Shadow Focal Length

I don’t remember consciously noticing that shadows have what you might call a “focal length,” until a few years ago.

This 18th-century Epergne by Thomas Pitts I is in the
Folgers Collection at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

I was enjoying a long, detailed look at the intricate baskets and trays of the amazing 18^th-century Thomas Pitts I Epergne at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, when I became fascinated by its shadows.

Some of the shadows, cast by lower parts (closer to the surface on which it stood), were dark, sharp-edged shapes. These shadows clearly showed the multitude of intricate openings (they appear to have been blurred and softened in the official photo published online).

The taller parts, however, cast paler, fuzzier shadows. I never realized shadows had depth of field, I thought. The piece is a beautiful and amazing tour de force in its own right, but that day I was even more entranced by the shadows.

Leaves from different levels on the tree cast sharper or
blurrier shadows depending on their distance from the street.

I’ve since had an opportunity to notice this effect in other places, most notably in the shadows of trees in my neighborhood when I walk my dogs.

It’s been so hot lately that I’ve taken to walking after dark, when it’s cooler. The streetlights on the leaves create a very similar effect to the one I remember observing at the Nelson-Atkins, and I managed to get some photos.

PHOTO CREDITS: The image of the Thomas Pitts I Epergne is courtesy of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, MO. The photo of the leaf shadows is by Jan S. Gephardt, taken in June 2012 in Westwood, KS, and may be distributed online under a Creative Commons license, providing it is not altered and credit (preferably with a link back) is given. 

Wondrously Lost in Water Lilies

I am certainly not the first artist to get my imagination tangled up in water lilies, and I doubt I'll be the last.  But certainly one of the most amazing intersections of water lilies and art came through Claude Monet.

Monet is particularly on my mind right now, because I took advantage of a rare opportunity last weekend: I  went to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City to experience in person the reunification of The Agapanthus Triptych.

This photo shows the current Kansas City installation, with a new frame.
Built specifically for this show, it was inspired by frames Monet approved
for other massive triptychs at l'Orangerie in France.  The curator standing in
front of the painting is Nicole Myers.  (photo from Art Knowledge News.)

Monet's lily pond at Giverny,
in a photo posted on deviantART
by "Cansounofargentina."

More familiarly called "Monet's Water Lilies," this trio of massive canvases actually is only one of the many works Monet devoted to the water lilies in his garden at Giverny, France.

Being in the presence of the complete triptych is an amazing, immersive experience.  Monet planned it that way, in fact.  He wanted his later series of enormous diptychs, triptychs, and four-part "quadtychs" to be housed in round or elliptical rooms created just for them.

A view of l'Orangerie in Paris shows
how Monet intended for his massive,
multi-part artworks to be seen.

This goal is reached with a collection of other Monet compositions in the Musee de l'Orangerie in Paris.

The current display of the entire Agapanthus Triptych is unusual, however, because the work has been separated for most of the time since the canvases were split up in 1956.

That was the year when the St. Louis Art Museum bought only the central panel from a New York art dealer that had acquired the entire work from another dealer in Paris.  The French dealer had displayed the entire work to considerable acclaim, after acquiring it and several other, smaller works from Monet's son Michel.

At the urging of faculty and students from the Kansas City Art Institute, the Nelson-Atkins Museum bought the right-hand panel in 1957.  The Cleveland Museum of Art finished the process in 1960, when it bought the left-hand panel.  The last time the three canvases were reuinted as the complete triptych was in 1979, so this is genuinely a rare opportunity.

I went to see the triptych with friends. As a member of the museum's Friends of Art and a lifelong Nelson-Atkins Museum-goer, I of course had seen "our" section many times over the years.  Yet when one of my companions said, "I can't remember--do you recall which one is ours?" I was embarrassed to admit I could not.

Water Lilies and Agapanthus, 1917, by
Claude Monet (Musee Marmottan, France),
 shows what an agapanthus looks like,
when painted by Monet.   The one originally
 gracing the corner of the "Cleveland piece"
pointed right, not left. 

It would've been easier for us, if Monet had left the agapanthus in.  Ironically, the work is named for a plant whose image in the lower left-hand corner of the "Cleveland piece" was painted out by Monet at some point during his extensive revisioning and repainting process between when the work was begun in 1915 and Monet's death in 1926 (a photo from his studio in 1921 shows it was still visible then).

