Art Links

-The Met recently acquired Jacopo Bassano's last known work, "The Baptism of Christ," for their Renaissance collection, as well as a 16th century bronze oil lamp by sculptor Andrea Riccio.

-The only museum not firing people, but hiring them is the up and coming Hammer Museum, notable for its work on contemporary art, which gained a few new upper level curators recently.

-A harrowing tale of art theft, identity change, and "collecting" came to light after several stolen works were recovered a Las Vegas home. Tip: if you're going to steal art from galleries, it's probably not a good idea to then hang them up in your house.

New Exhibition: The Pre-Raphaelites

The Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, Sweden will open the first ever major show on the Pre-Raphaelites, a group of 19th century English artists. The show features over 200 works, opened February 26th, and is on view until May 24th, if you find yourself in Stockholm.

The Pre-Raphaelites sought to revive a style of art prior to Raphael, drawing much of their inspiration from medieval and Renaissance art, their style characterized by intense emotion, historical scenes, stylization of beauty and the body, and sense of decoration.

I've always thought that the Pre-Raphaelites were widely not taken seriously by art historians and museums, their work largely relegated to dorm room posters, so it's interesting to see a major exhibition on them. Any opinions here?

More bad recession-related museum news

Following the Philadelphia Museum and the Met's staff cut news, several other museums are following suit:

-The Walters Art Museum announced today that it will cut staff, freeze pay, cancel an exhibition partnered with the Musee d'Orsay next year, and reduce the number of major exhibitions per year from 3 to 2.

-The High Museum in Atlanta, Georgia will fire 7 percent of its staff, institute a hiring freeze, and cut salaries for existing employees, including the Director and director-level positions.

The Walters and the High are certainly the newest entries in an ever-growing list. A summary of the cuts that have been made across the board at small and large museums alike across the country was published in the Art Newspaper last month.

Vindication for Wannabe Arcaeologists Everywhere

As I've mentioned, I wanted to be an archaeologist for a long time as a child, which naturally means I spent a lot of time in my backyard digging, hoping I'd find a dinosaur or something.

Vindication for me and other child-archaeologists came today when a cache of Stone Age tools, estimated to be about 13,000 years old, were discovered in a suburban Colorado backyard. The tools are cutting implements (with enough blood residue on them to identify the animals they killed) that were buried by the hunters.

The only let-down of this story is that it wasn't the homeowner's 7 year old kid that found them, but a landscaper hired to dig a fishpond.

Art Links

-Following yesterday's news that the Met might be cutting staff, the Philadelphia Museum of Art announced today that a mixture of 30 positions (some currently filled, others vacant that will now not be filled) will be cut. No curators are being let go (though they will take a pay cut)...yet.

-An Art Deco armchair by Eileen Gray became the became the most expensive piece of 20th century furniture ever at the Yves Saint Laurent sale, the top bid at 21.9 million euro.

-A little fun, because I think fashion is art, and the fashion was fantastic at the Academy Awards on Sunday night. Here are a couple of slide shows with the highlights. I would kill for SJP's Dior gown.

Art Links

-A new show at the Guggenheim, The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860-1989, deals with American artists' dialogue with Asian aesthetics. The show is on now through April 19th.

-The YSL sale at Christie's this week performed up to expectations, and just might be the thing to save the art world from the scary, scary recession.

-An interesting new exhibition about Nazi propaganda, State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda, is opening at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. The review of the show in the New York Times is a great introduction to the show, which will be on view through 2011.

-Not even the Met is impervious to the recession, announcing today the closure of 15 of its satellite shops. The Met will also institute a hiring freeze and start looking into the possibility of a "head-count reduction."

-An interesting look into the financial side of the art world in this article about Art Capital, in today's NYT.

-Iraq's refurbished National Museum re-opens with a fresh coat of paint, though with many of its treasures still lost to the looting that occurred with 2003's American invasion.

New Leonardo portrait discovered?

A new alleged self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci has been recently discovered by medieval historian Nicola Barbatelli in the archives of a wealthy southern Italian family at Acerenza.

