Today was Museum Day for me. After swim practice and a hearty breakfast I drove over close to the UT campus and parked in the shade. You would have looked for shade too. It was hot and sticky today...
Slathered up with sunscreen and wearing my most ridiculously protective hat I walked about a mile over to the Blanton Museum of Art, nestled on the edge of the campus, just off Martin Luther King Blvd. There was plenty to see today. A great show of artists who worked in collaboration with each other. A new show of print making families' work from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Scultures and paintings by Isamu Noguchi. Along with new works in the upstairs Contemporary galleries.
But as you have become painfully aware, I am more of a sculpture fan. Precisionist sculpture (yes, there was an art movement in the 20th century called "Precisionist Art"), though I do love Noguchi's abstractions.
After looking through all the galleries in the Blanton I was drawn back to a small room on the first floor where there are examples from the Battle Collection of reproductions of ancient sculpture. These were the predecessors of the mannequins we've come to know and love in the 21st century. Anticipated several thousand years ago by the Greeks and Romans. Cool way to channel the past.
It was hot and I walked everywhere today so I only took along the Leica Q2. What am I saying, "only!!!"??? It's a remarkable camera to take along on a Museum Day extravaganza. I tamed it down for the ancient mannequins and shot in black and white. Or.... monochrome.
Next up. What I saw at the Humanities Research Center, AKA: The Harry Ransom Center.
The ancients. Rich in art and literature but too poor to buy clothes...
We recently watched an old BBC art documentary on youtube that included paintings and sculptures of nude humans. The censors, not sure who, had masked the naughty bits. It might be that whoever had uploaded the video was asked to do so by youtube. I wondered if there were different versions of the videos, one for sensitive countries and one for the rest. Considering that hard core is one or two clicks away, makes you wonder who is tilting at this windmill.
ReplyDeleteMany statues from antiquity were originally gaudily painted by today's standards, but we probably judge them to be gaudy because we're used to seeing them the way they are now with all the pigment washed off. Is time the great de-saturater? Is it those statues that make us appreciative of B&W photography? Colour won't fade from today's digital images in the same way.
I wonder if people back then were really thin and fit like these statues or if they were meant as idealized visions of the gods
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