Experts aren't entirely sure whether Monet actually considered the triptych "finished," even in 1926, but his process of increasingly moving from representation to abstraction is a goodly part of why many people feel this is a ground-breaking work.

The Agapanthus Triptych remains in Kansas City through August 7, 2011.  After that, all three pieces travel to the St. Louis Art Museum for a display that is scheduled to run October 2, 2011-January 22, 2012.

The Cleveland Museum of Art also plans to display the three paintings together, but those display dates are less certain.  A blog post on the museum's website says the paintings will be shown together in Cleveland in 2015--exactly one hundred years from the time Monet started painting them.

PHOTO CREDITS: As noted above, the photo of the full triptych in its new frame is courtesy of Art Knowledge News, and "Giverny Water-Lily Pond" is courtesy of "Cansounofargentina."  The personal blog, All the Pages Are My Days by "Mike," featured the view of l'Orangerie.  The image of Water-Lilies and Agapanthus by Monet came from the Painting Mania website, where you can buy reproductions of the image.
ALSO NOTE: I found all of the historical information for this post from a lovely little well-illustrated book that I bought at the show,  Monet's Water Lilies: The Agapanthus Triptych by Simon Kelly, with Mary Schafer and Johanna Bernstein, published by the Saint Louis Art Museum.

Why I Love Art Museums

You learn the most amazing things from the artists of the world, sometimes. Let me share a couple of fun examples that I recently discovered. I was over at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art yesterday (our local museum in Kansas City), mapping out a route for the field trip my class is going to take there tomorrow.

The field trip is about Notan, Chiaroscuro, and still life—and I found some good resources, of course (the Nelson-Atkins is an awesome museum). But I had more fun collecting oddball bits of knowledge I never dreamed I’d encounter.

First of all, who would have thought that the Netherlands in the 17^th century would be a place to look for Italian Greyhounds? People who know me are aware that I’ve been trolling the listings on Petfinder.com recently, seeking to correct my current, deplorable state of doglessness with an “IG.” But I really didn’t expect to see any in Gallery P17.

I was wrong. First of all, there was Jan Steen’s the-more-you-look-the-more-you-see-in-it painting, Fantasy Interior with Jan Steen and the Family of Gerrit Schouten (1659-60), which I can share with you because the Nelson allows non-flash photography of its own collection (thank you!!).

Do you see it? Right there, front-and-center, is a little dog that—if it isn’t an IG—certainly is a dead ringer for one.

Wow, I thought. Dutch winters are cold. I wouldn’t have expected an IG to do well in unheated buildings there, but it’s hard to argue with the historical record. I continued on, and promptly encountered this painting.

This is Hendrik van Vliet’s Interior of the New Church at Delft (ca. 1660-70), and what are those two small creatures at lower left and center? They look extremely much like Italian Greyhounds to me. What do you think?

They are too small to be greyhounds or whippets (whippets weren’t bred till the 19^th century in England, anyway). No, they’re IGs. And you also might note they are strolling nonchalantly with their families . . . inside a big new church that was the pride of the community. Dogs in church? Cool!

But the fun wasn’t over yet. Did you know that, according to a Roman Catholic tradition in Boulogne, Italy, St. Luke (the Gospel-writer) was an artist? They have a revered icon there of the Madonna, and tradition has it that St. Luke painted it. I learned this in Gallery P14 when I discovered Saint Luke Displaying a Painting of the Virgin (1652-53), by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, whom the information card said was called “Il Guercino.”

Of course, Il Guercino, in true Baroque style, didn’t try to make the icon look like an icon. But it was an interesting idea to me that one of the “biggie” saints might be thought to have been an artist. Later, I looked up more information on Il Guercino, and discovered that his nickname means “he who squints.” Was he nearsighted, I wondered. No. According to Wikipedia, that source of all kinds of wonderful knowledge, Il Guercino squinted because he was cross-eyed.

Cross-eyed? Talk about an occupational disability! Can you imagine any guidance counselor in his/her right mind saying, “Sure, Willie! Art sounds like a great career! Go for it!” to a kid who was cross-eyed? But you know, old “Squinty” turned out to be a pretty darn good painter. It just goes to show, you should follow your dreams, eh?

All in all, it was a fascinating excursion. Dogs in church, and cross-eyed Baroque masters: who knew? And that’s why I love art museums.