The oil portrait, which would be only the second known self-portrait by da Vinci (the other being a red chalk drawing at the Biblioteca Reale in Turin), was originally though to be a portrait of Galileo. Barbatelli thinks that there are some later additions and some repainting in the work and that "it's date and provenance still have to be established with certainty," but the work will still be exhibited at a show about da Vinci later this month.

I have to say, I'm very skeptical about this. Barbatelli seems to base most of his "discovery" (of an already known painting, I might add) on extremely subjective criteria, saying that "the posture, the sytle and technique were reminiscent of the portrait of Leonardo in the Uffizi." While stylistic analysis is in many cases a necessary evil in determining an attribution, significant futher tests and expertise is needed here. Renaissance artists were skilled copyists, and simply "reminiscent" won't cut it when trying to prove this was actually by da Vinci's own hand. Barbatelli's jump to attribute this painting to such an iconic artist as da Vinci, considering the rarity of self-portraits by the artist, seems like quite a jump.

It will be interesting to see what reaction this gets from art historians and da Vinci experts, and if this yields a closer stylistic analysis, more specific dating, and some concrete evidence of da Vinci's connections to southern Italy. I'll keep my eyes peeled for future developments.

The Curious Case of the Kaaba Key

Sotheby's canceled the record £9.2m sale of a 12th century iron Kaaba key (originally sold in April of 2008) after the key's authenticity was disputed. Art historians at the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and Oxford were consulted in the matter, their expertise eventually resulting the annulment of the sale.
The Art Newspaper reports that only 17 medieval Kaaba keys are known to exist (though there are 58 that exist total, from any period), and because of their extreme rarity, the likelihood that the Sotheby's key was a fake was extremely high. Indeed, there were many doubts regarding the key's authenticity leading up to the sale. The key was the most expensive Islamic work ever to be sold at auction.

Art history is sort of like detective work, isn't it? It gets especially exciting when 18 million hangs in the balance.

New Exhibition: Medievalism, Fashion's Romance with the Middle Ages

I love the idea for this exhibition because it brings together two of my very favorite things: fashion and the middle ages.

The Kelly Ellman Fashion Design Gallery and Orme Lewis Gallery at the Phoenix Museum of Art will open the show Medievalism: Fashion's Romance with the Middle Ages on February 21st. The show will feature over 40 ensembles as well as accessories and books that evoke the textures and lines of the medieval, or "Gothic" style associated with the Middle Ages.

While the premise of the show seems somewhat romantic at first glance, it will also treat the history of the revival of Gothic style in the mid-19th century, and how the medieval aesthetic affects today's fashion and media as well.

Murals based on the 15th-century Unicorn tapestries in the collection of the Musée National du Moyen Age, Paris, and a painted stained glass window created by set designer Michael Sims will provide the appropriately medieval backdrop for the show.

Are university art museums taken for granted?

In light of the controversy stirred up over at Brandeis University, Holland Cotter writes a fantastic piece in today's New York Times that analyzes the integral role that small university art museums play in the larger world of "fabulous" art exhibitions at public institutions.

Cotter points out that though the exhibitions featured at university museums are not as glamorous as the big-budget shows at public museums, they often cover topics that would not be palatable to a general public audience. In doing so, they actually provide an important service to both the academic and artistic worlds.

I agree with Cotter on most of the article, but in my experience, university art museums are not often taken seriously as legitimate venues for important exhibitions, small as they might be. I was always impressed by the shows put on by my alma mater, NYU's Grey Art Gallery, which (true to form) always featured shows on obscure artists and topics. However, I was hard-pressed to find another art history major, let alone a student of another discipline who had been to the Grey. I'm curious to know what your experience has been with university museums? Do they matter? Are they given the credit that is due?

New Exhibition: From Hestia’s Sacred Fire to Christ’s Eternal Light

The Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon will show an exhibition of ancient and medieval lamps beginning March 14 and running through May 17.

Unfortunately I don't think I'm going to get to make it to Salem, Oregon, but this is an interesting idea for a show that involves the oft-forgotten decorative arts (or "material culture") of ancient and medieval society.

