated, delegated, or relegated to becoming the main character in a cable TV mini-series centered around a lot of flights of fantasy, whoring around, gratuitous heterosexual nudity, homoerotic dallying, gratuitous homosexual nudity, drug use, secret societies, name dropping from the character list of The Borgias and the fact that he was a bastard. Through no fault of his own, that last item was true. The title alone, DA VINCI’S DEMONS gives the impression that he was some kind of psychotic madman, but that’s the basis for most of the TV series this year.
I realize that what we know historically about Leonardo is based on just fifteen surviving paintings, a lot of notes sketches and drawings, a handful of church records, the histories of the famous with whom he associated, legends, rumors, pure speculation and the scriptwriter’s kinky imagination. It’s a shame that we’ll never know the real story behind a man who was one of the greatest geniuses in recorded history.
The first episode wasn’t all that bad. The actor playing Leo’s right hand stooge, Nikko, actually has a face right out of a Renaissance painting. (Probably all created in the makeup trailer.) And some of the naked bodies did provide a bit of eye-candy-perversion. But I digress. It is a historical art fact that artists of that time period did not use nude female models for their paintings. The models were young men … often students of the master painter. Da Vinci even worked as a model for his teacher in his youth.
DAILY CALENDAR CHALLENGE #059 – FEBRUARY 28
#1 THE ORIGAMI CALENDAR CHALLENGE – NATHAN’S PENGUIN
Today’s challenge is to fold my first ever penguin. Though the figure on the calendar page could also be a flying nun, I completed the challenge on the premise that it really was a penguin.
#2 THE MENSA PUZZLE CALENDAR – MIDDLE WORDS 
I don’t know about logic, but I was able to figure out all four middle words that I have listed below in reverse order should you want to give the puzzle a try.
SUOMAFYLDRAHOOBMABTREVID
#3 THE PAGE-A-DAY PUZZLE CALENDAR – MONA LISA DETAILS
Since Leonardo himself was still hanging around from his modeling gig earlier this week, he offered to help point out the locations of some of the details.
If you’re really interested, here are the locations of all of the details.
Well, that’s it for February! Only ten months to go.
DAILY CALENDAR CHALLENGE #046 – FEBRUARY 15
#1 THE ORIGAMI CALENDAR CHALLENGE – LITTLE BOXES
Not much to see here today, since this is just Part 1 of a 6 part challenge which won’t be over until next Friday. If you really want to see a finished origami … here’s a repeat of the Mlle. Renee figure I did yesterday.
#2 THE PAGE-A-DAY PUZZLE CALENDAR – BACK WORDS
Clues you want?
#3 THE MENSA PUZZLE CALENDAR CHALLENGE – SLAM DUNK
Yes indeed, this one really was a Slam Dunk. In case you missed any, here are the missing letters
SUTHEGREECKCANNOLLSIDRICKECKERBEAGOFFECHUPTISED
That’s All, Folks!
BEYOND The Photo Challenge Post
This is the photo I used for this week’s photo challenge which was supposed to represent my idea of BEYOND. It has always been one of my favorite photos. And I took it a couple of years ago, when I revisited the Missouri Botanical Garden for the first time since I was a kid. During those early visits I was with my parents and I went where they wanted to go and saw what they wanted to see. On my own, I was able to concentrate on the things that interested me. And one of these things was the Fountain Angel by Raffaello Romanelli.
According to the MOBOT guide: Water flows from ewers in the angel’s hands and originally spouted from four dogs’ heads at the base.The figure may represent Persephone, queen of the underworld, guarded by the dog Cerberus. Originally the sculpture stood in front of a marble column with overhead basin at the Skinker Avenue entrance to the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition (The Saint Louis World’s Fair). At the close of the fair the statue moved from location to location into the park where unfortunately it became the target for vandals. Then it was put into storage until 1975, when it was restore and reinstalled next to Henry Shaw’s Tower Grove House in the Garden.
Since this was after my childhood visits to the Garden, the statue was something totally new to me.
THE OTHER CONTENDERS: Before I committed to using The Fountain Angel for the BEYOND challenge, I had considered three other photos.
1 – Beyond The Looking Glass Darkly
This is a photo I took of myself in the Modern Art Galleries of the Saint Louis Art Museum. It was my reflection in a ginormous sheet of black glass or lucite. I don’t know what it was supposed to represent, but I though of Lewis Carroll’s strange adventures of Alice.
2 – The Light At The Top Of The Stairs
Another photo taken at SLAM (Saint Louis Art Museum) on the ascending West Staircase from the classic Chinese/Japanese/Indian Galleries and going BEYOND to the world of Modern Art. I also had considered a descending version with an arched picture window view of the outside parkland.
3 – Beyond Today To Yesterday
This is an image taken in the historic Free Flight Aviary at the Saint Louis Zoo. I shot it through a porthole in a stained grass panel. It captures a recreation of the Cypress Wetlands in the Mississippi Valley of yesteryear. The Aviary was the largest free flight bird-cage ever built. 
It was built by the US Government for the Saint Louis World’s Fair of 1904. When the fair closed, the Smithsonian planned to disassemble it and then reassemble it in Washington, DC. The people of Saint Louis shouted FOWL, and the government relented and sold the structure to the city for $3,500. And so, it’s still stands here for all to see 110-years later. For FREE, too!
So, which of my four choices most says BEYOND to you?
MY DAILY CHALLENGE #006 – JANUARY 6
Since all three of my puzzle/challenge calendars combine Saturday and Sunday on a single page. I decided to create my own origami challenge. I decided to fold a fat origami cat using folding paper that I printed myself using the image of a famous painting found in an art museum located in the mid-west USA.
So today’s challenge is directed to all who visit my blog. What is the name of the painting that I used to print my folding paper? And for bonus points, what name did I give my folded cat who happens to be a girl?
... a somewhat unknown or perhaps imaginary actor, writer, director, producer, photographer, friend, brother, uncle and all round good fellow that you really should get to know because he lives with that most glamorous fourpaw Mademoiselle Renee. (Mlle. Renee for short)
