ArtCorner

From 1943 to 1947 Georgia O’Keeffe painted a series that explored the intricate shapes and surfaces of animal bones.

The bones were pictured in their entirety or in magnified detail. Here in this abstract variation, the Pelvis II painted in 1944, she draws special attention to the blue sky seen through empty sockets.

The work demonstrates O’Keeffe’s ability to present what the writer Jean Toomer described as “The Universe through the portal of a bone.”

Georgia O’Keeffe’s oil paintings give a glimpse into the soul of a tough and yet sensuous woman. A true pioneer, she made her way down to New Mexico where her art transcended by painting the desert artifacts and scenery.

American born, Jasper Johns, painted Flag from 1954 to 1955. This collage on fabric mounted on plywood has long become a staple of 20th century American Art.

“One night I dreamed that I painted a large American flag,” Johns said, “and the next morning I got up and I went out and got the materials to begin it.”

Those materials included three canvases that he mounted on plywood, strips of newspaper, and encaustic paint – a mixture of pigment and molten wax that has formed a quivering surface of lumps and smears.

The legible newspaper scraps beneath the tactile surface – some dating from 1955 and 1956, when Johns repaired the painting – lend the timeless, public icon historical specificity. While this image is something “the mind already knows,” Johns acknowledged, its execution complicates the representation and invites close inspection.

A critic of the time encapsulated this painting’s ambivalence by asking, “Is this a flag or a painting?”

The MoMA Museum was one of the highlights of my travels this summer.
I had a great time walking past the great artworks that I only read about in art journals throughout the years.


I made this video as I was strolling past the Van Gogh Starry Night Oil Painting… This is just a joke so don’t take it the wrong way…

Early on in his career, Mark Rothko (1903-1970) saw art as “an adventure into an unknown world” and. Like the Surrealists before him, sought to create universal symbols drawn from the subconscious.

Slow Swirl at the Edge of the Sea, 1944 shows two sinuous biomorphic creatures that seem to float between sea and sky. Surrounded by arabesques, spirals, and stripes that can be read as musical symbols.

Rothko maintained that the forms “have no direct association with any particular visible experience, but in them one recognizes the principle and passion of organisms.” He applied the paint in transparent layers – a practice he retained when he abandoned representational images and began to develop his large-scale color field paintings a few years later.

New York is not just the home of the Yankees or Broadway shows… it’s also the home of one of the greatest oil paintings of modern times… the Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh.

For years I have wanted to come face to face with this great masterpiece, as I walked through the corridors of the MoMA – Museum of Modern Art on 53rd and Fifth Ave the excitement began to soar. I made my way to the fourth floor of this amazing facility, walking past the Richard Serra Exhibition and the other great works of art. I encountered Rothko’s, Picasso’s, Mondrian’s, Gauguin’s, Cezanne’s, Matisse’s… the excitement grew even more as I began to see Van Gogh’s on the wall.

I guess I wasn’t the only visitor that day that came to see the Starry Night masterpiece. People where cramming in to get a glimpse of the artwork, two guards were assigned to keep people away from the glass and make sure no one tried anything stupid…

“This morning I saw the country from my window a long time before sunrise,” the artist wrote to his brother Theo, “with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big.” Rooted in imagination and memory, the Starry Night embodies an inner, subjective expression of Van Gogh’s response to nature.

In thick sweeping brushstrokes, a flame like cypress unites the churning sky and the quiet village below. The village was partly invented, and the church spirit evokes Van Gogh’s native land, the Netherlands. The simple Vienna gold frame is a testament of the great masterpiece.

I felt truly grateful for that moment to unite with the Starry Night, I think that sensation would have been stronger if it wasn’t for the crowd and the thick glass. Oh well, I can always take comfort in the amazing Starry Night handmade reproduction I have at home…