The show will feature about 84 oil lamps, some functional and some with mythological and religious relief scenes, all from the Bogue Collection at Portland State University. The lamps represent a wide range of materials and cultures, dated from as early as 3,000 BCE and continuing through the medieval period.

Zed the Mammoth from La Brea

When I was just a wee child, my ultimate career goal was to be an archaeologist because I was a huge dinosaur geek.

I'm still sort of a dinosaur geek, which is why I'm posting this, even though it's not totally art-related. Researchers from the Page Museum, while digging in an underground parking garage of LACMA (see? art-related.) found a mammoth skeleton in 2007 that they've named Zed, who is complete save for one missing leg. They've recently started excavating his bones.

They also found the skeleton and the skull of a prehistoric American lion, bones of wolves, saber-tooth cats, ground sloths (which are the coolest of all North American megafauna), bison, and a bunch of late Pleistocene era insects, plants, and sea creatures.

New Exhibition: Heaven on Earth: Manuscript Illuminations from the National Gallery of Art

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., is showing examples from their collection of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in the upcoming exhibition, Heaven on Earth.

The exhibition will feature about 50 decorated leaves and four bound volumes from the museum's permanent collection, primarily drawn from the religious texts in the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection and from all over western Europe, including some examples from less-common manuscript producing areas like Austria and Bohemia. The show covers manuscripts from the 12th to the 16th century. (Opens March 1, 2009 until August 2, 2009)

The National Gallery also has an interesting show on Dutch cityscapes on now through May 3rd, and a show on the intriguing Judith Leyster opening in June.

Art Links (and a Castle!)

- Questionable art history at the Prado surrounding the recent attribution of The Colossus, previously attributed to Goya, to an assistant of his named Asencio Julia. A report explaining the reasons for the demotion of the Colossus has recently been released by the curator of 18th century paintings at the Prado, Manuela Mena.
Principal among these reasons are an x-ray scan of the painting reveals the initials "A.J." in the corner and evidence of pentimenti in the underpainting. These reasons being not all that convincing, we are left with the question of "stylistic evidence," that oh-so-slippery, and ultimately 100% subjective, method of attribution. Any Goya specialists out there willing to hazard an opinion on this?

-Not news, exactly, but a great little article about Pieter Bruegel the Elder's masterpiece, "The Triumph of Death." The painting, "not for the squeamish," is one of my favorite pieces of art in the whole world and a masterful rendering of the idea that death is inevitable, following a long medieval tradition of such themes.
I do disagree with the author of the article here, Mr. Woodward, when he says that his secular reading of the painting as a "nightmarish icon" that seems to anticipate the horrors of wars that came after it isn't "responsible art history." There is something to be said about a painting that speaks to audiences through time and isn't only applicable to its specific historical moment.

-For your reading pleasure, a short piece about a medieval Crusader castle, the Crac des Chevaliers, in Syria. A rather grand piece of architecture that brilliantly encapsulates the give and take between Western Crusaders and their Eastern foes (which, interestingly enough, this article doesn't mention that Muslim armies eventually captured the Crac and drove the Hospitallers out in a spectacular defeat, simply that the Mamelukes "took" the fortress). The Crac really highlights a lot of the issues surrounding the idea of a specifically "Crusader" art while also being just an incredible piece of architecture.
Some parting words from one of the Crac's lintel inscriptions: "Grace, wisdom and beauty you may enjoy, but beware pride, which alone can tarnish all the rest."

Art Links (and a Watermill!)

-China agrees to lend art from its National Palace Museum to Taiwan's National Palace Museum in Taipei next fall for an exhibition that will bring together a part of China's imperial collection. The disagreement between the two countries, whether or not China's claim to full ownership of the imperial collection is valid, will not be addressed.

-An interesting article in the Times about the flagging contemporary art market, a short history of the market's relationship to art schools, and an innovative (?) suggestion to open up the now very narrow curriculum in studio-based programs. Should art schools institute a more interdisciplinary approach? Would it change the landscape of the contemporary art market?

