Love & War~ May 19

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Windsor Castle: The Quire of St George’s Chapel by Charles Wild

1818 / Watercolor and bodycolour over pencil / 9.8”x8.3” / Royal Collection

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle in Windsor, near London, England, Saturday, May 19, 2018. (Danny Lawson/pool photo via AP)

On May 19, 2018, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding took place in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. Prince Harry was baptised in St George’s Chapel in December, 1984.

Engraved illustration from Harper’s Weekly newspaper of the wedding of the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) and Alexandra of Denmark / Harper’s Weekly newspaper dated 11 April 1863 / Artist unknown

St. George’s Chapel was built in the 15th century and is a towering piece of Gothic architecture. It is lauded for its stone fan-vault ceilings, but the intricate stained glasswork along each of its walls, and the tall arched windows, intricate woodwork, and ironwork doorframes add to the historic feel of the grand room. The tombs of ten sovereigns also lie within the chapel, including Henry VIII and Charles I.

Princess Eugenie of York and Mr Jack Brooksbank will marry in St George’s Chapel on October 12, 2018. A list of past Royal Weddings in St George’s Chapel can be found here: https://www.stgeorges-windsor.org/about-st-georges/royal-connection/marriage/

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Love & War~ May 17

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Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera

Among Mexico’s most captivating and provocative artists, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera had a relationship that never failed to amaze and astonish. Though they created some of Mexico’s most fascinating art, it’s the bizarre Beauty-and-the-Beast dynamic that has captivated the world and enshrouded both figures in intrigue. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/fodors/top/features/travel/destinations/mexico/mexicocity/fdrs_feat_101_9.html

Two years after [her] accident, in 1927, [Kahlo] met the painter Diego Rivera, whose work she’d come to admire and who became her mentor. In 1929, despite the vocal protestations of Kahlo’s mother, Frida and Diego were wedded and one of art history’s most notoriously tumultuous marriages commenced.  https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/04/19/frida-kahlo-diary-love-letters/

“I did not know it then, but Frida had already become the most important fact in my life. And she would continue to be, up to the moment she died, twenty-seven years later,” Rivera wrote about knowing the adult Frida for only a few days. https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-happened-to-frida-kahlos-missing-adultery-painting

Kahlo…believed that her relationship with Rivera transcended the bodily, physical, even painterly world. “It’s not love, or tenderness, or affection, it’s life itself, my life, that I found when I saw it in your hands, in your mouth and in your breasts,” she [wrote] to him. “I have the taste of almonds from your lips in my mouth. Our worlds have never gone outside. Only one mountain can know the core of another mountain.” https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-frida-kahlos-love-letters-diego-rivera-reveal-volatile-relationship

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Love & War~ May 16

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The Death of General Wolfe by Benjamin West

On September 13, 1759, during the Seven Years’ War (1756-63) [known in the United States as the French and Indian War], the British General James Wolfe achieved a dramatic victory; Wolfe was fatally wounded during the battle, but his victory ensured British supremacy in Canada.

Benjamin West, Self-portrait 1770

Benjamin West (October 10, 1738-March 11, 1820) was an Anglo-American history painter around and after the time of the American War of Independence and the Seven Years’ War.

Extremely popular among the 18th-century British aristocracy and royalty, Benjamin West’s work is primarily composed of commissioned portraits and history paintings. West is best known for his 1770 painting The Death of General Wolfe, which caused a stir when it was displayed at the Royal Academy because the figures were shown wearing contemporary clothing rather than classical garb.

Besides the original, at least four other additional versions of The Death of General Wolfe were also produced by West. The primary copy of The Death of General Wolfe is currently in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada, with further examples at the Royal Ontario Museum (Canadiana art collection), as well as the University of Michigan Museum of Art. The fourth copy produced resides at Ickworth House, Suffolk, England. Each reproduction had its own variation in the depiction of Wolfe’s death. A fifth autograph copy was commissioned by George III in 1771 and is still in the Royal Collection.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_General_Wolfe

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Love & War~ May 15

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Venus de Milo / Musée du Louvre

Venus, ancient Italian goddess associated with cultivated fields and gardens and later identified by the Romans with the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite.