-Archaeologists are unearthing a 12th century watermill at Greenwich Wharf in England. Timbers are currently being excavated and sent in for conservation.

New Exhibition: The St. John's Bible

Opening at the Walters Art Museum, an exhibition featuring the "10-year effort to create the first handwritten, illuminated Bible to be commissioned by a Benedictine monastery since the advent of the printing press."

The project was launched 9 years ago by monks from St. John's Abbey and University in Collegeville, Minnesota, using medieval illumination methods like quills made from turkey, swan and goose feathers, and natural paints and inks, all on calfskin vellum, though the text is from the New Revised Standard version of the Bible, and in modern English. Interestingly, the images are also inspired by modern circumstances and events. The modern manuscript will be displayed along with medieval manuscripts from the Walters's collection. More information about the exhibit can be found here.

The Saint John's Bible: a Modern Vision through Medieval Methods is on through May 24, 2009.

Art Links (and a Mummy!)

-A very insightful review from Roberta Smith of the new exhibition at Chicago's Art Institute, Becoming Edvard Munch: Influence, Anxiety and Myth. "I may not be creative, but at least I’m not crazy." (Van Gogh, I'm looking at you!)

-Greece's plan to unveil the new Acropolis museum, opening about 5 years behind schedule after disagreements with the British Museum and an impromptu excavation of artifacts from a large swath of early Christian Athens.

-German art happenings, featuring an exhibition of German expressionist works at the Deutsches Historisches Museum, the clash of Western and non-Western art at Zurich's Museum Rietberg, and a collection of contemporary German art at Die Pinakothek in Munich.

-Buzz about the upcoming Yves Saint Laurent sale at Christie's Paris. I've taken a look at the copious catalogs that accompany this sale, and it's quite spectacular (Christie's provides complete eCatalogues online). Check out some of the sale highlights on the Christie's website. I'm partial to the Juan Gris cubist works and Fernand Leger's Composition, in the factory, 1918, though the sale will also include an impressive collection of Old Master paintings and decorative arts as well.

-Not quite art-related, but a new mummy from Luxor, Egypt underwent a high-tech CT scan without even having to be removed from her [rather beautifully painted] coffin. Science!

New Exhibition: Medieval Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art

If you're around Nashville's Frist Center for the Visual Arts, check out the new exhibition there, Medieval Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art. It looks pretty spectacular, with objects ranging from Early Medieval, to Byzantine, to the arts of medieval Italy and Germany.

The Frist Center will also sponsor a ton of programs related to the exhibit, including lectures by curators, gallery talks, and workshops on illuminated manuscripts.

Press release:
NASHVILLE, TENN.—(Jan. 23, 2009)—The Frist Center for the Visual Arts will open Medieval Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art Friday, Feb. 13, 2009. The traveling exhibition provides an extraordinary opportunity to see more than 100 rare works of art from the Middle Ages. The wide array of objects includes ivories, enamels, metalwork, jewelry, sculptures, paintings and illuminated manuscripts produced in Europe and the Mediterranean basin. The Cleveland Museum of Art (Ohio) possesses one of the finest collections of Early Christian, Byzantine, and European Medieval art in the United States. Medieval Treasures will be on view through Sunday, June 7, 2009.

“Every object in Medieval Treasures is exquisite and is indicative of the extraordinary quality of the collection assembled by the Cleveland Museum of Art throughout the course of the past century,” says Trinita Kennedy, associate curator at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts. “The exhibition takes us back to a time and place when religious faith inspired artists to create objects of awe-inspiring beauty.”

Early Christian and Byzantine Treasures: Art and Empire
The exhibition begins with a group of rare early Christian sculptures. Marble statuettes of Christ as the Good Shepherd and the Old Testament prophet Jonah most likely date to 280–90, that is, several decades before Constantine the Great declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in 330. These sculptures eloquently express Christian beliefs in salvation and resurrection. Visitors will also see the Octagonal Pendant, one of the finest pieces of gold jewelry to survive from the reign of Constantine. Its center is mounted with a double solidus (gold coin) representing Constantine crowned as emperor. Important examples of Byzantine art will be on view, such as The Icon of the Virgin and Child (second half of the 10th or early 11th century), one of the most superb ivories to survive the Middle Byzantine period.

The exhibition features an entire gallery dedicated to the personal and portable art of the Migration period (approximately 300 to 900). In addition to silver, gold and bronze jewelry studded with garnets and pearls, there is a rare Celtic head made of sandstone intended for ritual veneration.

Early Medieval Treasures: Splendor and Devotion
During the 9th century, the Christianization of Celtic and Germanic tribes resulted in an increased demand for churches, monasteries, liturgical objects and illuminated manuscripts throughout Europe, but especially in Germany.

The Cleveland Museum of Art is renowned for its objects from the Guelph Treasure, one of the most important church treasuries to have survived from medieval Germany. The museum acquired these sacred objects in 1930. Included in the exhibition is one of the earliest and most sumptuous works from the treasure, the Portable Altar of Countess Gertrude, ca. 1045. Made of gold, cloisonné enamel, gems, pearls, oak and other materials, the altar is a masterpiece of early medieval goldsmith work.

High Gothic Treasures: Court and Cloister
Throughout the 11th and 12th centuries, powerful and wealthy monasteries emerged as Europe’s preeminent centers of artistic production and display. A selection of reliquaries, crosses, and large-scale sculptures in the exhibition were made for monasteries located in France and Germany. Major monasteries formed workshops of their own and created lavish manuscripts and illuminations using gold and other fine materials.

Late Medieval Treasures: Toward a New Expression
The exhibition concludes with four galleries filled with exquisite works from late medieval France, Burgundy, Italy, and Germany. French artisans (ca. 1130–1300) created illuminated books of hours, ivory reliefs and metalwork suited to the royal court’s need for extraordinarily refined luxury goods.

The dukes of Burgundy (1364–1477) sought to enhance their status with displays of wealth and taste, and became brilliant patrons of art. The exhibition features three alabaster sculptures of mourners, made between 1406 and 1410, for the tomb of Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy—one of the most celebrated funerary monuments of the Middle Ages. Also on view is a magnificent Table Fountain (ca. 1320–40), an object of great ingenuity intended to entertain the dinner guests of the Burgundian dukes.

The great mercantile centers of medieval Italy—namely, Siena, Florence, Bologna and Venice—were home to brilliant craftsmen who produced gold ground panel paintings and sculpted reliefs of the Madonna and Child and the saints. Most extraordinary is a large altarpiece from a Franciscan church that survives intact—one of only a few now in the United States.

The sculptors of late medieval Germany brought woodcarving to a high degree of sophistication,
and the Cleveland Museum of Art possesses one of the largest collections of their work outside Europe. Examples in the exhibition range from a nearly life-sized Saint John Resting on the Bosom of Christ of polychrome oak by an anonymous artist to a small-scale mourning Virgin made of pear wood by Viet Stoss.

Fashion and Costumes: Current Shows at FIT

One my favorite things in life is fashion. Logically, it spills over into an academic interest in costume history, and in New York, one of the best places to go and learn about it is the Museum at FIT. FIT puts on creative, modern exhibitions and has lots of seminars, conferences, and lectures that are for the most part, open to the public.

Currently on (and ending February 21st!) is Dark Glamour, which looks at fashion's role in creating the Gothic aesthetic. It features some great clothes, creative display, and a fantastic illustrated catalog. The show is curated by Dr. Valerie Steele, who can always be counted on for an interesting fashion experience.

The new exhibition, on now until June 16, 2009 is Seduction, which "examines the complex relationship between seduction and clothing, presenting a visual history of sexuality, moral standards, and social norms–-all observed through the prism of fashion." I haven't yet been to see it, but if the show's website is any indication, I'll enjoy it immensely. This show features historical fashion as well as modern clothes, and traces changing attitudes toward the female body in connection with seduction and fashion. Colleen Hill curates.