In Roman mythology, Venus was the goddess of love, sex, beauty, and fertility. She was the Roman counterpart to the Greek Aphrodite. However, Roman Venus had many abilities beyond the Greek Aphrodite; she was a goddess of victory, fertility, and even prostitution.

Venus de Milo, the ancient statue commonly thought to represent Aphrodite…was carved from marble by the artist Alexandros* about 150 BCE. It was found in pieces on the Aegean island of Melos on April 8, 1820, and was subsequently presented to Louis XVIII (who then donated it to the Louvre in 1821).

*Alexandros of Antioch (Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος) (2nd-1st century BC) was a Greek sculptor of the Hellenistic age. His dates of birth and death are unknown.

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What Happened to the Venus De Milo’s Arms?
http://mentalfloss.com/article/62722/what-happened-venus-de-milos-arms
The Mystery of What Venus de Milo Was Once Holding
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/3-d-printing-offers-guess-what-venus-de-milo-might-have-been-holding-180955176/

Richard Avedon: May 15, 1923-Oct 1, 2004

The Misty Miss Christy

Mr. Avedon revolutionized the 20th-century art of fashion photography, imbuing it with touches of both gritty realism and outrageous fantasy and instilling it with a relentlessly experimental drive. So great a hold did Mr. Avedon’s fashion photography come to have on the public imagination that when he was in his 30’s he was the inspiration for Dick Avery, the fashion photographer played by Fred Astaire in the 1957 film “Funny Face.” In 1978 he appeared on the cover of Newsweek while a retrospective exhibition of his work was on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/02/obituaries/richard-avedon-the-eye-of-fashion-dies-at-81.html

MoMA Collection~ http://www.moma.org/collection/artists/248?=undefined&page=1
International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum~ http://www.iphf.org/hall-of-fame/richard-avedon/

American Masters~ http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/richard-avedon-about-the-photographer/467/
The Richard Avedon Foundation~ http://www.theavedonfoundation.net/

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May 15, 1970~ Tragedy at Jackson State

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The Misty Miss Christy

The shootings at Mississippi’s Jackson State University still linger in the shadow of Kent State. Less than two weeks after Kent, two black students were killed and 12 others wounded by state troopers on May 15, 1970.

The incident started after student demonstrators, protesting the Vietnam War and seeking more rights at the historically black college, responded to an order to disperse by throwing stones and bottles. It ended as police opened fire outside a women’s dormitory.

Phillip Gibbs, 21, a junior preparing for law school, who had a child and a pregnant wife, and James Earl Green, 17, a high school track star on his way home from his job at a grocery store, were killed.

A presidential commission later found the shootings at Jackson and Kent “completely unjustified.” No one was indicted.
May 15th, 1970: 2 Black Students Killed & 12 Wounded by Police During Vietnam Antiwar Protest~

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Love & War~ May 14

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Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller
“Peace Halting the Ruthlessness of War”

1917 / Bronze cast sculpture / 14”x16 3/4”x9”/ Private collection

Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller (June 9, 1877-March 18, 1968) was…a multi-talented artist who wrote poetry, painted, and sculpted but was most noted for her sculpture. Warrick was a protegé of Auguste Rodin…Warrick is considered a forerunner of the Harlem Renaissance.

In May, 1917, Meta Warrick Fuller took second prize in a competition under the auspices of the Massachusetts Branch of the Woman’s Peace Party, her subject being “Peace Halting the Ruthlessness of War.” War is personified as on a mighty steed and trampling to death numberless human beings. In one hand he holds a spear on which he has transfixed the head of one of his victims.