This weekend, the Museum at FIT has a special symposium on "Subculture and Style," and having been to some of their programs in the past, the speakers and presentations are always quite good. Here's the info:

Fashion Symposium
Subculture and Style
Friday, February 13, and Saturday, February 14, 2009
Morris W. and Fannie B. Haft Auditorium
Marvin Feldman Center (C building, 2nd floor)

In conjunction with the Gothic: Dark Glamour exhibition, the museum's seventh annual fashion symposium features designers, musicians, photographers, authors, and curators who will discuss fashion and subcultural style. Prices, registration, and speaker information are all available here.

Check out the museum's website for more information on location and opening hours, and some great online exhibitions for those of you not in New York!

The Louvre Tries Something Revolutionary?

Just happened upon this article about the Louvre's upcoming exhibition, "The Funeral of the Mona Lisa," which features the work of contemporary artist Yan Pei-Ming. The Louvre will hang Pei-Ming's version of the Mona Lisa, which features a gray Mona Lisa surrounded by skulls. Other works of Yan Pei-Ming's will also be hung in proximity to da Vinci's original.

The Louvre calls the exhibit "part of the Louvre's efforts to bring contemporary art face to face with the masterpieces of old." You might recall an installation of Jeff Koons's work at Versailles, which sparked quite a controversy. I'm surprised at the Louvre's willingness to probably incite outrage among traditionalists, and around what is probably the most famous painting in its collection. It is certainly not the fist time the Mona Lisa has been used as an inspiration for modern art, but putting what Yan Pei-Ming calls both an "homage and a funeral" for the Mona Lisa in such proximity to the original, inviting comparison, interpretation, analysis, and discussion of the Renaissance masterpiece as it relates to contemporary art practice is another thing altogether.

If any of you happen to be in Paris, at the Louvre, I'd love to know what the general reaction is to the exhibit. I'll keep my eyes peeled for further news, and be sure to post it here. My guess is that there will be an official protest, but that it certainly won't dampen the popularity of the Mona Lisa among regular tourist visitors.

Morning Art Links

- An interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about contemporary artist Elizabeth Peyton's work. A retrospective of her portraits is moving to the Walter Art Center in Minneapolis (opens Feb. 14th), having just finished a run at the New Museum here in New York. I find Peyton's work to be some of the most interesting paintings that have been done in recent years, probably because she works in a traditional genre, but "reinvents" it in a way that appeals to modern audiences.


- Also in the Wall Street Journal, a snapshot of recent contemporary art auction results. The past few months have been some of the most tumultuous the major auction houses like Christie's and Sotheby's have experienced in recent memory, as both houses have had heavy job cuts, and disappointing sales all around. Highlights for the upcoming contemporary sale at Christie's this week include standbys like Koons, Murakami, and Bacon, though at somewhat more conservative estimates. Interesting that though the industry has suffered, impressionist and modern sales continue to perform respectably.

-An exhibition at the Walters Art Museum features nine manuscripts of the Old French poem, the Roman de la Rose, one of the most popular and influential texts of courtly love in the Middle Ages. The manuscripts are also displayed with some of the Walters' medieval ivories, many of which pick up on the same courtly love themes. What a great medieval Valentine's Day activity!


miniature from a manuscript of the
Roman de la Rose in the Bodleian Library

Ancient Art Gets a Facelift: Palazzo Massimo

Art news that's not medieval, but interesting nonetheless. An article in today's New York Times reports on the new "people-friendly" campaign that the National Museum of Rome has begun at the Palazzo Massimo.

The Palazzo's ancient art collection is being redisplayed, with new lighting, some new objects, and wine tastings for the adults, and art workshops for the kids. An interesting turn of events for the staid Italian museums of the past, whose attitude was to let the art speak for itself, no marketing involved. What do you think of this new (dare we say American?) attitude toward making the arts more "available" to their audience?

Original NYT article in the Globespotters section.

Medieval art à la carte: Digital Gutenberg Bible

More manuscript-related news from the Morgan:

The Morgan announced today that it will take steps to create a digital version of one of its three Gutenberg Bibles. The Gutenberg Bible's 1,026 pages will be a welcome addition to the Morgan's already impressive collection of completely digitized manuscripts, available for free via their library search engine.

I really have to applaud the Morgan's efforts at digitization of their collections. Not only is the collection of manuscripts an invaluable resource, but taking steps to digitize the manuscripts and make them available online in their entirety shows the people at the Morgan really get it. There's nothing like seeing a several-hundred-year-old manuscript in person, but this helps make manuscripts easily available to a much wider audience. Let's hope other libraries follow their lead!

For those of you who are interested, La Bibliothèque nationale de France also has digital copies of many of their manuscripts, but if you don't speak French, their online catalog, Mandragore, is a bit hard to navigate.

More information on the digitization of the Gutenberg Bible from the NY Times.

Medieval art à la carte: "Protecting the Word"

Medieval art à la carte is a column of sorts I occasionally write for my dear friend Jenn's medieval blog Per Omnia Saecula. They're re-posted here in case you're interested!

Today's exhibit focus is on the Morgan Library in New York, and their show "Protecting the Word: Bookbindings of the Morgan," on now through March 29th. Though the show includes the Morgan's entire collection of bookbindings, including nineteenth and twentieth century examples as well as an English Restoration-era Roger Bartlett mosaic binding, the real superstars are the medieval jeweled covers of the Lindau Gospels.

According to the Morgan's website, the Lindau Gospels were acquired in 1901, and are today one of the most famous examples of Carolingian manuscripts in the world. The inside of the manuscript is gorgeous, decorated in brilliant jewel tones and gold-leafed letters (almost all of the Morgan's manuscripts are digitized on their website, you can go page through it if you'd like!).

The covers, though, are the showstoppers. It is unknown if the covers were intended specifically for the Lindau Gospel manuscript, and it is thought that the lower cover is somewhat earlier and from a different workshop than the upper cover. The use of champlevé enamel technique and more delicate, insular-style knotwork seem to indicate a different style and different region than the upper cover, though still a quite spectacular display of technique.

The upper cover is attributed to the court school of Charles the Bald, the grandson of Charlemagne, and who notably and actively tried to cultivate his grandfather's authority through artistic means. Charles the Bald is known for having used such forms as the equestrian statue, Roman and classical spolia, and richly detailed metalwork to reference both classical power and the esteem of Charlemagne's reign. This cover is an especially striking example of the skill of Carolingian metalworkers, whose repouseé work was unparalleled in the 9th century medieval world. It is encrusted with semiprecious stones and features a Crucifixion scene with several mourners, all excuted in gold repouseé.

The Lindau Gospels and their covers are part of the Morgan's permanent collection and are usually on display somewhere in the library, but if you're in or near New York, this show is a must-see. (more information on the Morgan's website, here)

An Introduction

Hello everyone, all three or four of you, and to my (hopefully) future readers:

I decided to start this blog basically because I like reading about art as much as I like studying it, and there aren't a whole lot of arts blogs on the internet that run the gamut of art, from ancient to Renaissance, to modern, to contemporary. Living in New York provides me with endless opportunities to see and form opinions about everything from small gallery shows to huge blockbuster exhibitions at the Met, but no one to tell! Which is where the blog comes in.

I intend for this to be sort of an amalgamation of everything arts-related, which includes but is definitely not limited to: exhibition reviews, recent scholarship, discoveries, museum news, fashion and costume history, and maybe some interesting trivia. My concentration and first art-love in life is medieval, so I may be unfairly biased toward happenings in the medieval world. The only type of art you may find this blog lacking is recent artwork. I'm personally not such a huge fan, as most of you probably know, of contemporary art. In the interest of completeness and inclusiveness, if anything groundbreaking happens in the world of contemporary art, I'll certainly post it, but I thought I should be honest about my biases up front.

I'm currently in the midst of writing my master's thesis, and beginning to organize myself for applying to Ph.D programs, so some of the content here may also concern practical advice for the humanities graduate student, analysis of the fine art of personal statements and how much your math GRE scores really matter. That said, if you have any suggestions or comments on what you'd like to see here, feel free to e-mail me!