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Download a pdf file of “AN INDEPENDENT WOMAN The Life and Art Of Meta Warrick Fuller” here: http://www.danforthart.org/assets/forms/meta_fuller_catalog_1984-5.pdf

Love & War~ May 13

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Happy Mother’s Day

The artist’s mother, comtesse Adèle de Toulouse-Lautrec, at breakfast, Malromé Chateau
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
c.1881-1883 / Oil on canvas / 36.8”x31.8” / Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, France

Portrait of the Artist’s Mother / Vincent van Gogh
1888 / Oil on canvas / 16”x12-3/4” / Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena

The Artist’s Mother / Paul Gauguin
Between 1890 & 1893 / Oil on canvas / 16.1”x12.9” / Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany

The Artist’s Mother / Pablo Picasso
1896 / Pastel on paper / 19.6”x15.3” / Museu Picasso, Barcelona

Portrait of the Artist’s Mother / Henry Ossawa Tanner
1897 / Oil on canvas / 29 1/4”x39 1/2” / Philadelphia Museum of Art

Mrs. Robert S. Cassatt, the Artist’s Mother / Mary Cassatt
c.1889 / Oil On Canvas / 38”x27” / Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Woman with Plants / Grant Wood
1929 / Oil on upsom board / 20 1/2”x17 7/8” / Museum of Art Cedar Rapids, Iowa

The Painter’s Mother IV / Lucian Freud
1973 / Oil on canvas / 10 3/4”x 7 1/3” / Tate, London

Julia Warhola / Andy Warhol
1974 / Silkscreen ink and synthetic polymer paint on canvas / 40”x40” / The Andy Warhol Museum

Mum / David Hockney
1988 / Oil on canvas / 16 1/2”x10 1/2” / The David Hockney Foundation

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Love & War~ May 12

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“The Apotheosis of Athanasios Diakos” by Konstantinos Parthenis

c.1933 / Oil on canvas / 150”x150” / National Art Gallery and Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Athens

Konstantinos Parthenis (1878-1967), Greek painter

Athanasios Diakos was a hero of the Greek War of Independence*. Prior to the war he entered a monastery and was ordained a deacon (“diakos” in the Greek language). One day a Turkish pasha came to his monastery and made some crude remarks about his good looks. Diakos slew him and fled to the mountains. He join a band of klephts under Odysseus Androutsos, who made him second in command. Eventually, he headed his own band. ≈ In April 1821, Omer Vrioni, the commander of the Turkish army, advanced with 9,000 men from Thessaly to crush the revolt in Peloponnesus. At the ensuing Battle of

Athanasios Diakos

Alamana, Diakos’ men fought for several hours before they were overwhelmed. The wounded Diakos was taken to Vrioni. Vrioni offered to make Diakos an officer in his army but Diakos refused and replied “I was born a Greek and I will die a Greek”. ≈ Vrioni then ordered that Diakos be impaled on a spit and roasted over a fire. As he was about to die onlookers heard him sing “Look at the time Charon chose to take me, now that branches are flowering, now that the earth sends forth grass” referring to the Greeks’ uprising against the Turks. http://wiki.phantis.com/index.php/Athanasios_Diakos

*War of Greek Independence, (1821–32), rebellion of Greeks within the Ottoman Empire, a struggle which resulted in the establishment of an independent kingdom of Greece.

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Love & War~ May 11

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The Kiss

Auguste Rodin (French, 1840-1917)

 

The Tate’s The Kiss is one of three full-scale versions made in Rodin’s lifetime. Its blend of eroticism and idealism makes it one of the great images of sexual love. However, Rodin considered it overly traditional, calling The Kiss ‘a large sculpted knick-knack following the usual formula.’ The couple are the adulterous lovers Paolo Malatesta and Francesca da Rimini, who were slain by Francesca’s outraged husband. They appear in Dante’s Inferno, which describes how their passion grew as they read the story of Lancelot and Guinevere together. The book can just be seen in Paolo’s hand.
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/rodin-the-kiss-n06228

The Rodin Museum in Paris, France

Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, Denmark

 

The three larger marble versions were exhibited together at the Musée d’Orsay in 1995. A fourth copy was made after the death of Rodin by sculptor Henri-Léon Gréber for the Rodin Museum of Philadelphia.

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